’’I am Racheal Green.’’

’’The Survivor of the Hong Kong incident that took place sixteen years ago.’’

’’And I have come this night to tell everyone the truth about that night.’’

* * *

The woman turned slowly away from the window. Words that wished ill for the murderer of her family slipped out of her lips nonstop.

She looked traumatized and unstable.

Wedged between the horrors of the past and the uncertainty of the future.

’’She deserves to die...She deserves to die...She deserves to die...’’ Racheal Green kept mumbling as she slowly approached Corrine. Corrine backed away with every step the stranger took towards her, wishing she had never let go of the knife, while trying to understand who deserved to die.

But strangely enough, it looked like Racheal Green wasn’t even aware of Corrine’s presence with her in the room.

Or so Corrine thought.

She calmly moved out of the way as the strange woman slowly walked towards the door and stepped out of the inner office.

It was after she left that Corrine eased the hold she had on her breath. She turned slowly in horror and watched as the figure disappeared like a ghost out of her office in that strange, trance–like state.

Corrine quickly turned around to close the door of her inner office, turning the lock around it quickly as she walked over to the knife and picked it up, unable to ease the tremors that took over her entire body.

Luckily, she still had her phone. Every instinct screamed at her to call for help.

Not only was it strange that this woman was able to enter her office without breaking in with force...but there was also something unsettling about the mood and atmosphere the strange girl brought with her.

It was stifling.

Heavy and almost nauseous.

She turned on her phone, her hands shaking as she thought of who to call first about this. Her heels clicked hard against the floor as she moved over to the open windows and stared below for any sign of the night patrolling guards of the building.

But there was none at this hour.

Odd.

Corrine reached out to close the window as she began to dial Berry’s phone, trying her best to remain calm even when her entire body forbids her to.

’Hi! This is Berry boo! Please leave a message after this call!’

Corrine ended the call and scrolled through her contact to call Lin then she remembered he was probably in the hospital, recovering from his Ulcer attack. She would hate to call him and bother him about this.

Then she thought of calling Stylie but hesitated and decided to try Berry’s number again but it wasn’t reaching through.

A quick flash of lightning appeared behind her restless form as she thought of what to do. She was too scared to even leave the office and call for help. Probably scared of being attacked by that strange woman that looks far from being sane or normal.

Corrine ran a hand through her hair nervously, pulling down her head warmer as she thought of what to do next. She sat quietly on the armrest of one of the chairs in her office before rising again and deciding to call the entire police force to this place this instant.

Maybe the fear of multiple sirens and all will discourage whatever that woman planned to do to her tonight.

It was also strange she thought the woman had sinister intentions towards her...but she could not get rid of this sickening feeling, this dreadful shiver that whatever nonsense that woman was mumbling to herself was directed to....

’’911, what’s your emergency?’’

Corrine was about to speak to the 911 agent but paused at the sight of the odd laptop still waiting at her desk and very much awake with a lot of things left to say.

’’So, Miss Green. Tell us and our viewers tonight what you mean by being a survivor of an incident sixteen years ago. And how does it have anything to do with this Miss Corrine Ashworth?’’

Corrine turned around the moment those last words sunk deep enough. Her weary gaze fell on the laptop with a mixture of disbelief and horror.

Who exactly just said her name and what exactly was...

’’Sixteen years ago,’’ Racheal’s voice followed calmly as Corrine finally had the guts to round her office table and settle on the dark, leather chair behind it. The dull pale light coming from the laptop screen illuminating her tear stricken face as her phone remained face flat on the floor of the room, the 911 agent still trying its best to reach the caller.

This time, the aggressive sounds the sky made faded in the background as Corrine’s dark green gaze moved on the laptop screen in unsettling confusion.

’’I was the last daughter of Mr and Mrs Richard Green. My dad worked in this really cool place and was friends with this really cool people that had lots of money and power.’’

On the screen was a recorded live video being played of a popular True stories channel that had close to half a hundred million followers on a popular streaming app.

The woman that just stood in her office some minutes ago sat before a woman who listened to her as she told the world her story. She looked much better sitting confidently, with her shiny baby pink top and lovely yellow sneakers that matched the headphones she wore on her head.

The woman sitting across from her looked to be the host of the show and the recorded interview had been live for a long time now but Corrine was seated just in time to listen to the interesting part.

*

’’My father, I remembered him as a loving and hardworking man. He was good to my mother and my four elder sisters, Flora, Sievie, Savannah and Claudette Green.’’ Racheal explained as active likes and comments blurred a part of the screen.

’’He was a good man who didn’t deserve to be treated like this.’’

’’So, where did you say your father worked at and who were his friends?’’

Racheal’s face suddenly burned hot in anger as she pulled hard on the sleeves of her dress, trying to contain the anger and injustice she felt within her.

’’There were reptiles. Ugly beings from outer space that came to doom us all. Blood-sucking monsters in suites and ties. My dad didn’t know at first he worked for this cold blooded creatures until he caught one of them shapeshifting and he wanted to reveal the real truth behind those we pay taxes to and feed all our money.’’

The interviewer not following frowned but encouraged the poor girl to continue telling her story. She had only been paid to do this and ask the right questions and not to dig in further to whatever this madness was about.

’’Reptiles...you say?’’

’’Yes and it’s true. I remember dad coming home rushed that night and grabbing all of our passports to fly us all somewhere safe. I spent that entire summer with me and my sisters trying to run from something dad said wanted us dead.’’

It was as if a crowd of a live audience had gone silent at her words. Racheal’s lips trembled as tears rolled down the side of her face, earning more sympathetic likes and wowed comments in the live show.

The interviewer only moved to place one leg over the other, the paper filled with scripted questions fluttering briefly in her hold as she also appeared uncomfortable doing this but she had to.

’’Interesting. So, can you please tell us what happened next?’’

Racheal moved her face sideways, her face burning in unquenched rage as she stared about, preparing what to say next.

’’The top lizard had a daughter. She was around my age and equally brutal. She was a half freak just like the rest of her family and apparently had supervision. One they used to hunt us down exactly where me and my family hid in Hong Kong one rainy night.’’

Corrine’s mouth parted as her hands trembled non stop on the table.

’’The silly nine year old led the operation to rise to the top and be favoured in their little secret slimy sect. She haunted us down and tied us up in chains like international criminals! Those lizards hurt my dad and my mom so badly they couldn’t even speak.’’

’’We were then led to a deserted place, at the peak of a hill that overlooked the ocean and we were tortured until we had no will left to leave.’’

Corrine gasped. Freezing in place when Racheal Green suddenly turned her face towards the camera and stared heatedly like she would if she was seating right in front of her face.

’’The little brat, now walking amongst us as Corrine Winfield, shot my sisters brutally in the face and fed them to the sharks. My head was smashed repeatedly against the rock until I was nearly dead but conscious enough to witness my dad and mom’s last moments.’’

Corrine shook her head slowly.

None of what she was saying was true.

She never...

’’What did she do to your parents?’’

Racheal took a slow and intentional breath as her eyes never left the screen. Suddenly, the views on the livestream began climbing at an impossible rate, racing toward one billion. And Corrine thought it was impossible anyone would believe a word that this crazy person disguising as the little girl that survived that horrific night.

Hell, she didn’t even know there was a survivor of her dad’s brutal murder of an entire family that night.

’’She...ate them.’’

Corrine’s dark green gaze widened at the computer screen in disbelief.

’’She and her lizard friends transformed immediately after she shot my mother and father in the head. And I alone cried and watched as they tore their limbs apart and gorged out their eyes. There was nothing of them left to bury...’’

She watched as the comment section rioted and raged at her story, believing it to be true.

’’I begged her to do the same for me that night but I was taken away to a secret facility, where the memories of that night and my family were taken away from me all those years. I wore a strait jacket for sixteen years with no hope of ever being the same again until a kind doctor that worked there but stood against whatever those people did saved me three years ago and helped me with my memories.’’

’’He even encouraged me to come out tonight and let the world know what this woman did to me and my family sixteen years ago.’’

Corrine was too stunned to even breathe a word.

’’She killed my sisters...’’

Corrine turned away as her nails dragged painfully on her skin to rid the goosebumps that formed on every corner of it.

’’My mother.’’

Turning her chair away from the laptop, Anais bent over on her laps, bringing her hands over her ears as she sobbed quietly, praying this imposter causing her so much pain will be kind enough not to say the next horrible thing.

Even if story of the death of her mother and sisters were half true and this imposter was truly the fifth child that managed to survive that horror she had managed to live through all this years, convincing herself that she wasn’t a monster just like her dad or that evil child that fired those shots at the heart of that man that begged her repeatedly to end his life so he could save whatever remained of his family...

’’Ahhhhhh,’’ It was a deep and agonizing moan of pain as the sins of yesterday resurfaced. The reality of whatever she remembered happened that night is now replayed for her vividly.

To remind her of what she thought she was innocent of sixteen years ago.

’’And my father. Mr. Richard Green.’’

Corrine fell on her knees, raised her head to the ceiling and cried so loudly it was impossible for anyone not to listen.