Ah yes, here comes the source of the entire problem. The troublemaker herself.
To be fair, I’m really getting sick of her deranged behavior at this point.
A fatal idealist at her core, too naïve to grasp the consequences of her own actions.
Helena Myra Lovecraft. I shouldn’t even spell that name out loud in my heart.
She never deserved it—especially when she was the one who caused all of this.
I mustered the most lethargic voice I could, dripping with disappointment.
"Azalea would be crying in the corner seeing you like this."
And hey, did you expect her to reply tenderly? No. She never did.
"She was never part of this issue. Don’t drag her into this. Her existence never mattered to me—just a source of failure and utter disappointment."
Wow... is that really how you talk about your own little sister? How crude.
Unbelievable. I didn’t even know whether I should be surprised or not. But if you ask me, I had expected this from the beginning. Still, hearing it out loud stung more than I cared to admit. A wound re-opened, even when I told myself I was numb.
Yes, a conviction—that this narcissistic, antisocial asshole only acted like this for show. Nothing mattered to her except her own performance. Her stage, her spotlight.
I told myself this because I knew deep down... my experience never lied.
"I hope by the time I defeat you, you’ll apologize to her immediately."
"Oh, what is this? How wholesome. Defending your love, loverbird?"
"Shut up. It’s not even about that. You’re just being disrespectful, and you know it."
Azalea is my dearest friend. She should understand how important she is to me.
If Selene and I are Aurora and Maleficent, Azalea then is my beloved raven, Diablo.
"I see. Anyway—where is Selene?"
Great. You finally noticed.
Helena, did you really think I never realized you could read this, huh?
Her face suddenly flinched, flustered, turning red.
I got you, you narcissistic manipulative asshole.
I seized the moment, stormed forward, and yanked at the necklace around her neck.
I stared into her with wide, unblinking eyes, rage smoldering behind them.
In that single look, I poured out everything I could never say. Everything I kept locked away, polished into one sentence—sharp enough to cut.
Enough to gaslight her entire existence in this very moment.
"How pathetic. You’re the one who murdered her, Helena."
My eyes didn’t waver.
I watched her, analyzed her like a cursed painting suddenly brought to life.
Cowardice. Guilt. Shame.
It twisted across her face like wet ink on paper.
I needed her to cry. To hurt. To finally bleed like we did. And hell yes, she did.
Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes. She tried to blink them back, but the tremble in her lower lip betrayed her.
Good. Now cry. Now suffer. Now writhe in pain—the same way Selene and I once did.
I took a breath, steady and purposeful, and whispered the incantation.
"Transcription. Projection. Mytheia’s Helena."
The necklace burst with pale blue light, symbols dancing like falling snow. Mytheia’s technology didn’t burn or spark—it hummed, as if remembering everything.
A ghostly image flickered into being behind Helena.
A translucent copy of her stood still, suspended in a moment of time.
The spell worked.
The projected Helena wore the exact same necklace. Same posture. Same face. But her eyes—they were wide in terror. Frozen in a moment long past.
"You remember this, don’t you?" I asked.
Helena’s lips quivered. "No! Please, stop!"
But I wasn’t done yet: This was just the beginning after the tragic end.
"You killed Selene with this face. With these hands. That same damn necklace choking your neck like it wasn’t soaked in betrayal."
"Shut up," she hissed.
"Why? Scared of your own memory?"
I turned to the projection. With a flick of my finger, the memory resumed. The scene played out like a broken recording, echoing in our ears.
Selene’s voice cried out. Then silence.
The projected Helena stood over her, a glint of hesitation—followed by something colder. Calculated.
Helena turned away. "No! You liar! This isn’t what happened!"
"Oh, of course it is. You just wanted to rewrite it in your head. But Mytheia remembers."
Her knees buckled. She stumbled back, only barely catching herself.
"You lied to me. You lied to everyone," I continued.
"What a filthy liar! You said she sacrificed herself. That she chose to. But she didn’t."
"She did! I had no choice!"
"You had a hundred choices. And you picked the one where she died."
She finally broke. The scream tore through her like a gutted violin string.
"I DID IT FOR US!"
"No, Helena. You did it for yourself."
She fell to her knees.
I let the silence stretch. Let her stew in it.
The projection continued playing, but I turned away. I couldn’t keep watching. Not because I pitied her—but because I still saw Selene every time I closed my eyes.
"I was supposed to be the one to die..." she whispered.
"You still might. Because I could just kill you." I muttered.
There was no ceremony in this. No grace.
Just an exposed wound.
The air crackled—static, electric, sharp.
Helena stayed kneeling, her fingers clawing into the dirt as if she could bury the guilt with her nails.
But it was too late.
"I loved her," she muttered.
I froze.
"What?"
"I loved Selene. You weren’t the only one. I wanted to save her. I wanted to be saved by her. But she never looked at me like that. She looked at you."
A chill ran down my spine.
"This is what it’s about? Jealousy?"
"No. Not jealousy." She looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot. "Obsession."
There it was.
The truth I didn’t want.
"You were always the one who got to be the hero. The one she believed in. But me? I was just... a Lovecraft."
Her last name was a curse in itself. Old blood, old power, old madness.
"I wanted her to stop seeing me as broken. So I made a choice—one I couldn’t undo."
"Don’t try to justify it," I said coldly.
"I’m not. I’m confessing."
There was something wrong with this. Something off. I couldn’t tell if it was a trick... or a goodbye.
She reached up and touched the necklace again.
No. Don’t.
"Mytheia Override: Final Destination."
The light flickered red this time. The projection shuddered, then burst into a cascade of white sparks. Code. Memory. All of it collapsing.
"No!" I shouted.
But it was too late. She was deleting the evidence.
"You won’t get to relive her death anymore," Helena whispered.
I ran forward, grabbing her wrist and slamming it into the ground.
"What did you do!?"
"I gave you the truth. Then I took it back. Fair trade."
Her voice was calm. Resigned.
"You’re not getting out of this that easily," I snarled.
"Oh, I’m not trying to." Her smile was faint, tragic. "I just don’t want her death to be a story anymore. I want it to be... gone."
I hated her.
But I couldn’t help it—my throat tightened.
"Do you even know what you’ve done?"
"Yes."
"Then beg. Beg for forgiveness."
She looked up.
"I’m not asking you to forgive me."
And with that, Helena closed her eyes.
The light from the necklace flared—one last time.
A pulse of raw memory erupted outward. A shockwave of noise, sound, static. I screamed, clutching my head. The symbols burned into the air, then vanished.
Everything Mytheia stored... erased.
Everything except what lived in us.
When I opened my eyes, she was still there—alive, unconscious, but breathing.
Coward.
I should finish it.
I should.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I stood, turned, and walked away.
"I’ll make you pay the long way," I whispered, half-teasing.
"This time, I’ll rewrite you."
Helena slumped to her knees. Her breath hitched like a child choking on silence. Tears streamed freely now, but they weren’t hers—they were mine, repurposed.
I stood over her, unfazed.
How strange. Even with everything I showed her, I felt nothing.
Just an empty shell of a performance I’d rehearsed far too many times.
"She really believed it," I muttered, almost amused. "All of it."
The guilt, the memory, the murder—Selene’s wide eyes calling out her name before being consumed in imagined fire. All tailored. All precise. All false.
She saw Selene’s bloodied face, didn’t she?The broken necklace on the ground?The hands trembling with irreversible guilt?
Of course she did.
Because I wanted her to.
Mytheia’s projection wasn’t just a mirror. It was a scalpel—cutting into the memory, sewing in my truths where hers had gaps.
What she saw was a memory that never existed. A truth I crafted pixel by pixel, feeling by feeling, until she could no longer tell where her mind ended and mine began.
And still, she cried.
How poetic. And pathetic.
"I told you I’d make you apologize," I whispered to myself."I just never said to whom."
And with that, I had to finish her, slowly grabbing her head.
Transcription.
Projection-Mnemonics.
Helena’s past.