Eli stared at Elise with shock and confusion on her face.
"What nonsense are you saying, Elise? How can I be you?" Eli felt the matter was ridiculous and could not help but ask Elise in doubt.
When she came into the heavenly realm it was Elise's soul and the great one whom she saw first.
She even had a conversation with her before she accepted the challenge of descending in Prasinos! If that was so, how was she even able to have a conversation with 'herself' if she was really Elise Fayre?!
'Elise' smiled and was not offended by her tantrums at all. Instead, she lifted her hand and pointed one of her fingers toward Eli's forehead.
"I cannot explain to you easily… instead I will show you…" She said as Eli suddenly felt a wave of memory entering her mind.
The memory started with the moment her mum died of cancer. Eli whose eyes were wet in tears looked dazedly at her mum's emaciated figure while the nurses carefully covered her with a white cloth.
After that, her days became gloomy and she felt like she had lost a part of her soul.
But in the end, she was driven by the pressures of reality that she had to set aside her mourning and became a money-earning machine to pay for the rest of her mother's bills.
One day, as she went home from a hectic day in the office, she realized that her apartment was suddenly occupied.
She carefully opened the door and realized that there was a person waiting for her inside.
It was her biological mother who had been estranged from her all her life.
Eli's eyes darkened as she coldly asked, "Why are you here in my mother's house?"
She looked at the lady who had been smoking a few butts of cigarettes as she couldn't help but feel angered. She did not care if her biological mom did not care about her, but why did she not even appear when her very own sister was in the midst of suffering?
She did not even show up at her funeral!
"I want this house. Now that my sister is gone, it's time for you to vacate this home as this was under my parent's name." Her mother continued without even an ounce of affection.
"How dare you… It is my mum who worked hard to buy this apartment, it was her filial piety that this property was named under her parents but that does not give you the right to claim this!" Eli felt so aggrieved.
This biological mother of hers did not even regard his mum as her sister.
"So what? How can you, the spawn of some random man I slept with talk to me like that? Hahaha!"
Eli was startled, she always thought that she was just a child that was conceived by her biological mother when she was young and outgoing!
"Did you know? That in order to support that mother of yours, my parents had put this house on a mortgage just for her to be sent abroad for some music competition?" She looked at Eli with hatred and disgust.
"Why did they have to do that for her? I have always told them that I wanted to study at a prestigious university, but all they could say is that they were unable to finance my studies and I only have to be sent to a third-rate university."
Smoking another stick of cigarette she continued.
"I was supposed to be a girl with a lot of dreams and a lot of aspirations but I have to settle for a poor man's university even after begging them for so long…"
"But then I heard them mortgage this house without complaints when they heard that my younger sister needs money to compete in the Menuhin competition! How unfair was that?!"
"Because of her! I had to sell myself to some old men just to get money and feed my dreams! If she can go to another country to compete, why can't I go to a premium university to study?!"
"And so just as you could have heard from your mother, yes I slept around and sold my body for money."
"But I did not think that I would have you… the very evidence of my dirty past." She looked at Eli with great disdain and disgust.
"Whenever I look at you I am reminded of all the lewd faces of the dirty old man who put me under their fat bodies and rode on me like a breeding cattle." She could not contain her contempt and took the ashtray near her and threw it at Eli.
"Anyways… It's not that I needed this room… After all, my life has been good. I had a rich husband, I owned a business just like I dreamed of during my youth. But the only thing that was left was to spite your "Mother" and my parents who chose her over me."
"So pack your things and leave!" With her shout, her mother threw a stack of paper in front of her, it was a notarized claim for the property her mother painstakingly redeemed for her parents.
Eli clenched her fist and looked at the papers. After a long time, she closed her eyes and calmed herself down.
"Give me until tomorrow. I will get my mother's things out of the house." She said calmly.
"You are easy to talk to!" Her biological mother finally smiled. She pressed the cigarette directly on the table and threw it on Eli as she strutted out of the apartment with a loud bang.
Finally, Eli was alone.
In the room that was formerly filled with the warmth and love of her mum.
Then in the reality of why she was deeply abhorred by her biological mother.
Filthy…
That was the only thing that her biological mother did not say to her. But every look and every action had already screamed this word to her.
"Hic… hic…" Eli collapsed in the room, looking at the dark ceiling that was usually still lit up at this time, while the faint sound of music filled the room.
Now it was all filled with darkness and her cries.
"Mum… mum… take me with you…"
"This world is ugly without you…"
"This life is meaningless when you are not around… mummy…"
"Hic! Hic!" Eli's body trembled as she tried to hug herself.
Though she held herself back earlier, her biological mother's words were extremely hurtful to her.
Especially at this moment, when she was already losing the will to live.
She looked at the empty ceiling and the dark walls, desperately wanting for her mum to appear and whisper her words of comfort.
"Mummy, where are you?"
"I need your hug the most…" Eli curled up on the cold floor and her tears rolled to the floor along with the scattered ashes and papers left by her biological mother.
She cried and cried, but her mum did not appear. As she realized this reality, her heart died.
When she woke up the next morning, her mind was blank.
She looked around and mechanically stood up, she started calling the moving company and arranged for her mother's things to be moved out.
After that, she walked aimlessly in the busy daylight street, when she bumped into a woman whose face was covered with a big hat.
Eli's mind buzzed, she was pulled back to the present and remembered that moment in her life when she desperately begged for her mum to come back.
In her heart, her true mother was not her biological mother, but Elena, her mum.
However, even after she remembered this memory, she still did not get it.
"What does that memory say about my question then??" Eli asked.
Elise's voice rang once more as she said, "Well you might not remember, but right after that memory there is another…"
Then her memory continued, as she was aimlessly walking at the path of the sidewalk,
"Wow… I've never seen a human with only half a soul!!! Fascinating!" A voice sounded from a person passing on Eli's sorry figure.
"Pardon?" Eli stopped and turned but she didn't see the person who told those words. The only scene she saw was the empty sidewalk behind her.
"Half a soul?" Eli looked at the empty road again then turned not minding the bizarre situation.
