Your Heart Over Mine

Synopsis:

It is about two siblings (one is adopted). The older sister escaping an Institute, that trains children to simply become emotionless, and leaving her younger brother. This causes the brother to grow in pain inside of that sickening place, in solitude. And then one day, the sister comes back for her brother, knowing that she and her old batchmates in the Institute, will execute their dangerous "escape plan" at the same day. The male best friend of the sister took the younger brother with him in their escape (which was the favor he took for the sister, knowing that she might not survive and still escape from the Institution once again). And then when they were finally outside the Institute, the brother feels a box inside his pocket that contains a paper. It turns out, that was her sister's goodbye letter to him…

Chapter 1

“Where the heck am I?” You say, feeling nothing but dizziness.

“You are in a safe room.” is what you heard with a monotonous voice.

You, who’s not really in the right mind at the moment, laughed and said,

“What’s wrong with your voice, dude? You sound all formal or som-“ you stopped when you opened your eyes and looked at the person.

It was the person you were supposed to find.

The person you were looking for, for a long long time.

But that person didn’t even look like they recognized you.

“I suppose training made me like this… you know that training I am talking about, yes, Ava?” your brother said, still using his bland voice.

Technically, Ben wasn’t your brother. He was adopted by your parents, but you treated him like family. But when you two were kids, he was emotionless, just like now.

You ignored his question about the training and said something, “You didn’t even change at all, li’l bro. You’re still cold-blooded.” “But you, I’d rather say, changed. You’re not so calm and collected as before when you were in here.”

~

“Why did you take us away from our parents?!” a 6-year-old girl said angrily while gently hugging her oddly quiet brother.

A woman in her mid-20s pressed her lips into a thin line and said with a tedious tone, “You are picked out by the Institute because your parents cannot even take care of you anymore.”

“Wh-what do you mean ‘the Institute’?” a girl’s meek voice replied.

“It conducts training for small children like you; for them to have no emotions. This is most likely preparation for future leaders. Since our contemporary leader, Mayor Dalton, anticipates that leaders should be numb in order for them to be strong on the inside. Needless to say, the training is to toughen up your physical body. Ergo, the children in the Institute will become great leaders for they will be unstoppable.”

And with that wearisome voice ending, silence came through. No peep came from the little girl seeing that she had nothing else to do but to comply.

~

Suddenly, quietness surrounded the room. A few minutes passed and you finally decided to break the embarrassing silence,

“Look, I left becau-“ “Because you were simply selfish.”

You didn’t know words could hurt that much until now.

“No, it was because I was feeling pressured.” “Yes, you were feeling that so you left. You did that for yourself which serves as an act of selfishness.”

You were about to respond but saw his stoic expression falter a little.

He slightly glared at you and said, “You don’t know how much we, your so-called friends, suffered from you leaving. When you left, everything changed. The authorities got stricter, thinking ‘how could a 10-year-old girl escape from their claws’, so we endured the punishment for YOUR mistake.” while keeping his boring voice; pointing his finger at you.

~

“Stay back! Or I WILL jump right here, into the waterfall!”

The guards stiffened at your voice; it was far from your toneless voice when you were in training. It was full of anger, which was a violation in your place. By that time, you would’ve been dead meat if you weren’t about to jump off the tall waterfall.

You looked at your brother’s eyes expecting them to be half-lidded and dull but instead saw his original doe eyes with hope sparkling in them, even though a guard was tightly holding him.

Then, you jumped.

Everything went in slow motion; the other guards running up to you, your batch mates in the Institute having shocked expressions, and your brother losing hope in his eyes.

You felt guilty, yes, but you wouldn’t let your brother suffer with you, be homeless, and have nothing to eat when you two are finally outside the institution. You just couldn’t.

So, you decided to hold onto your supposedly selfish act and jumped, allowing gravity to take you harshly down the waterfall and into the freezing water of the lake under it.

~

“I left because I didn’t want you to be in distress with me. I didn’t want you to feel unprotected outside the institution, so I left you. I thought that ‘he’d be better off without me inside the institute… they would give him three meals a day, give him a home and also a family.”

‘But you were my family! My home!’ your brother wanted to say, but he pushed his own emotions away, and said with his fake tone,

“Then you were thinking clearly for once. The Institution did a perfect job of taking care of me, better than anything you would’ve done.”

When those words left his mouth, you didn’t even care if the whole world crumbled beneath you. You couldn’t care less if a sword ran through your chest. You didn’t even think about anything as your mind went blank.

You just felt one thing; regret. You regretted leaving him.

YOU SHOULD’VE STAYED.

YOU SHOULD’VE STAYED.

YOU SHOULD’VE STAYED.

YOU SHOULD’VE STAYED.

YOU SHOULD’VE STAYED.

You just wished you could go back in time; to just stay the same and not indifferent from everything in the Institute.

You wouldn’t mind growing in pain… as long as you’re with him.

Your emotions bubbled up while you hugged him as tight as you could, as if it was the last one you two would share.

Those three words that left from your mouth agitated the guy you were tightly holding, but nevertheless, he didn’t make a move. He just stood there, waiting for you to unhand him. You didn’t want to let go of him, but you had to. And so, you did.

But your next actions unsettled him furthermore; as another set of words came from your mouth that had him leave and shut the door immediately.

“I’ll love you, always and forever.”

…not noticing a sudden slight weight from his left pocket.

Chapter 2

You sat back on the old rickety chair that was in the room and alerted your “old batchmates” with your radio communicators which served as a go signal.

~

You and your old batchmates kept in contact when you escaped from the Institute.

Whenever one of them ‘throws out the trash’ on the land beside the waterfall, you waited for them to appear every single day, and talked about your plan on getting them out of the Institute.

All of you did this for 8 years; considering the fact that all of you had long patience with this plan.

Your brother knew nothing of this, clearly because you didn’t want him to be involved with this dangerous plan, but you asked a favor from your friend, Wyatt, to bring your brother with him and also take care of him when you’re gone once all of the children break out from the Institute.

Oddly enough, the Institute didn’t seem to be bothered by the other children taking too long on throwing out some garbage, having their clothes stuffed with something rectangle-shaped, or their hurried walks around the halls just to get to their room.

But despite all of this, you knew what you had to do.

~

At this time, your plan was slowly unfolding.

You picked the lock so you can get out and distract the guards. You ran, but not too quick for the guards to not notice your slim figure running through the corridors of the Institute. They chased you down the halls, as the children go out of their rooms with all their things.

‘They have it all covered. They can all go now.’ is what you thought, while letting the guards follow you.

You were too important for the Institute for them to let you go now.

You weren’t going to escape from their grasp again.

You were wanted throughout the establishment.

Chapter 3

As multiple kids were running rampant outside the Institute and jumping right into the waterfall, a pair of two boys were also in that group; these boys being Ben and Wyatt.

When all of them had successfully dried themselves from the wet water of the waterfall, they all prepared to travel through the woods, near the said body of water.

Ben was checking his pockets for anything when he felt something solid in it. He pulled out a small soaking wooden box that fit enough in his pocket, and inside was a paper. Thankfully the water didn’t get inside of the box.

He finally read the letter quietly but his eyes widened with just the first sentence of it, and it said:

Dear Ben,

If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead… kidding! I don’t really know what will happen to me after those guards get me. But by now, I hope you know everything already, ‘cause it’s kinda hard to write the whole thing on this paper.

Now back to what I was saying, I hope you’ll be fine living with Wyatt now:) I’m very sorry that I left you like this… again. You know, I just want to do what’s best for you, even if it costs me my own life. I’m sorry that I had to leave you all alone, with no family, in the Institute. I know you had an awful childhood in that freaky asylum, and I can never forgive myself for that. So just like I said that I would risk everything for you, this plan of mine will finally repay you, for all the things I did.

To be honest… I’ve thought about this whole ‘sacrificing my life for this plan’ thing a lot of times. But my heart always finds its way back to the reason of doing this for you. That’s when I realized that I’d always choose your heart over mine. See that, li’l bro! You’re much more important to me than I am to myself.

And you deserve that.

You didn’t deserve to grow in pain, and worse, go through it all alone.

You deserve the whole world.

You deserve all my love and more.

So please, live without me. I know you can do it! because well… you have no choice. But always remember, I’ll be keeping my eyes on you hm! Don’t do any silly stuff and live freely. You wouldn’t have to live in torture as you grow up. Now, look forward so that you can have a better future! If you look back, you’ll only get worse… so don’t look back. Start a new life; make some friends, create a family, live life a bit better.

Now it’s also time for me to let go. When you read this letter, it also means that I’m letting you go. It’s actually the hardest thing that I’ve ever done. However, I have to do this. I don’t want to – I have to.

Ok ok! That’s all I’m going to say before I get very very emotional writing this.

I’ll love you, always and forever.

Love, Ava

Tears stung Ben’s eyes as they flew rapidly on his cheeks; tears staining the paper. He made up his mind and looked at the sky, saying, “I will, Ava. I’ll move forward… for the both of us.”

The End (?)