This is an updated version of the last post that was removed by the mods for not being complete enough, so if you have already read the original part 2, don’t skip this one, there’s new important stuff, You can read from where it says “updated”.
Hi everyone,
I’m going to start by answering a few questions I’ve been asked and talk about what I found online before explaining what happened these last few hours…
So, I saw some people suspecting that “Le Passage” might be a moment where Mom and Dad have sex with us to make us become grownups. I have a hard time believing that’s what’s happening since my parents are not very open to questions about sex, excepts about animals. I know how it works but not much more than this. Also, I mean, I can’t imagine them doing this to us, they’re our parents. Even though, I admit that Marie’s look to me when she told me to leave makes me question everything…
About romantic relationships, they told us that we may find someone one day for who we’ll start having feelings. We would then make babies with them. Someone pointed out that it would be hard for us to meet anyone given the fact that we were isolated from the rest of the world. I got to admit that it did cross my mind a few times in the past, but I didn’t dare to actually ask Mom and Dad about it. I always figured we would eventually meet people…
My siblings and I don’t have obvious physical similarities, which I found out should be the case apparently. Some of us have the same hair color, eyes color, and we’re all white, but I can’t say that one of us actually looks like another in an obvious way.
I found out online that people being pregnant are supposed to have a large belly, which my mom never had. Is it something that always happens?
I didn’t see any of the big factories my parents kept telling us about, and where almost everyone was supposedly working, so I guess it was a lie. I did find big factories on the internet, but it doesn’t seem to be everywhere, plus, I saw many people whose work wasn’t in factories, like the man running the internet café.
There seems to be other things in my daily life that isn’t normal, like the night outside. Basically, when one of us did something that Mom and Dad considered dangerous, like going too far into the woods (if they couldn’t hear us scream from the house, we were too far), asking too many questions about stuff they already answered or other things, you would spend the night tied by the neck to a post outside of the house. They would leave you a big blanket, but they said it was to teach us about what it would be like to be without your family, because by doing what we did, we were putting the family in danger. Vincent and Marie, my two older siblings would also spend the night outside times to times, but Mom and Dad never told us what they did.
Someone here told me not to approach some place called Waffle House in the comments of my last post. If it’s some sort of joke, I don’t get it, because I looked it up, it looks nice.
Before I get into it, happy birthday to me. I am now officially 17. I find some comfort in the fact that I didn’t have to go through “Le Passage”.
Anyway, here’s what happened lately…
Some of you told me to at least look for a shelter to sleep in, so I did just that. I ended up finding one where I got to finally sleep in a real bed again. It felt so good. There was a lot of other people, but not many were my age.
So, first night was really nice. Then, the next day, yesterday, I was leaving the shelter to go to the internet café, and the man at the entry asked me to wait before leaving because he had a few questions for me. I was terrified, but I chose to stay and answer, because where could I run?
He was surprisingly nice. He offered me something called a “chocolat chaud” , which tasted amazing, before getting into the questions.
He asked me my name, to which I answered some fake name that I don’t even remember, I think it was Amelie or something. He told me not to worry if I was in any kind of trouble and asked me if I needed to go back home to my parents. He must have seen my face when he mentioned them because he immediately said “Okay, no parents then”. I was relieved.
I finally had the courage to talk to him and said that I just needed a place to sleep for a little while, and that I wouldn’t be a problem, I promised him. He looked embarrassed but he agreed to let me go for the day, making me promise that I would come back when the evening starts.
So, I spent the day at the internet café, looking up stuff about the outside world. I have to admit, after talking with you people and searching information about different topics, the outside world started to seem a bit less dangerous and sad that what I’ve been told.
At the end of the day, I realized that I was going to run out of money soon, but I needed to be able to keep having access to the internet, so I looked up some things and found that if I had a smartphone, which I found out was something most people own, that had access to 4G, I could stay on the internet without the internet café. So, I went to the man running the café and asked him something like: “Hello, do you have a smartphone?”. He answered that he did have one, and he seemed amused by my question. I then asked, “Does it have 4G?”. He said yes and so I asked him: “Can I have it? I need it to be able to access the internet without having to pay for it?”. The look he had after I said it made me realize I probably still had a lot to learn about social cues and interactions, because he didn’t seem really open to giving it to me. He started raising his voice a bit and I don’t remember what he told me, just that his change of tone really scared me, so I just grabbed his smartphone and ran out of the café.
I am now posting from this exact smartphone.
I didn’t had to run much to escape from him, he was pretty fat and old, it’s the first time I saw someone this old, it was funny. I laughed on my way back to the shelter, thinking about all the rules from home I was breaking, and I thought about the face all my siblings were going to make when they learn about what I did. That thought was a hard come back to reality. I still had no idea how to contact my siblings, and even less how to help them.
I eventually got back to the shelter. The nice man who served me “chocolat chaud” earlier that day was waiting for me at the entrance. He thanked me for keeping my promise to come back, and asked me to follow him, as he still had more questions to ask him. When we entered his office, there was two men dressed in what I recognized as police uniforms waiting for us.
I stopped. I couldn’t move. I remembered the note that Marie left in my skirt: “No cops”. The nice man from the shelter saw my face and told me not to be afraid, that these people were here to help me, and that whatever was happening to me, they’ll help us fix it. One of the two men took a step in my direction and asked me: “Are you Juliet?”
My legs moved faster than my mind and I started running towards the exit. They weren’t supposed to know my name, I told the man from the shelter that my name was Amélie.
I ran as fast as possible. My mind was repeating that I escaped my parents, so I could escape the cops. But these cops were way faster than me, so I didn’t get far. They caught me very easily.
Next thing I knew, I was in a car with the two cops. At that point, I was sure I was finished. I was going to be back home.
I started crying, like I never cried before.
Then one of the cops asked me if I needed to drink. As much as I wanted to show them that I was strong and not scared of them, I accepted the bottle of water that was handed to me and finished it in a minute. I was very thirsty.
Then they told me we were going to the police station, because someone had asked them to find me. I was getting ready to see Mom or Dad waiting for me at the station.
When we arrived, it was night. They took me inside and we walked down a hallway. We went through a few doors and eventually we stopped in front of one. One of the cops waited with me and the other one went to the door and slightly opened it. He asked to someone inside:” Is she ready? She’s there.”. Then he told me I could come. I walked to the door, slowly. Each step I took felt like a surrender.
I entered the room.
Inside of it, was neither Mom, nor Dad. There was a black window, a table, a few chairs, a woman standing and looking at me, and sitting in one of the chairs, there was Marie. I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was dusty, she looked tired, and her clothes seemed to have stains of dry blood on them. But I didn’t care. As we looked at each other, our faces lit up. I went to her, and she went to me. We hugged, I don’t even remember for how long, and we both cried, but this time, it was tears of joy.
When we eventually stopped hugging, I asked her why she was there, where were the others, but the cops started pulling me outside of the room. She didn’t have much time to answer me so she just told me to trust the cops, that we would see each other soon, and that she loved me.
I was outside of the room again. I started begging the cops to let me back in. They told me that Marie had to answer a lot of questions before seeing me again, and that we both needed to rest too. They took me to a room with a bed and a shower. It was warm. They left me some new clothes to wear and told me that after my shower they’ll bring me a real meal, and I asked them if there could be “chocolat chaud” too. They said that they’ll try and left the room, locking it behind them.
I started taking a shower, almost burnt myself to death, then it was like ice, I don’t understand how this shower works at all, but I managed to clean myself, which was well needed, especially since I’ve been having my periods since the day I left so…
I put on my new clothes and knocked on the door. A nice young man came in with a platter full of food and there was a “chocolat chaud”. I ate all of it while he explained to me a few things. He said that he understands that I’ve been through a lot these last few days, that I couldn’t see my sister yet but that I’ll see her again soon, that if I needed something I just had to ask, and that when Marie will have answered all the questions they need, I would have to. He asked me if I understood everything, I said yes, I’m not dumb, and he told me that I should sleep.
As much as I wanted to ask him a thousand questions, I was indeed extremely tired, so I went to sleep.
This was yesterday. I am still at the police station in the same room. I ate a breakfast, and they let me take a walk outside of the building with the nice young man from last night, whose name I learned is Nico. We didn’t get out by where I got in yesterday though. Nico told me it’s because there is a lot of people waiting for me outside the station. This scared me a little, but he explained that they were just journalists. Apparently, these are people that are looking for good stories to write. We talked a bit, I asked questions about the world, it was a nice moment.
UPDATED
A few hours later, I finally got to see Marie again. They let her in my room and closed the door behind. We hugged each other again. And I could finally ask her all the questions I wanted. So, here’s what happened for her after I left…
The night where I left, Dad apparently kept leaving and coming back to the house with the car while Mom was taking care of all our siblings and making sure that none of them think that I ran out from my own will. They both seemed very angry but were trying to hide it from all my siblings.
They kept telling everyone that I was probably lost, and that they would try to find me. Apparently, most of the younger kids were crying and eventually, around 1AM, Mom put everyone to sleep.
But then, later in the night, Marie says she doesn’t know exactly what time it was, she was woken up in the room where she was sleeping with Vincent by Mom, and she told her to get out of bed and follow her. They got outside of the house and Dad was waiting. They looked absolutely enraged. Mom tied Marie by the neck to the post that was used for the night outside, and they asked her where I was. She tried to deny that she said anything to me, but they showed her the note that she had left in my skirt, the ones with the instructions. Apparently, I let it fell from my skirt while running that night and dad found it. They insulted her, hit her, multiple times (she showed me the marks, it’s pretty brutal) and tried to get her to tell them where I was. They must have understood that she really had no idea where I was, so they let her outside, just after giving her a weird pill that they forced her to swallow.
Then the night passed. She woke up the next day to the light of the sun. There wasn’t a sound around the house, which is weird considering how much we were. She says it was like waking up from a long sleep. Then she realized she was covered in blood. She started screaming for Mom, Dad, then all the names from our siblings, but nobody was responding. It took her almost the whole day to finally untie the rope around her neck. When she was free, she got inside of the house, and there was a lot of blood, all around the house. She looked for anyone of our family, but there was nobody.
That’s when she got to her room. On her bed was a small note. It said: “You did this, we don’t need someone like you with us”. She started crying a lot.
She spent the next few days wandering around. She found the same road as I did. She followed it, and was eventually taken by the cops. That’s when she realized they didn’t seem to know our parents or to want to bring her back to them. They simply asked her several questions about us, and our family, and she answered. After some times, she understood that she could trust them, and told them about me, asking them to find me and not hurt me.
When she finished this story, I cried. If what she said is true, it means that all of our siblings were dead, and all because I left. I wanted to ask her what was “Le Passage” and why exactly she told me to run that day, but she answered that she couldn’t tell me yet.
A woman eventually opened the door from my room, and told Marie that it was time to go back to her room. So Marie left.
I was promised that we could see each other again tomorrow, but that I would also have to answer to her questions.
For now, I’m in my room again, trying to make sense of everything she told me.
I’m open to talk, this is probably going to be a long night…