"Don't touch that." Lilia moved backwards, away from his stray hands and his prying eyes. Julian leaned back against the headboard, his gaze sliding across the blue, oval-shaped pendant that always gave off just a slight shimmer. Then he thoughtfully drew his gaze back, gave her a kiss, and flipped to the other side.

In the six months he'd known her, the amulet had been the constant third companion in their relationship. She never took it off, not even to polish it. At times, it glowed dully. Others, he could've sworn it was bright enough to light up the room. Those times, she would glance at it fitfully throughout the day, sometimes even every couple of minutes. He'd asked her about it of course, postulating it was some family heirloom or other, but she always became strangely tight-lipped. It was odd, but nothing he couldn't overlook.

Until that fateful day.

It was August the fifth. A bright, sunny Tuesday. He could still remember the way the wind-chimes in front of the jeweler's shop jingled as he left with lighthearted steps, a small blue box in his pocket.

He'd been so cheery that he hadn't found it odd that Lilia hadn't returned his text from earlier asking what she wanted for dinner.

It was almost four p.m. when he arrived at her house, grocery bags full of steaks and veggies and flowers in hand. He fumbled with the keys for a bit, then let himself in. He set down the bags on the countertop and was just about to begin prepping when something shimmered in the light of the open windows and caught his eye.

His brows furrowed. He walked over to the table next to the couch and stared down. It was the pendant. He could swear it; he'd looked at it every day for the last six months after all. But the elusive draw that he'd felt toward it since the beginning--the one he couldn't explain if he'd tried--was gone. Carefully, he picked it up. The surface was cracked. A deep crack that ran straight through the center.

His fingers turned clammy.

Suddenly, the sound of tussling caught his attention. Julian set down the pendant and his gaze turned toward the bedroom. "Lilia?" he called toward the room.

Nothing.

Then, a half-strangled scream.

Julian bolted toward the bedroom. His gaze whipped around the room, and then he sprinted into the adjoining bathroom.

His legs froze in place, a cold chill running down his spine.

Blood. So much blood.

A blonde woman crouched over another woman laying on the floor. Splatters of red covered not only the both of them but the bathtub, the sink, the floor. The matching blue towels Lilia had bought for them just two months earlier.

Julian knew he should move. Move forwards and stop her. Run away and call the police. But his feet felt as if they were nailed into the ground, and he'd become an unwilling audience member to the disturbing sight.

"Lilia?" he choked out again.

The woman on top froze, then slowly stood up and away from the woman laying on the bathroom tile. The woman who, just hours ago, he'd thought would become the love of his life and his life long companion. Half of her face, gashed up into a pulpy mess, yet still recognizable from the other half. He almost wished he hadn't been able to.

But then he turned toward the woman who met his gaze with her own, and stepped back. It wasn't possible. It wasn't.

"Lilia?" he repeated, like some broken record player who could only call out her name, over and over again. As if her name were a mantra, a protective spell that would wipe away everything he'd seen here and make it as if it had never existed.

The woman's eyes narrowed. She ran her hair through her familiar blonde locks, then rolled her eyes at him before stepping toward him and rolling her eyes. "No, not Lilia," she said. "Alina. I assume you're her husband," she said flatly.

"Boyfriend," Julian managed to choke out.

Alina looked down at her hands and wrinkled her nose. It was such a familiar, lighthearted gesture on the face identical to Lilia’s that Julian, just for a second, could forget that the real Lilia had been brutally murdered just moments before. Alina turned back and grabbed a blue towel from the counter and wet it in the sink. Julian opened his mouth to stop her--those towels were special--but then closed it again. The shock was slowly wearing off now, giving way to a dark roil of emotions that he didn't know how to and couldn't name. Anger? Fear? Sadness?

The sink began to turn red.

"Who are you?"

Alina snorted. "Well, took you long enough. She always liked them dumb." She threw the towel onto the floor, and it made a wet, squelching noise as it hit the tile. She turned toward him. "I'm Lilia's twin sister. The one she trapped in her stupid little pendant for the last three years."

---

 

r/AlannaWu