"STOP IT!" A woman's voice rang out through the crowd.
Yet the two men fighting didn't stop.
"DAVID, GOLIATH! STOP THIS NONSENSE!"
Tears began to pour down Julie's freckled cheeks. Her black hair and skin of the same colour burned hot in the sun.
"No!" David punched Goliath in the face. "Not until I prove my love!"
Goliath retaliated with a punch to David's face.
She hated this—her friends fighting over her for no reason at all. She didn't understand why. Why? Can't they be together just like when they were younger?
"Please," her voice rang out much quieter. Yet the crowd drowned her plea in cheers.
Julie kept crying softly until someone touched her on her shoulder. She turned around. It was a man with straight blue eyes, combed hair, and skin of the same colour as hers.
"Julie, let's go. I have been looking for you all over the whole town."
Julie nodded slowly. "Alright, Stefan..."
Both Julie and Stefan left. When the crowd caught a glimpse of Julie walking away with another man, they started booing her.
"Julie, as your brother, I can't keep letting you hang out with those two idiots."
"But—"
"No buts. David and Goliath know exactly what I told them. Yet they keep going without trying to be reasonable," Stefan kept talking, while Julie stopped crying, and she just looked at her brother.
He looks weird.
They kept walking through the barky streets. Stefan wouldn't stop his yapping session while Julie remained quiet. After a while, they passed by a girl lowballing a merchant in hopes of getting a cheaper sandwich.
Something is wrong with Stefan; he doesn't really talk like this.
Once the two of them reached their house, no one waited for them, since the two of them have been orphans for as long as they could remember.
Stefan took off his shoes. "I left you some porridge in the kitchen. Also, cut an orange, eat something. You look pale." Stefan left Julie to go to his room.
Once Stefan left, Julie went into her kitchen. A bowl of porridge awaited her. She took a spoon, and she started eating. It was good, but something felt wrong.
Stefan doesn't make porridge, ever. What is going on?
After finishing her meal, she pondered for a while about what really happened to her brother. She opened his door slowly, and what awaited her was Stefan sleeping.
She stared in horror at Stefan's combed hair. It was combed to the left, instead of the right.
Julie backed up slowly, so as not to wake up her "brother". But she tripped, and Stefan woke up.
"Julie?"
Her face paled. "I-I... yes?"
"You alright?" Stefan asked her in a groggy voice.
"YES! I am fine."
Julie got up and ran to her room. For the next few hours, she tried to calm herself, to make herself think all of it was in her head. Yet it didn't work.
"I am going to die if I remain here any longer."
With sneaky steps, she left her house without waking up her "brother".
She felt awful, but she knew who would help make her feel better. David and Goliath have been friends for so long. She wandered the streets for a while; some hours passed without anything fruitful coming along. Then she remembered that both David and Goliath are probably at the bar.
And so she went there.
After a bit of walking through the barky roads, she stood in front of the bar.
Splat.
A few raindrops started falling from the sky.
Once inside, she found both David and Goliath laughing and talking with each other.
"Hey, uh—" She stood behind them, yet her words were interrupted because of what David said.
Both of them clanked their glasses. "To us! And to forgetting that skank Julie!"
Goliath started laughing. "I couldn't agree more. Let's forget that bitch."
Splat, splat.
This time it was her tears, not the rain outside.
The bartender laughed with the two of them also. "Ah, these things never get old. You want two golden shots of nature, icy? Or something el—"
Yet Julie couldn't hear them anymore, so she ran outside.
Fakes.
The rain started pouring harder and harder.
Impostors.
She started walking.
I don't know these people.
They have been replaced.
As she walked through the streets, people she once knew looked like nothing more than impostors. Tears began to mingle with the rain.
"What did I do to deserve this?"
Her feet came to a stop when she saw something weird. A man dancing like his life depended on it. He moved wildly and without purpose.
Another fake.
As she kept walking, she saw a girl who looked familiar. Maybe she saw her somewhere before? That girl was crying and clutching a sword. But after a moment, she realised that it didn't matter.
Everyone she once knew, everyone that mattered to her, everyone who had been in her life turned out to be nothing more than a cheap imitation. She didn't know what to do. If she went back home, the impostor in her house would definitely kill her. If she went back to David and Goliath... no, she wouldn't go back to them. Because the real them don't speak like that. Especially towards her.
As Julie walked, someone stopped in front of her—a hooded man clutching a bag with ten golden coins. She just stared at him. Another one.
"Interesting," two voices rang out from the same body.
Julie's eyes widened, and she took a step back. She was ready to run.
"Fear not, we bring no harm."
"W-why are there two voices?"
The man took off his hood, and two heads stared back at her. "We are conjoined twins. We are Cain and Abel."
If Julie had something in her hand at that moment, it would've definitely been on the ground by now. She pointed her finger towards them.
"You are fake!"
"We are not; we are the most real there is. We have been abandoned at birth. Even if one of us is fake, the other one would be real."
Julie thought about it for some moments. Yes, she hadn't seen someone that looked like this in her whole life. But his words made sense in a way.
"Are you lost?"
"I-I am. Everyone that I knew disappeared. They don't act like they once did. Something happened in this village, and I am scared I will die if I remain here any longer."
Cain and Abel held out their hands to her. "Then let us guide you to a safer place."
"Where?"
"The Palace of Illusions. That is the home we watch over."
Julie didn't know what to do. She didn't want to walk off with a stranger to a place that only fairy tales talk about. Yet a "maybe" for living is much better than a "not".
And so, Julie took their hands.
The rain sealed their pact.