"It's time to answer some questions, Ruby," I announced, taking a seat on the couch. The leather sighed under me as I sank into it. She looked up from her magazine, eyebrows arched, eyes gleaming with that amused, slightly dangerous look I'd come to know too well.
"Oh?" she said, closing the glossy pages and setting it neatly on the coffee table. "Another interrogation?"
The afternoon sunlight poured through the curtains, striking her hair and scattering soft reflections across the room. It gave her a halo, unfairly angelic, especially for someone who had spent half of yesterday deliberately driving me insane. I swallowed hard. It wasn't fair that she could look like that—calm, teasing, perfect.
She adjusted her spectacles, and I nearly cursed under my breath. Damn those glasses. They made her look scholarly, mature, and far too tempting. Her mouth curved at the corner, as if she knew exactly what was going through my mind.
Argh. What am I even thinking?
It's not the time to think about these things.
I straightened, tapping a small notebook against my thigh to distract myself. "Yes. Questions. Let's not get distracted this time."
I've noted down everything she's said to me up to this point in this small notebook.
Ruby tilted her head, gaze sliding lazily over me. "Since yesterday," she said, her voice husky with laughter, "this is the only thing we've been doing apart from..." She paused, letting silence fill in the word before finishing softly, "sex."
My cheeks flamed. Ruby, of course, found my reaction delightful. "Tell me, do you like that balance?" she continued. "During sex, I'm the one in command. Afterwards, you take charge and interrogate me like a detective. It's... cute."
Her tone made "cute" sound almost like a challenge.
"Can you simply answer them?" I muttered, trying not to meet her eyes.
She stretched, her blouse shifting dangerously. "Anything for you, honey. Ask away."
I clicked my pen open, pretending to find my composure in the sound. "Fine. First question—how did you know that I am not the original Sharon?"
Ruby smirked, "Honey, I worked for those bastards. I have seen plenty of people like you in my task-worker days. Then again, I am not sure if... you are anything like them." Her eyes flashed dangerously. "You are not from the ABO world... something similar, but I can't quite place my finger on it."
ABO?
No, I am not technically an omega. I am something like an omega. I am a descendant from the lines of elves, which is the reason for the omega-like properties in me.
"I am an elven descendant," I said.
Ruby gave me a mocking smile. "Your information is incorrect," she said.
"What? I have—"
"Sharon, I have seen plenty of elves. They are completely different from omegas."
"But—"
"No, Sharon." Her eyes hardened. "You are something different—I don't know but you are not an elven descendant."
I tilted my head in confusion. "Why?" I asked her.
Ruby ran her hand over her hair, looking into my eyes with a pointed look. "You feel like a human, yet you don't. That's how I knew that you weren't original Sharon," she said.
My eyes trembled at her words. With a deep breath, I said, "Ruby, there is something you should know—maybe it will help you to understand my situation properly."
Ruby nodded, "Very well, tell me. I want to know everything."
For a moment, I asked myself if I was doing the right thing by telling her the truth, even though we are nothing but sex-partners. But then I remembered, Ruby has answered all of my questions until now. There is some amount of trust between the two of us.
"I am the original Alex." My eyes came out suddenly, without having a single shred of doubt in them. "I have lived three lives, if I count this one. But in my first life, I was Alex."
Ruby shook her head, and sighed deeply. "You can't be the original Alex as well. Your aura is different from them—from me—from every person that I have crossed paths with—from all of us."
"But... how? How can this be?!" I yelled, standing up from the couch. Panic was evident on my face. "Ruby, you are joking? Right? Please tell me that you are joking? Please?"
Ruby gave me a sympathetic look. "You can't be the original Alex. If you were, this world would have been different. I chose this world because it's safe for me to hide." She removed her spectacles. "If you were the original Alex, I am sure someone from The Bureau... or some other agency would have sent someone to kill you. The script of this world says that Alex is the focal point of this world—the centre. The protagonist. You are something else, Sharon. The only reason that you are still alive because somehow no one knows about your existence."
Tears poured down my eyes as I collapsed onto the cold floor. My knees hit the marble, the sound sharp enough to echo through the quiet room. Ruby immediately stood up, the magazine forgotten, and rushed to me. Without hesitation, she gathered me into her arms, holding me as if I were something fragile that might shatter completely if she let go.
"What... a-am I... then?" I stuttered, gripping her arm so tightly my nails probably dug into her skin. "Am I-I... s-supposed to be... a mistake? What a-about... m-my s-struggles? My h-hardships? Am I-I meaningless?"
"Shush," Ruby whispered, voice shaking slightly despite her calm tone. "Don't cry. Sharon, please stop."
But I couldn't stop. I didn't even know how to.
The world spun around me—too bright, too loud, too real. My heart pounded against my ribs like it was trying to escape, and my throat burned with the sting of words I could no longer hold back.
I had doubts.
Doubts about my identity.
But deep down, I wished those doubts were wrong.
Because if Ruby was right... then everything I'd ever believed about myself was nothing but a lie wrapped in memory.
"Everything I knew..." My voice cracked. "...was false."
I wanted to dismiss her words as nonsense, a cruel misunderstanding. But I couldn't. There was no deceit in those eyes, only seriousness—genuine, raw seriousness. Ruby wasn't lying. That was what terrified me the most.
My lip trembled. "Who am I?" I asked, the question hanging between us like a ghost. "Alex? Sharon? Or someone else? Who...?"
Ruby didn't answer. She didn't need to; her silence was louder than any word she could've spoken.
"What am I?!" I screamed suddenly, struggling out of her arms. "A-am I... just a cosmic mistake?! An o-orphan abandoned at birth?! A... h-human... or something that never should've existed in the first place?" I pressed both hands to my temples, sobs wracking through me. "I h-have... no identity of my o-own... I am not Sharon! I am not Alex! Then who am I? Fucking who?!"
The air in the room thickened, heavy with silence and the faint hum of the afternoon. Dust danced lazily in a beam of sunlight, indifferent to our chaos. I felt it—the smallness of myself, the vastness of the unknown pressing in on me.
Even when I became Sharon for the first time, I didn't feel helpless. But this time... I am feeling helpless.
Utterly helpless.
Ruby moved slowly this time, kneeling beside me again. She didn't rush to speak. She simply placed a trembling hand on my cheek, brushing away a tear that refused to stop falling.
"You're not a mistake," she said softly, finally finding her voice. "You're... something more. Something even I don't fully understand yet."
I looked up at her through blurred vision. The sunlight framed her like some kind of silent guardian, all warmth and sorrow. "Then tell me," I whispered. "Tell me what I am."
Ruby hesitated. Her lips parted as if to answer, but all that came out was a sigh. She looked down, struggling, as if the truth itself weighed too much to voice.
"You can't... answer, can you?"
"This isn't the end, Sharon," she said at last, and her voice carried a strange tenderness that broke me even more. "You'll find the answer. We will find it—together."
Her words wrapped around me like a promise, but my heart still ached with disbelief. Together. But what if the truth destroyed everything between us?
She leaned closer, pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead. "Don't worry, Sharon," she murmured. "We'll find the answer. No matter what it is."
Answer?
What answer?
I don't think I can find anything.
If someone like Ruby didn't know what I am, then who would?