What did it say about her, that the first emotion she got after receiving news that her friend was alive was shock?

Normal people would have been glad to know that their friend was safe.

Normal people would have felt relief too.

Yet when she received the news from Tania that Alara had managed to pull through and was currently recovering, Keyla had felt dead inside.

I should have been all smiles, filled with joy the way Tania was. I should have been dancing and cheering and yet, here I am, pensive and unsmiling.

The moment the darling Tania left the room, she had collapsed onto the ground, her mask of sheer relief breaking away.

There was more than one reason for her fleeing the scene of certain death. And those reasons were so shame-inducing that she could not find it in her to face her friend.

I have done everything according to Father's orders because of my rapacious greed. How I have sinned. My desire for Maren; for the title as the elite agent of the Ascendancy Agency and the fortune that came with it; the desire to gain Father's acknowledgement and respect has pushed me to do this. I deserve this, don't I?

Combing her hair, Keyla hated that she shared the same eye colour as the man who did nothing more than play a part in her birth.

The first thing that he had said to her as a father was when she was six, and those words were never of love. Instead, they were of warning and served as a push for her to harden herself and become his version of an ideal daughter.

Ever since that day, he had disowned her temporarily. According to her family's lawyer, her name- Keyla Stones- would be back on the family register as soon as she had met the basic expectations of her father.

It was why she had never disclosed his identity to anyone before.

It was why she did not speak much of her father.

Everything I do is to protect you. My whole life has been used to serve you well. Now that Alara is alive and kicking, what will you do with me? Will you kill me?

"Can't you see that I am deprived of so many things? I've crafted myself to the perfect version of the daughter you always longed for that I've lost myself. It's why I don't have things that are rightfully mine.

You even denied me finery that you've always been accustomed to, leaving me in a life full of dilapidated huts that has a malodorous smell to it. I deserve wealth and class; to be served instead to serve." Keyla ranted at the only picture she had of her father.

Even in a photograph, the coldness of his wry gaze pierced through.

Now, she was more than starting to regret all of her misdeeds because she knew well that her greed had caused Alara's heartbreak. Now, her friend had not only lost her beloved godfather, but her friends too.

If Alara ever found out what she did... Keyla quavered diffidently, wondering, How am I supposed to face her after all of this? Forgive me, please. I had no choice.

I never should have woken up from surgery. I should have just stayed in that peaceful realm, where I had no thoughts, no soul, nothing.

There was such a lovely quiet when I was unconscious. Yet it had to die away.

And now, I am relieving my life of constant nightmares.

That was what she was feeling right now. Her nightmare and hell of a life never ended. First, she recalled the devastating fire, and later had to learn of Rielle and Gabriel perishing in the fire. She could feel another piece of her heart breaking off when she learnt that she had been in a coma for so long- two weeks- that she had even missed the cremation of her friends.

Naturally, she had fulminated upon hearing that. "Cremation? WHY? I can't even have my bloody closure or see my comrades again? WHY?"

"It was in their will. The idea of being trapped in a wooden coffin while creepy crawlies feasted on them never appealed to them, and thus they cited that should they die during a mission here, they would like to be cremated. To have their ashes returned to happen during a clear, balmy day." That rehearsed reply was all she had received as a response from the Head of Security.

Of course, her nightmare didn't end there. It never did.

When she heard of Jonek's demise, her world had been turned upside down again, the same way it did when her father died. The same way it did when her brother was stolen from her.

Though Maren had tried his best to keep the secret of the reason for his death from her, she had managed to force him to let the cat out of the bag by telling him to choose. "You can either choose to sit on the fence and keep your foolish promise to yourself. Choose, Maren. One, you keep your promise to yourself, but everything we have save for our partnership ends. Two, you don't keep the promise to yourself, but everything we have still stands."

Maren had made his choice.

He chose her over himself.

I wished that he had chosen himself instead.

When Maren had told her of how the man she had once looked up to; the man that she had wholly respected was someone who was actually a traitorous, scheming and corrupt man that served as a double-agent. A double-agent to the Ascendancy Agency and Amorals.

A double-agent whose ultimate loyalty lay with only one. The Amorals.

The same organisation who represented the manipulative and devious Governors. The same organisation who took Renald away.

She was fed spoonfuls of how Jonek had slyly caused their missions to go dreadfully awry- that he would intercept their correspondence and instantly send them to the Governors when he was free to do so.

Jonek was the reason for all of the Agency's failures.

Am I supposed to believe that? Truthfully, I do not know what to believe. He was involved in several missions of the Agency before I had even joined them, and successfully kept them a secret from me. But will he really support and work for the Amorals?

"Alara, are you ok?"

It was Tania.

"Tania... Jonek... Riellle... Gabriel... all dead..."

Tania was immediately at her side, hugging her tightly. Alara leaned into her friend's embrace, holding onto her shoulder as she cried her heart out.

All my memories of him contrasted with this diabolical presentation of my godfather.

The man that I knew was someone who had no family, who had suffered his fair share of pain. Despite his first wife dying due to overexertion, in spite of him having no children, he had so much boundless love to give. How can someone who was so full of love work for people who are so full of hate?

Manifold memories of them doing simple things like fishing, singing and teasing each other while she tugged on his grey locks started surfacing in her mind. She remembered how he squeezed her rotund cheeks whenever she teased him, remembered how her godfather would also teach her the basics of his own multifarious secrets of herbalism and pass them on to her so that she could later harness and perfect the skill entirely on her own.

It was he who had laid the foundation of herbalism for her. She had merely continued building and improving on it by herself as she matured.

Whenever things fell apart, she had relied on him. She had considered her as her own father, and loved him as such.

And now...

Barely aware of Tania's soothing words, Alara continued to whimper and weep as she lay in her friend's arms.

When do you really know somebody?

What do you do when the world presents a completely altered, twisted perception of them? Can you trust that just because you feel that figments of it are truthful and reliable? Or do you promptly reject their presentation and blindly cling on to your tarnished memories?

She did know anything anymore, nor did she want to.

I am an empty vessel of my former self.

Later that day, she forced herself to visit the spot of his execution. Bloodstains had obstinately lingered on the wooden stump.

"Nobody can remove those spots," commented Tania softly as she kept a respectful distance away from her. "It's as if his stubbornness can never be forcefully taken away, even in the depths of death itself."

"Where do you think he is now?" whispered Alara while she observed the stains. "In the 20th Century, people believed legends and religions that often say that a condemned man's spirit would be sent to the pits of Hell. If a man lived a virtuous life and was a do-gooder, he would ascend to Heaven."

"I think that Jonek is just gone. I guess I'm what people of the century before would deem an 'atheist', but nobody knows for sure if Jonek committed those crimes that are now synonymous with his name. The man I know would never think of such a heinous idea, let alone actually act upon it. People will say that I am biased, but this is how I feel in earnest."

Alara sobbed while stroking the end of the stump. "I miss him so much, despite everything. I don't know what to think or do."

"It is not your fault, Alara. The world does not revolve around you and not everything that happens is linked to you. Maybe he was wronged, maybe he was framed. But now we will never know since the dead cannot talk. All we can do now is to move on and live well." concluded Tania detachedly. Her heavy taps of her six-inch black pumps echoed throughout the marble floor, and an eerie feeling flooded throughout the compound.

Goosebumps formed on her tan hands, and with a final glance at the stump, Alara left too.

If one were to check the remaining bloodstains on the stump, one of the four had mysteriously vanished into thin air as if someone had successfully scrubbed it out.

It had not been easy for her to bring Alara to Jonek's execution spot. She was still shaken from the news and could not comprehend how Gabriel and Rielle had passed away so suddenly. All she could remember was that she had originally planned to kill the Agency's influential supporters with Nerium oleander but had failed to. She didn't know why, but she failed in her task.

She could sense that her impending demise was coming for her soon. After all, she was no innocent party and had done plenty of abominable crimes too.

But before she died, she had one last thing to do.

"Who told you that Jonek was the traitor?"

She was at it again. Confronting him on an undeniable fact. While he understood that it was hard for her to grasp the fact that her godfather was gone, he was getting worn out by her persistency.

"Valesque." He replied while he watched her cross and uncross her arms.

"Don't you think that it's possible that he lied to you?"

"Alara, listen to me. He would never do such a thing- he is loyal to a fault and is one of the most honest men I've ever known. Besides, it was Tania that he received this intel from." Maren's stoic composure broke the moment Alara started accusing the head of the Agency of such a sin.

"Tania? Again?" Alara seized on her friend's name, clearly mentally calculating all of the events that had her involvement. "Tania was with Gabe, Rielle and I on the last mission. She's involved in too many of the catastrophes that rocked the Agency to be a coincidence. Could she be the one who wronged Jonek?"

"No way!" Shocked at Alara's daring accusation, Maren glared at her. "Tania is one of my most trusted confidantes- and I'm an excellent judge of character. It will never be her."

"I once believed that Jonek would never be convicted of such a crime." Alara silenced him with her fierce words.

"Very well, I will talk to her. And for sanity's sake, when we find out Tan is not a traitor... please, I beg of you, find solace somehow." He pleaded, earnestly hoping that she could find some peace in her.

"Solace?" Alara spat venomously. "Never. The closest I'll ever come to that is when I get my revenge."

Maren shook his head forlornly at that as he left.

I tried. I tried. With her, everything I do never works.

I tried.

He couldn't shake off the feeling that it wasn't just their friends that had died. In a sense, Alara Berrera had too.