Day 21: Vía Crucis

Kam woke up from her sleep.
The clock read 12:00 a.m.

With sluggish steps, she walked to the kitchen to get something to eat.
As she bit into a cookie, the door opened.

“How did you sleep, Sally?” Alice asked, walking in with several grocery bags.

“Good…” Sally replied, setting her plate aside.

There was a brief silence before Sally lifted her gaze.

“Alice, can I use Kam’s laptop?”

“Of course,” she answered. “I think it’s in her backpack.”

“Thank you.”

Alice was about to return to the kitchen, but she stopped.

“Before you go upstairs… later we’ll go buy you some clothes. Does that sound alright?”

Sally looked away, a little embarrassed.

“Sure…”

She went up to Kam’s room.
She checked the backpack and found the laptop. She turned it on.

As soon as she opened her social media and her streaming channel, a flood of notifications poured in nonstop.

Messages of support.
Others asking when she’d stream again.
And dozens from the group Bastard Society.

Sally began to read.

The posts were raw.
Many were recovering memories… and they shared the indescribable pain those memories brought.

Those memories allowed them to understand who they really were.
But they also showed how broken they all were.

A comment in the chat left her thinking:

“Don’t you feel like we’re all outcasts of the system?
With everything we’ve been remembering,
They look at us with indifference.”

Sally closed the page.

She felt a knot in her chest, but no tears came out.
Energy began to rise from her body…
She took a deep breath and held it down.

She kept reading until she found a particular comment. It was from Bel, one of her followers who helped her with monetization.

Bel explained that she had managed to save the accounts, but a lot of money had been lost.
She also mentioned the threats from Sally’s mother.

Sally already expected it.

She replied calmly:

Don’t worry. Still, thank you for always supporting me, Bel.

She closed the laptop and went downstairs to help Alice clean the house.

When they finished, Alice said:

“We’re going to buy you clothes. But first, a shower.”

Sally nodded.

Alice’s treatment was warm. Sincere.

Later, while Sally tried on clothes, Alice overheard a group of girls talking about how people all over the country were preparing for the protest about the content creator Nomad Kitchen and the large number of disappearances.

“Sally, have you heard about the protest?” Alice asked.

“Yes. Kam and I even met that content creator,” Sally answered as she adjusted a blouse. “It was when we traveled to Nagano.
We became friends.
He seemed like a simple guy…
But his disappearance makes me think he’s dead.
Adding the reasons behind his disappearance…
We still don’t know how the government will react to the protest.”

“What’s tragic,” Alice said, “is that this has happened before. Protests, disappearances… and nothing changes.
No matter what happens, they always make sure things don’t change for good—only for worse.”

Sally stayed silent.

That night, she couldn’t sleep.
Nothing felt right.

Her memories.
Becoming herself again.
Her mask falling apart.
The pain was unbearable.

So she packed a backpack.
She put in the clothes Alice had bought her.
And she wrote a goodbye letter:

Thank you for everything you’re doing for me.
But I don’t want my mother to harm you.
I’ll go back to her, that way she’ll stop keeping you in her sights.
And you’ll be able to move forward with the thing about my father or the guardianship.

She quietly entered Alice’s room.
She left the letter beside her pillow.

Sally leaned in.
With a small pulse of energy, she created a tiny glowing lotus flower and placed it in Alice’s hair.

She closed the door carefully.
And left.

She still remembered her mother’s address.

When she saw the apartment complex, she frowned.

She had forgotten that living there was like being in a rat’s nest.

“But I won’t let you screw me over again,” she murmured. “Not this time.
And definitely not with the little I have left.”