There was stunned silence… not just a pause… but the kind of silence that made even breathing feel like a crime. Nothing… absolutely nothing… it was dead silence.
Aqualina and Celestia were like… totally shocked… no, they were completely frozen, their eyes wide, their lips parted in disbelief, their minds struggling to catch up with what they had just heard… no, they were fucking shattered by it.
“H-How… could you say t-those… words…” Sandra mumbled, her voice cracking, trembling like a fragile glass about to break. She stared blankly at Aether… who was just sitting there, unmoved… like nothing happened… like he hadn’t just been slapped with the weight of her soul.
Aether gave a simple shrug, as if it was nothing serious, as if her pain meant little.
He tilted his head slightly and asked, “What else should I say then?”
Sandra’s hands shook as her emotions boiled. She gritted her teeth so hard it echoed — like bones trying to break out of her mouth. Without a second thought, she grabbed his collar, her fingers clutching it like claws, “You don’t know? Ah? After everything… after I laid my fucking heart bare in front of you… you think this low of me? Ah?!”
Aether smirked faintly, amused, almost cruel in his calmness, “Laid your heart before me? Woman… you’re supposed to offer that kind of thing to the most important person in your world… Tell me… am I really that person?” His tone shifted, suddenly serious, tilting his head.
Sandra didn’t flinch. Her eyes didn’t blink. She just stared, as if seeing a ghost, as if the man before her wasn’t the same one she once trusted. And then, finally, she spoke — her voice barely above a whisper, yet filled with something that echoed louder than screams.
“Listen,” her voice echoed through the stillness of the room. Without even turning to look at Aqualina, she said with a cold yet deeply pained tone, “I… I wished for you, Mom… because I loved you… because I missed you every fucking day… because I couldn’t breathe without the thought of you. I wanted you back. I wanted to protect you… I wanted… NO, I needed.. My mother”
Aqualina’s lips quivered. Her body tensed. Her voice cracked as she tried to speak, “B-But I… I k-kille—” but before she could finish…
Sandra cut her off, her voice firm, unwavering, “You didn’t kill me. If you did, I wouldn’t be standing here. I wouldn’t be breathing right now.”
“S-Still, I almost kil—”
“ENOUGH!!” Sandra’s voice exploded like a storm as she turned sharply to Aqualina. Her eyes were burning with emotion, but her voice was eerily cold, detached. “Kill this, kill that… I’m so fucking done with this bullshit! Look at me! Mom… just look at me!” she screamed, slapping her hand against her chest as if to show she was still real, still alive.
Aqualina’s eyes slowly moved to her… and saw not a daughter, not a girl… but a woman shattered into pieces, held together by rage and grief.
Sandra’s face was strong — and yet so hopelessly broken.
“Do you know… why I was broken?” Sandra asked, her voice low and heavy, every word dripping with something darker than sadness — something like despair as she walked towards her.
Aqualina bit her lips so hard they almost bled, the metallic taste of guilt soaking her tongue. “I… I… betray—”
“NO!” Sandra screamed, her voice trembling but powerful. “It was never about your betrayal!…
It was never just about you!”
Aqualina gasped softly, her breath hitching as if the air had turned into knives.
Sandra stood close, so close their breath mingled. Her voice trembled as her lips parted again, “I… I did this… because I was fucking weak. Because I was lost… a loser… blind… pathetic… A fucking nothing!”
Drip…
One tear, then another. Aqualina’s eyes overflowed as her body trembled. “I… I… I… am s-sorry…” she sobbed, covering her face.
Her shoulders shook violently, sobbing as she stared at the wreck her daughter had become… and knowing she had a hand in it. Her one and only daughter… and she was the reason this precious soul had fallen apart.
She was the one who caused th–
“Even now… you’re still blaming yourself,” Sandra said softly, clicking her tongue in frustration — but there was a longing too.
She crouched down, slowly, her knees hitting the floor, face close to Aqualina’s. “The shelter you gave me… the warmth… it vanished the moment you left this world. After that… I wasn’t even a person anymore. I became something hollow… I became…. Nothing.
Do you know how it feels to be nothing, Mom?”
Aqualina nodded weakly, her tears falling freely, her hands limp…. of course she knew because she once was that too!
Sandra stared at her mother through tear-stung eyes. One single tear rolled down her cheek as she whispered, “They pushed you… to the very edge… to that point where you thought killing your daughter and… ending your own life was the only way out. That’s how dangerous ‘Nothing’ is, Mom.
That’s what it does to us. It twists us… eats us alive.”
She took a long breath. Her voice cracked but remained steady, “The only thing that kept me going… was Revenge. That sweet, bitter taste of vengeance… it gave me something to hold onto.
It gave me a reason to exist… to become something again.”
Aqualina, shaking, lifted her tear-soaked hand. Her fingers trembled as she reached for Sandra, touching her cheek with such fragility, it was like she feared she might break her.
“M-My ba-baby…” she stammered, her throat thick with grief, love, guilt… everything all at once.
Sandra didn’t move away. Her voice was hollow but filled with pain, “Even after all of that… after everything I did… I felt nothing.
Not relief.
Not satisfaction.
Not peace.
Just… fucking nothing.” Her eyes shifted to Celestia, her voice choking as more tears followed. “…She… made me realize… All I did… was nothing.”
Celestia lowered her head, That’s all!
Sandra turned back to Aqualina, her voice low and confessional. “To be honest… that day… I wanted to die.
I wanted to end everything… because inside me… there was just a void… and I thought maybe, if I vanished too, the pain would stop… just like you thought.”
“N-No… sniff… sniff… No… ba-by…” Aqualina broke down, her words lost between cries.
Suddenly, Sandra’s expression softened— the edges of her pain rounded by something warm… something gentle. Her eyes gleamed, not just with tears, but with a distant, glowing memory that seemed to cradle her soul.
“That’s when…” she whispered softly, her lips trembling into a faint smile, “…I got my beloved mother… inside my stomach.” Her voice was low, tender, filled with something sacred. “Do you know how that feels?”
Aqualina blinked through her tears, her face a mess of emotion. She shook her head slowly, unable to feel that.
Sandra’s smile grew warmer, her voice laced with soft joy as she lowered her hand to her stomach, fingers gently rubbing it in a circle… like she was cradling something still alive within her.
“It felt… really, really good,” she whispered, her tears sliding quietly down her cheeks. “The way you moved in my tummy… those soft kicks, those little flutters I felt at night… The way you made me nauseous even at the smell of my favorite foods… the way you made me vomit over and over again… But even then… I felt something. Something real. Something pure.” She choked slightly, her voice cracking from the bittersweet flood, “I felt alive.
I felt needed.
I felt… happy.
So damn happy.”
As she spoke, her trembling fingers slowly reached out and touched Aqualina’s hand — soft, hesitant, but full of meaning.
Sandra then looked up again, this time her eyes darkening, her expression shifting into something serious…
“For the past sixteen years…” she began, her voice low, her words like heavy raindrops, “all I knew was happiness.
My world… was just you.
You smiling.
You calling me ‘Mom.’
You asking for bedtime stories… hugs… warm food… silly little things… and I thought, this is what love feels like.
I was happy… I was so happy that…”
She paused, swallowing hard.
“I forgot… that you were once my m-mother. I stopped thinking of you like that.
You were no longer my p-past.
You became my present.
You were my child… My daughter… my only one.”
Her fingers gripped Aqualina’s hand tighter, trembling with fear buried deep.
“And then… if you started remembering… your memories of that past life returned… I realized… that maybe I would lose you. That you might stop looking at me like a daughter… and start looking at me like something else.
Something I’m used to being. And… I feared that.”
Her voice dropped lower, fragile, breaking.
“I f-feared every single… morning. I woke up, praying you’d still smile at me. That you’d still call me ‘Mom.’ That you wouldn’t remember too much. And every time you did… every time you looked at me with love… I thought, T-Thank God, I still have my daughter today.
That smile… it made my entire w-world.”
Aqualina’s lips trembled violently. Her heart felt as though it was being carved open.
“…I… I too…” Aqualina finally spoke, her voice barely audible between sobs, “…I was so happy being your daughter. I loved every moment… I loved how much you cared for me… how you always protected me… looked after me… spoiled me. I-I know how much you did… and I love you… I love you more than anything in this world…”
Sandra smiled gently, her fingers slowly brushing Aqualina’s cheek, wiping the tears away with the touch of a mother.
“Then why…” she whispered, so soft, “…why are you feeling guilt?”
Aqualina opened her mouth, but no words came. “T-That’s… I—”
But before she could explain, Sandra leaned closer, her voice filled with aching sincerity.
“Yes… You tried to kill me,” she said, her tone gentle, like she was easing the weight of that truth. “I know that. I remember. But… I was never angry with you. Not even for a moment.”
Aqualina lowered her head even more, sobbing harder. “T-That… I… I… no… Me…” Her words spilled like broken glass, sharp and unclear, her tears falling freely onto the floor.
“Look at me, Mom…” Sandra whispered softly, her voice pleading. But Aqualina couldn’t.
Her head remained bowed as if guilt had nailed it down.
But then…
“Look at me…. Aqua,” Sandra said again, this time in a voice unlike anything before — soft, but so deeply vulnerable… so full of love, pain, desperation… that it made even Aqualina’s breath catch.
“M-Mom?” Aqualina mumbled, her voice not from her mind — but from her soul. It slipped out unconsciously, purely, from the heart of the daughter she had become.
Sandra smiled through her tears — that same smile Aqualina had seen every day growing up. “Yes. I’m your mother. And you are… my daughter.
Even if your old memories return.
Even if you remember a different past.
Even if you once held me in your arms… now, you are the one who needs my arms. And I love you… my daughter Aqualina.
More than I ever loved… my mother.”
Aqualina’s lips trembled. Her whole body quaked. “B-But these… m-memories… I was your mo—”
“They were just memories,” Sandra said softly, cutting through that fear with truth,
“They don’t define us… Memories are fragments.
They can only shape us if we let them.
But it’s our heart… our love… that truly decides who we are.”
Her words echoed in Aqualina’s heart like breaking through the wall that she had built for two space… Mother Aqualina and Daughter Aqualina.
Even Aether, watching quietly, felt something inside him stir.
Sandra smiled lovingly, cupping her daughter’s tear-soaked cheeks, “And I chose… to cherish the memories I made with my child.
With you.
Now tell me, my love… what do you choose?”
Then, she leaned forward and kissed Aqualina’s forehead — a kiss filled with more warmth than a thousand suns… A soft breath escaped between their trembling lips.
And Aqualina — that once-broken, guilt-wrapped Mother/Daughter— broke into fresh sobs.
“M-Mooooommmm… awwwwwaaaa…” she cried, her voice raw and full of love, grief, and something more — a soul returning home.