Unforgiven Lies|| by me || short story

Instructions

|||||||||||||||||||||| Unforgiven Lies ||||||||||||||||||||||| ___________________________________________ A . Short . Story . By . Me Two enemies end up trapped in a lift together.... ___________________________________________ My shoes cause echoes through the hallway on the 30th floor of The Institute. I am the only one here at 00:07 on a Tuesday, which is actually very ordinary to me. I always get back to Universe 197. It's the universe I was assigned to when I joined The Institute, which means I come back here every week after my missions at this time. I have a stroke of luck when the lift pings at this floor. As there are 43,961 floors in The Institute buildings (same in each universe) you can be waiting for up to 45 minutes for it to get to you. I absentmindedly step into the elevator, my mind soaring around to other things. However it doesn't take long for me to realise that I'm not alone. As I turn around I can already tell who it is. My sworn enemy. Malissa. She glares at me accusingly. I stare back, imagining that my gaze is a knife, slowly piercing her and shredding her to pieces. It's her own fault. She did it. She is the reason we're both here in the first place. The silence seems to be pressing in on us, feeding off the anger and tension in this small space. Then she breaks eye contact, a small victory for me, but I continue glaring at the back of her head. "You hate me." It wasn't a question. It was a statement. I scoff. Hate is an understatement, and just one of the feelings that get triggered when she is around. "Good observation," I hiss, arms folded. We go silent again. "You don't know what happened." Once again, not a question. A statement. I can feel myself getting angrier by the second. "Don't lie-" The Elevator slams to a halt, knocking us both off our feet. I swiftly scramble up, groaning as the lights go red and an alarm starts blaring. CCTV footage pops up on the wall, showing an empty corridor. Great. I'm trapped with my enemy in a lift, on the 26th floor, and the whole building is on lockdown. Well as I have nothing else to do I return to scoffing at Malissa. "Don't lie, we both know what you did. You're the reason we were given to The Institute, assigned a universe that wasn't our home, the reason I had to leave my friends-" "You don't think I lost things too?! I lost more than you could ever imagine. And along with that you won't even listen to me when you WEREN'T EVEN THERE!" We're both on our feet now, faces inches apart. "Well GO ON THEN! TELL ME WHAT really HAPPENED!" I spit. "BUT YOU'LL LIE EITHER WAY-" "THEY DIED PROTECTING YOU!" I stare dumbfound at her. Then I start shaking. "No," I rasp, "no, no you didn't help them, you sat there and watch them get killed, you didn't even care-" "LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE!" Tears are flooding down her face. "They died protecting you from a killer. I was in the wardrobe, where they'd shoved me. When they were gone, as well as the murderer, I picked you up and ran. But The Institute found us and took us, like what happens to all orphans. I left out that you were the one they were protecting. I didn't want my little sister to have to live with the guilt." She's sobbing now, down on her knees. "I've spent the past 10 years living with the knowledge that you hated me, even though it wasn't the truth. I lied and took the blame to protect YOU. So don't tell me that I don't care, when all I've ever done is care." Suddenly I'm on my knees crying. Crying for our parents, crying for myself... And crying for the years I've lost hating someone I could have loved. Then we are hugging, and sobbing and whispering apologies. I cling to my big sister, giving her the hug I have secretly wanted, secretly needed for a decade. We don't even notice the lights go back to normal, the Elevator moving down again. I don't even care. because it turns out, I have someone to love in this world. And this person loves me back.