Faceless

I woke up feeling, for some reason, better than the day before. I didn’t want to ruin this peacefulness until I realized that something was strange. I felt as if someone was near me so I opened my eyes and almost yelped in disbelief. There lying right next to me was Reed peacefully asleep. I quickly jumped off the bed and noticed that I was fully naked. Reacting quickly, I grabbed my clothes that lay on the floor and walked out of the room as discretely as I could. Luckily, my room was next to his because I had to walk out naked. I could see that it was too early of a morning for anyone to be awake. I closed my door and quickly headed to the safety of the covers of the bed. I felt gross as a shiver ran down my spine. What had I done? D-Did he do this without my consent? Why couldn’t I remember? I could feel the tears begin to fall as I clutched the bed covers tightly around my body. Maybe I had made the wrong decision in choosing to stay. I didn’t realize how loud my sobs were because Colden and Laurie suddenly appeared by my side.
“What happened?” asked Colden.
I wish my covers could hide my shame. I shook my head with tears coming out not able to speak of what I had just gone through. Reed suddenly showed up in the room as well. I shivered and pushed myself to the farthest part of my bed. I was sick, angry, but mostly scared! Colden immediately noticed and pushed Reed out of the room yelling, “What did you do!”
Laurie put her arms around me and that is when she suddenly realized what happened. “D-did he do something to you?” she asked. I couldn’t answer but continued to cry. Laurie understood and kept her position. After a few minutes when I began to calm down, she let go and said, “I will get you some tea to calm your nerves.” I nodded slowly and stayed still until she returned with the tea.
Outside I could hear Colden and Reed arguing. “I never thought you would be capable of it!” Colden’s fierce voice echoed.
“You know I wouldn’t. You don’t understand! It was Adelaide. She came back,” defended Reed.
As soon as Laurie came back with the tea, I sipped it feverously to make the shaking of my body stop. With Laurie beside me, I felt safer and slowly my nerves started to calm down. With the help of the Chamomile tea, I fell asleep once more.
I soon realized it wasn’t sleep at all. I was in a dark special area and in front of me stood an exact replica of me. The only difference between this replica and me was that she had hazelnut eyes. Almost intuitively I asked “Adelaide?” This replica smirked and nodded.
“Who else? I can’t believe it took you this long to let me free!” she responded. I was dumbfounded and didn’t know what to say.
“Let you free? This is my body! What have you done with it? Was it you with Reed?” I asked.
Adelaide rolled her eyes and replied, “Of course it was me. And why do you think I did something horrendous? It’s our body!” I was enraged with her response and I stepped closer to her unafraid.
“Our body? No! I was born Camila! You’re just- just a mere personality. Nothing more! I will not have someone else take over my body any longer.” Adelaide shook her head but unlike me, she kept her cool.
“Don’t you understand? I was always there to protect you. Unlike other people that have D.I.D., from what I remember when you studied that crap in school, I was not created from something traumatic that happened to you. I’ve been here with you since you were born!” I disagreed as I stared at her.
“I don’t believe you!” was all I could say.
“Don’t you remember feeling like there was something more about you? Well there is! Besides, unlike you who doesn’t remember when I take over your body, I see everything that you do. When I take over your body you have the ability to do so too, you just choose to suppress everything; just like how you’ve suppressed me for so long. When you fell from the stairs, I honestly tried to help and I think that is why I might have popped out instead of you. The thing is, I woke up only knowing that my name is Adelaide. It wasn’t until you took over that all the memories came back,” Adelaide explained.
Camila looked confused and unable to comprehend what had just been explained to her. Adelaide was about to put a hand on her shoulder when Camila suddenly launched at her.
Laurie tried waking me up by shaking my limp body. When I had escaped to that dark place where Adelaide resided, my body fell into a comatose state as my eyes remained fully open. Laurie was concerned the minute this occurred.
“Colden! Come, hurry!” she called out. Colden cam immediately as Reed followed. “There’s something wrong. I can’t wake her!” Laurie explained.
Colden hurryingly rushed to my side and began to shake me more roughly than Laurie. Reed wanted to go near but knew he would later be criticized if he did. Suddenly, my eyes opened, only it wasn’t me anymore but Adelaide. Her hazelnut eyes were intense as she instinctively pushed Colden. With Adelaide’s super human strength, Colden flew to the far end of the wall. Adelaide quickly realizing what she had done and was about to hurry to his side when she quickly noticed she was naked under the covers.
“I’m so sorry! It was just instinctively,” Adelaide apologized as she could only watch Laurie and Reed help him up.
Reed quickly noticed it was Adelaide and rushed to her side to embrace her. “I knew you had come back,” he whispered. Adelaide smiled as she felt his warmth against her skin again.
“A-Adelaide?” asked Laurie as she studied her features.
“I have a lot to explain. But first I should change so I won’t be fucking naked!” said Adelaide sternly.
Adelaide told them exactly what she had told me.
“It’s starting to piece a lot of information together,” exclaimed Laurie as Adelaide finished.
“So how does this coming and going work?” asked Colden.
Adelaide shrugged before saying, “I don’t know. She does have more control over this than I do just when she is vulnerable and drops her guard”.
Reed, standing near Adelaide, wore a concerned expression on his face. Adelaide grabbed his hand and reassuringly stated, “Don’t worry. I will make my way out often”.
“But that is concerning not just for your sake and Camila’s but also for the others here,” Laurie stated. Colden nodded in agreement.
“Well, fuck! I can’t help it guys. I don’t even have the choice to never come out because whenever she gets in a stressed situation and she recedes to herself, I will have to come out. It’s like her defense mechanism,” responded Adelaide.
“What if that’s her ability?” asked Reed.
“To summon me? I don’t think so. From what I’ve seen, she’s just been…Camila; normal. I mean aside from this, yeah, but I don’t think this can be an ability” responded Adelaide.
Colden had stayed in a quiet position for a while as if he was trying to figure out this whole dilemma when he finally spoke, “It is like you two are completely different people, though. I mean just look at how your eye color changes! It has to be some sort of ability.”
Laurie seemed as if she was barely noticing the change. “Why didn’t I catch on to that?” she asked almost to herself.
There was a small silence before Adelaide spoke again, “Camila may be taking back her place soon. Fuck what I would do to trade places with her but I can’t. Don’t let her leave. It is dangerous out there and I fear that there will be times where I won’t be able to take her place.”
Laurie nodded before saying, “We will keep her safe.”
“We will keep you both safe,” Reed corrected her. He kissed Adelaide’s check sweetly.
“I have to go see Alex now and Red’s crazy ass before I go back in!” said Adelaide excitingly as she moved towards the door.
Colden quickly stopped her and Adelaide gave him a most menacing glance. “I’m sorry Adelaide but I fear that this will only bring confusion to the others. They are just barely trying to get used to Camila. I fear that this will not be good for the group.”
Although angry, Adelaide nodded and stepped back. As she did this, Adelaide felt her legs falter as she fell mentally once again to that special dark place. I stood in front of her again but this time I was no longer angry; instead I was more sympathetic towards her and decided to hug her.
“Eww,” exclaimed Adelaide as she shuffled away from it.
“I’m sorry I freaked out on you. When you were…out there, I was able to truly see everything you were doing,” I explained to her.
“And you were able understand just by that?” asked Adelaide skeptically.
I shook my head before responding, “No, No. I also began to remember things that completely slipped my mind and that I just merely brushed off as just nothing.” Adelaide starred at her confused. “For example, when I was going through that…that dark stage and I swallowed a bunch of pills that should’ve killed me. I remember passing out but waking up just fine the next morning. T-that was you, right?”
Adelaide now understood what I was trying to say and slowly nodded. “If I didn’t push myself out, you would’ve died. I made us vomit the pills before anything serious could happen. Good thing I was able to do it before it was too late or we both wouldn’t be here right now.”
I looked down shamefully and silently responded, “And so much more. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner.”
Adelaide shrugged, “Shit happens.”
I didn’t agree so I just simply asked, “How am I going to face everyone out there? I feel foolish. And h-him.”
Adelaide quickly knew who she was referring to and became angry. She approached her menacingly, “Reed has always been there for me! You and I owe him so much and I love him!” I stepped back a little afraid in the change of attitude.
“I understand that. I’m sorry but it’s strange and disturbing for me to think that I-I slept with him.”
“You didn’t. I did. Just remember it like that,” responded Adelaide as she stepped back a little, “now go back out there. I’m sure they need an answer and most importantly, it is unsafe for your body to be passed out like this for too long.” I could only nod slowly.
Once I was conscious again, I quickly apologized to all of them as well as explained to them the conversation that I had with Adelaide. Everything was strange to all of them, but somehow they were able to understand.
“This has been an interesting morning indeed,” started Colden, “now I think we should all salvage some sleep time before the others awake.” Laurie and I nodded in agreement. I couldn’t face Reed for what had occurred but he left the room angrily as soon as he saw that Adelaide wasn’t coming back out.
“Don’t worry. I believe everything will fall in place soon enough,” Laurie said soothingly.