D is for Double

A-Z Project: D is for Double

"Gina, please don't cry," Gulia begged as she sat on the very edge of the fluffy bed. "It'll be alright." Gina, nearly the mirror image of Gulia, was lying on the bed, silently crying.

"Gulia, this isn't the first time," Gina sobbed softly, "and it won't be the last, either." Gulia's hand reached down and gently stroked Gina's shoulder.

"You're my sister. I hate to see you like this," Gulia said softly. "I've been telling you for three years that we can make a change together. No more abuse." Gulia watched her twin sister eagerly, waiting for that excited, revolutionary decision that would change it all- the reckless forfeit and agreement to kill. However, Gina shook her head quickly, briefly. "Say it… No more abuse… You know it feels it right. You want it. I want it for you… You want it for me. We're in this together. Take my hand, Gina."

"We can't stop pain by causing it. It's not right."

"How so, Gina?" Intrigued by this logic, Gulia stood from the bed, watching the crying teenage girl weep.

"Two wrongs don't make a right." Gina sat up, turned to her sister, and stared straight at her with her warm, brown eyes. Gulia gave a forced, exaggerated laugh.

"Negative two minus negative two." Gulia stared back at Gina with her own brown eyes, but they were cold and demanding, emotionless except for years of bottled fury. Gina faltered, her eyes searching the room and finally reaching Gulia's face again.
"Four," she replied. "But we're adding a wrong, not taking it away," she added immediately.

"But by adding one, aren't we also taking one away?" Gulia crossed her arms and started a slow pace about the room, each step exaggerated and forceful. Gina suddenly looked like a hopeless child; her red, puffy eyes fell to the floor. "We're not going to make it out of this situation if we don't fight back. If you don't fight back… This is your battle. Your war. You must fight it. For yourself and for me, your own sister… I won't be around forever. Not with cancer like this," Gulia said, stopping in front of a mirror. She pulled her cap back to examine her exposed scalp, a consequence of her disease. "You must protect what we have, before it's too late." This was difficult for Gina to swallow. She moved to get off the bed, thinking about all the times her sister had been there for her, even in her illness.

"What if… What if I've got it just like they said I could. Fifty-fifty, remember?" Gina swallowed her nausea down, refusing to be scared by a possibility. Gulia pulled the knit cap back down over her forehead and turned around to face her twin.

"Gina," Gulia said softly. "Gina, you know it's my dream to see the day our 'parents' are punished for what they've done… Are you going to deny me of what will most likely be my last wish?" Gulia watched her words sear the skin of her sister's face as the expression turned from melancholy wonder to tortured pondering. Gina's eyes welled up with tears until they spilled over onto her sharp cheekbones. "I rely on you just as much as you rely on me," Gulia said. "Don't let me down, Gina… What do you say?" Gina rose from the bed, wiping her face. She walked over to her sister and stood there, looking her in the eyes.

She said, "No more abuse." With a strong handshake, Gulia smiled faintly at her suffering sister, producing a knife from the top dresser drawer.

"Let's go get 'em, tiger." Gulia stepped aside and gestured gracefully for Gina to pass into the dark hallway. Gina padded quietly down the mahogany floor in her socks, holding the knife unsurely in front of her. The darkness in the hallway was broken when someone came stomping into the den, switching the light on as they passed.

"Marley," Gina's father said from the kitchen doorway. "Don't be like this. You know she's our daughter just the same. We have to stay calm and accept this as it is."

"She can't accept it. Why should I?" his wife cried from the sofa of the living room. "She's not alive to me anymore!" Gina turned back to look at Gulia, who was following closely behind her. Gulia held her hand up- a signal for Gina to stay put. She did as was suggested, keeping her eyes on the twin.

"Remember," Gulia whispered, "I put some… 'medications' into their drinks… It won't be long." Gina hadn't known this had happened from the start, but she went along with the plans, anyway. In the moments that followed, more crying came from the den, but Gina couldn't understand it, no matter how hard she tried. She gave up on trying to listen in on the conversation, and when she got a prompt from Gulia in the silence, she proceeded to walk cautiously into the den. On the sofa, the couple lay together, fast asleep, the wife in the dear husband's arms.

"Gulia," Gina whimpered, "I can't… You do it." Gina turned around, but Gulia was still in the hall's doorway, leaning against the doorframe with a forlorn look on her face. As Gina stared back, Gulia made a point of coughing one of her sickly coughs, which successfully played on Gina's guilt. With a knot in her disturbed stomach, Gina turned back to her sleeping parents, still feeling the chains that they had fastened around her ankles through years of inflicting pain. Gulia's easy, slow, footsteps approached Gina as she slit the throat of the passive father figure on leaf-green couch. Gina opened her eyes to the long sought-out fruit of her suffering, and surprisingly to her, she felt a great weight lifted.

"Gina," Gulia said as her sister began to turn around, feeling satisfied already, "there is still one half left to the prison that you are stuck in." She pointed a long, pale finger at the dreaming woman on the couch. Gina slowly turned back to the sofa, her eyes seeing solely the main villain in this long, repetitive saga.

"No more abuse," Gina said as she plunged the dull butcher's knife into the chest of her mother. With a grand start, the woman awoke, gurgling and trying unsuccessfully to scream. The life being drained from her was pouring into Gina directly, and she felt no shortage of the ecstacy.

"You're doing great, Gulia," the twin said, giving her sister a pat on the back.

"I'm Gina!" Gina cried out with a laugh, her red hands still wrapped around that knife. "Not Gulia!"

"No," Gulia said, releasing her firm grip on her sister's shoulder. "We're both Gulia."