all lies told

have you ever thought who is stronger: the mind or the heart?

have you ever wondered who understood love first: the mind or the heart?

have you ever suspected who's lying: the mind or the heart?

(what have you done in the name of love?)

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I wasn't quite sure of this unsettling feeling that I felt within me when I woke up alone in the vast room without a single sound penetrating through the eerie silence. I stretched my arm to the other side of the bed and the cold told me that Aillard had left the bed for quite some time already. Pulling away the heavy blanket, I pulled myself off the bed and left the room.

"Aillard?" I tried.

There was no reply, and I went straight to the kitchen to see a note on the tabletop. 

Wren,

I had to make a move first because something urgent came up and I need to make a flight to Finland. I'll only be back in a few months. Call me if anything, and I'll return the call whenever it's convenient on my end.

Aillard.

Rushing back to the room, I flipped the heavy covers over in search of my phone and made a call right over. My heart was thumping loudly against my ear with each ring until the call was picked up from the other side. A familiar voice sounded through the speakers, "Wren?"

It was comforting to know that he was still around that I finally let out the breath that I was holding uptight all along. Carefully, I asked, "Why are you over in Finland?"

For all the years I knew Aillard, he had only made that few trips back to Finland. That was the home country of his maternal family, and it was always over the heirloom issues that he had to fly over to settle it out with the family that he never wanted anything with. Every trip he made spanned at least two months.

"Family matters, my little songbird," Aillard sighed, with the word 'family' tasting ever so bitter at the tip of his tongue.

"Have you forgotten that you hired me for legal assistance?"

"You're only responsible for my company's legal cases," Aillard chuckled lightly. "I can handle this, give me some time and I'll be back."

"Aillard—"

"I need to go off soon," he quickly interjected, sounding as if he needed to rush off somewhere.

"Can I still call you often?" I checked, feeling unsure.

"Of course," he assured.

"Okay, please come back soon."

"I will, angel."

Hearing the sound behind me, I quickly ended the call with Wren and strode in the direction of the ward. Jeremiah quickly stopped me and I asked, "What is it?"

"Just need you to wait a moment, Alek," Jeremiah said. "Mallory's doing a thorough check on him before you can meet him."

"The check has been going on for literally an entire goddamned day, Jeremiah," I vexed. "He's not going to die just because he sees me, for fuck's sake."

"Imagine being unconscious for two decades and suddenly waking up," Jeremiah nearly shouted at me. "Good lord up above, the guy right inside the ward is confused out of his mind."

If empathy had been something I possessed, then I could perhaps understand the whole ordeal and give Mallory the time of this universe to get my doppelganger ready to meet Satan. But I don't. The unease I felt within me felt like sharp nails clawing and gnawing against my chest since the moment I received a call in the wee hours of the day to announce that my half-brother in comatose had decided to come into consciousness. 

I knew this day would come, that Aillard would wake up from his endless sleep. The moment Mallory told me about the changes in his EEG, I learned that Eldrick had flown him to Finland immediately for the most obvious reason. Even if he had to convince the Findlays to work in his favour on ridiculous terms, Eldrick had everything according to plan — even my departure from existence.

Closing my hands into fists, I stared intently at the doors of the wards until I saw the doors being pulled from inside and a familiar silhouette of Mallory walked past it. The moment our gaze met, I noticed how her shoulders dropped slightly and the uptight frown she wore a moment ago had released into a downward frown. Her hand rested on my arm, and she said, "Come with me for a moment?"

"You can say everything here. I'm listening," I said.

"No, my child," Mallory shook her head. "I want to speak to you in private."

Albeit unwilling, I still followed Mallory till we arrived at the rooftop of the hospital building. It was summer in Finland, but the mild and warm wind couldn't do anything to thaw the ice that froze within my veins. The middle-aged lady pulled out a cigarette case from her breast pocket and took out a stick before lighting it up. She didn't offer one to me — because she already knew of my promise to Wren. Mallory took a drag and said, "Pardon me, really needed to take one."

"It's fine," I mentioned. "How's—"

"Did you tell Wren about this?" Mallory interrupted before I could ask my question, quickly diverting the topic to something I was desperately avoiding.

I hesitated for a moment, but I knew nothing good would out of a lie from this woman, so I admitted, "No."

"Why?" she probed deeper, each time piercing deeper into my soul.

"I'm a dead person by law, Mallory," I pained. "I have nothing to offer her. I can't even dream of a future of us together. I'm unable to register a marriage with her and even worse if she had our child, the column that requires the father's details had to be forcibly left blank."

"You're just going to send Aillard back to her?" Mallory dropped her head to her side, exhaling a white puff of smoke. "Alek, how naive are you to think that she wouldn't realise? Just because Aillard and you look exactly alike, it doesn't mean that both of you are the same person, my child."

"I know," I said, helpless. "Aillard could offer more to her than me."

"Maybe what she wanted wasn't a good life," Mallory paused for a moment before continuing, "Perhaps what Wren wanted was a good person."

"I couldn't bring myself to pull her into the depths of hell with me."

"I'm not a puppeteer of your life, Alek. I also wouldn't interfere with how you will handle this issue with Wren, but I had been with the both of you throughout most the years both of you spent on Earth and I want the best for my two children," Mallory mentioned.

"I know."

"I couldn't bear to see the suffering of you both," Mallory said, squishing the ends of her cigarette on the metal railing before throwing the butt into the bin. "I want my two children happy."

"Mallory—"

"It's all up to you, Alek. I see Aillard's waking up not as a doom to your life, but a key to your freedom and a chance to live anew."

With that, Mallory patted the back of my hand and left me alone on the rooftop floor. I wished I knew what she meant by all the words she said, but my heart still sank when I recalled the death certificate that I held in my shaking hands back in the cold conference hall. I hate to admit it, but I had never felt so defeated in my life.

Who would love a person left with nothing?

I could barely open my eyes.

My head hurts so badly and the lights above me were aggravating the whole discomfort that I was feeling. I groaned, lifting my arm as I tried to shield the piercing rays from my sight and that was the moment, I felt exceptionally odd.

My arm looked so foreign, and I quickly averted my gaze to scan through my lower body. I had never been so confused my whole life because the last thing I remembered was a huge impact on my head and my consciousness ended right there. I only felt like I had been stuck in an exceptionally long dream and the rest of me refused to wake up no matter how hard I tried.

I wiggled my limbs and realised that I wasn't me anymore. I wasn't the person I last remembered I was. Just when I was panicking, a hand appeared in my sight and my almost immobile body jumped in surprise. I quickly shifted my gaze to look at the middle-aged lady in a pale coat standing by my bed. She checked on me and asked, "Aillard, look at me."

I was utterly confused out of my mind, but I remembered this shade of wavy auburn hair and this familiar pair of chocolate-brown eyes. Yet, this familiarity had a veil of unfamiliarity at the same time as I uttered, "M-Mallory?"

At the sound of my own voice, I nearly gagged. It was as though my throat had been scraped against sandpaper and the purity in the tone sounded piercingly different from my memory. The panic that seized my chest was causing indescribable darkness to emerge from within me as I pleaded, "What happened to me?"

"Yes, it's me, Aillard," Mallory confirmed, she cupped her hands against my jaw and gently pressed my head firmly back onto the soft pillow beneath. She reminded me, "I need you to breathe and calm down before I explain the rest of the story to you. While you're at it, I need you to tell me the last thing you remembered about yourself."

I tried to breathe, following the pace that she instructed me to take each inhale and exhale. A flash of the image appeared right before my eyes as I recalled, "I was in an accident. There was a bright flash of light before everything became dark before me."

"I know this might come as a reality that would be hard to accept," Mallory said slowly, still having her hands holding comfortingly against my jaw like how she would every time I fell sick and got transferred to the hospital. She continued, "Aillard, that last memory of yours happened two decades ago."

Two decades ago.

Two...

What?

My eyes widened in surprise as my entire body jolted upright. I saw myself through the small reflection of the glass pane beside my ward and I no longer looked like how I remembered myself to be. Nothing resembled anything I knew about myself and I feared.

There was this feeling of terrible fear bubbling from the depth of my heart as I looked at the reflection on the glass pane.

Who is this?

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a/n.

i wanted to give a little hint on the previous chapter but i thought it would destroy the surprise of this chapter. so yes, from this moment forward, Aleksander will be described as Aleksander and Aillard will be Aillard. They are differentiated now. 

Hope you're enjoying the story till this point!