Chapter 2 - If you had a second chance

On a winter evening, after Aira had just returned from her reading session at the library, as her way of escaping the harsh reality of her life and the lonely coldness of her home, she entered her gloomy apartment. Her dinner consisted of one pack of instant noodles she preciously kept in her cabinet. She still had one, but left it for the next day.

“I have to return this and file a complaint.”, she said, as she saw the book on the desk near her bed. “Uh! The store is closed this weekend. I guess I will leave it for Monday.”

Aira threw herself on the bed, staring at the ceiling, no thoughts running through her head as if she was a vegetable, then went on a search for pleasant memories in her mind.

With the hope she would meet her one and only friend again, her head hit the pillow and soon fell asleep. 

Her parents passed away too early, so, maybe because of the lack of friends, she began dreaming at night of a boy her age. The two would talk and play happily like the closest siblings, in a beautiful garden full of colorful daisies.

Those dreams were Aira’s escape, the boy offered her the love she never received from her new family, and the garden was her sanctuary even if she knew they were not real. In that place, she experienced magic for the first time, so overwhelming that everything she saw or felt still lingered even after she woke up every morning. Just, after a few years, Aira lost everything all too sudden.

One day, she simply was unable to dream about the garden or meet the boy anymore. The only things left were memories of that dream. Ever since, Aira struggled not to forget the moments she spent there with him - it was her only way of surviving and coping in that unloving family - yet, with the passage of time, her memories scattered, and she was left with but a vague image of that divine-looking place and the short name of the boy.

“Ria!” Aira went to sleep every night with that name on her lips.

In the middle of the night, when the clock stroke twelve and the moon stroke the window glass with its gentle rays, Aira heard a noise, an object falling, not that she had many in that cramped apartment. With her eyes barely open, she rushed to the kitchen where the noise came from. She then saw the silhouette of a skinny, yet tall man rummaging through the cabinets.

“What the…! Hey! What are you doing in my house?”, she shouted when she saw her pack of instant noodles in his hands.

The lights were still off but she could still see clearly in the moon light, then, with no brain cells in her head and no danger awareness,  she rushed to grab the meal she preciously saved for the next day.

“That’s mine, you piece of shit! Give it back!”, she yelled, extending her hand to take the pack back.

“It’s mine now, bitch! Let it go!”, the thief struggled.

“You’re in my house, you bastard. Give it back!”

Aira, seeing that she was unable to take back the precious food and there were no objects she could use to hit him, she grabbed the man by his dirty, greasy hair. He screamed in pain, but Aira had no intention of removing her hands, alternating between pulling his hair or his ears, and kicking him where it hurt more.

The few martial arts lesson she took lately turned out to be quite useful.

The fight lasted for a few minutes, none of them giving up on that pack of instant noodles, as if their lives depended on it, from one room to another until they reached the living room, where the door to the balcony unexpectedly pried wide open.

The thief pushed Aira with the little strength he had, even though his stomach gave clear signals of hunger and suffering pain from Aira’s kicks, his arms having barely no muscles on due to malnutrition.

Aira immediately stood up, but the thief took his chance and pushed her again. The rusty old railing gave in to Aira’s weight, as skinny as she was.

The moon was brighter than usual, a brightness Aira never had the time to watch in her twenty years of life for more than a passing glance. As her consciousness began to fade and her eyes barely stayed open, the shadow of a strange, cloaked man approached her with slow steps.

“If you had a second chance, what would be your greatest wishes?”, he asked, glancing at her with fiery eyes as he stopped.

“If I had… a second… chance… I would never bow… to anyone. But, … I would still like a family to love me… preciously.”, she cried. "And… I wish to be… strong and… fuc… extremely rich!”, she stressed on the words ‘extremely rich’ with her teeth clenched, furrowing her eyebrows.

The man did not know if she furrowed them due to pain or if her wish to be rich was too ardent.

“What an honest person! Be it as you wish!”, he grinned, then placed a book with blank pages on her chest. “This is for you to write. Do not let anyone’s pen touch the pages of your life anymore!”

The man disappeared, leaving behind Aira’s cold, lifeless body on the pavement, at the back of the alley.

A rain, colder than her body, suddenly poured from the sky. She could no longer feel it pressing on her skin through the wet clothes. Her eyes were completely closed, and nobody would have guessed whether she cried in her final moments or not, as the rain had long washed everything on her face.

Aira’s soul wandered in darkness for a long time, a darkness she was already used to. As she walked and walked, a light the size of a plum appeared in the distance.

She reluctantly continued walking towards it, not because she was afraid, but she was too used to the murkiness she lived in, and any light she tried to reach for when she was alive, was taken away every time from her.

A memory of the boy she dreamed of often in her childhood flashed through her consciousness. That light then felt more and more familiar to the feeling she had whenever she was with him - a sense of belonging.

She resumed her steps, slowly, still reluctant, but drawn to that light.

In the centre of it, she found a girl, around fifteen or more. She could not see her face clearly at the beginning, but everything below her neck was clear to her eyes. Covered in bruises to the toes, her long dark silky hair flowing onto the cold ground over her bony shoulders like a waterfall while she sat.

When the girl smiled, although she could barely see it, Aira strangely felt like it was her first time doing so. She wondered when was the last time she herself genuinely smiled.

The girl’s bruises reminded her of herself when she was a child, often beaten by her uncle, aunt and also by her cousins, sometimes even starved for two or three days for simply asking to use the shower.

All those memories overwhelmed her. She saw a silent copy of herself in front of her, like a mirror, reflecting her at her worst.

The girl reached her hand, which Aira took without a second thought. When their skin touched, a silent explosion of light took place, covering them wholly.