Another Lie (1)

Years flew by and Abbe was in the middle of his high school years.

"Dad I would like to introduce my girlfriend Lilith."

"Pleasure to meet you, I'm Abbe's father but you can call me Memo."

"A pleasure to meet you as well sir," Lilith states with a bright smile on her face.

"I have somewhere I need to be so I'll just Abbe to treat you well." Placing the headphones around his neck he walks out the front door after hearing goodbyes from both Lilith and Abbe.

"Where is your mother?" Lilith wondered out loud,

Abbe frowned, reluctant to answer. They stood in silence for moments before he answered, "I don't know, never met her."

"What do you know about her?"

"Very little, only a project from back in elementary school."

"Let's try and find her." She suggested.

"Huh?"

"Let's go find your mother." Her eyes like the aurora lights,

"No, if she wanted me to know her she would have come to meet me herself."

"Can you truly accept such a fate?" She tempted,

Abbe didn't reply. Him not replying was a show of emotions in and of itself.

"Let's go. We have to start at the beginning. Do you still have the story from your childhood?"

Abbe nodded and led her to his room and took out a dust-free and creased piece of paper from his dresser. Lilith read it over and with a smile shook her head, "This is all a lie. Every word of it is likely a lie, expect few parts."

"I expected as such. Never wished to admit it though." Abbe confessed with a hung head.

"From the looks of yourself and Memo, I would assume the lines of her being beautiful are true. Your father has brown hair and green eyes contrary to your blond hair and blue eyes. Your body shapes are completely different yourself being slim and tall, while he is much more naturally athletic and broad. It's almost like he isn't your father." Lilith explained.

Abbe laid on his head his eyes staring at the white ceiling. When he spoke his voice was soft and slow almost distant, "He may be a liar but he is my father."

Lilith was saddened at hearing how he spoke with such a hesitant-esique voice but spoke words of strong conviction. "Okay let's use the information we have to find some kind of clues about your mother."

"How do we do that when we know my father's words to be lies?" Abbe pondered his gaze still held by the ceiling.

"Your father is an author, so we have to take his words like we would a child narrator. Everything may be lies but there is a form of truth behind them." She elaborated,

Sitting up Abbe smiled taking the paper in hand, "I believe you're right. Okay, let's start at the beginning. We can assume he was a bad student from the opening words, I don't think he was in college though."

She nodded in agreement, "How many colleges require a student to go to tutoring? He went to a local small liberal arts college as well and from when I was looking they didn't seem like those types of professors."

"He may have been in high school."

"That would be my guess as well. Does he still have a yearbook around?"

Abbe took a thinker position as recreated the house in his head. He almost believed there wasn't till he thought back to his dad's kitchen cabinets. "1996 behind the cookbooks in the top left cabinet." He replied with a bright smile to which Lilith returned. Neither of them spoke as they bolted down the stairs and looked where Abbe remembered and when they pushed away the cookbooks the yearbook was there plain as day.

Abbe looked at Lilith with reluctant eyes to which she nodded and took the book out for him. They sat on the sofa and flipped through the pages. As they flipped through the pages they found one photo and name scribbled out. From what they could predict that was Abbe's mother. There were a few others who stood out to them but each of them had a reason for them to be crossed out of the list. One had blond hair but no blue eyes, blue eyes but no blond hair, and one who fit the bill but wore braces, headphones, and glasses. To put a cherry on top they would also define her as ugly or not good looking at best. They thought it might have been her but there was too much noise with the objects to get a clear idea even when placed side by side.

"Your father has gone a long way to hide traces of your mother."

"There must be more to the story we are missing."

"Maybe the evil people aren't a lie..." Lilith pondered out loud.

"Let's see if my father always had the same body shape."

They looked for Abbe's father but found no one with the name Memo, but they did find someone remarkably similar to Memo with the same last name, Morte Curtail.

The two were in disbelief, this temptation had brought down a rabbit hole they saw no end to. A person crossed out, a father with a new name, a past that is a lie. They knew that had gone too deep but they were already too deep to fill the whole back up and forget about it. They would instead continue to dig and see where they ended up.

They brought out their phones and searched the name Morte Curtail and the name of his high school. There were no results which was more freaky than if something had shown up.

"There is someone very powerful blocking everyone from knowing the truth," Lilith stated.

Abbe just nodded in agreement. The two sat in silence for a long while unsure of where to go now. This was broken when the front door was thrown open and was followed by a shout, "Morte I thought I told you to burn the book!"

Neither of them replied the house drifted to a deadly silence. Soon another shout followed, "Morte answer me! Where is the book?"

Their footsteps were loud and in rhythm like a march of a thousand soldiers. The man made his way to the living room where Lilith and Abbe were but only Abbe was still within sight. "You! Kid! Where is Morte?"

"No one by that name lives here only my father, Memo and myself." Abbe acted ignorant of the truth.

"You trying to pull a fast one?" The man exclaimed.

"Sir I think you need to calm down," Abbe suggested walking towards the man.

"You need to start telling the truth! Where is Morte! Or better yet where is the book!" The man bellowed meeting Abbe's stride.

"I. Don't. Know."

The man didn't hesitate and grabbed Abbe by the neck. "I'm going to give you one last chance. Where is the book?" The man demanded.

Abbe remained silent. The tension between the two growing by the second. Abbe's eyes were resolute towards his ignorance not showing weakness even towards the idea of death.

Neither of the two were willing to give in and after an extended period of time, neither of them needed to. Lilith couldn't stand the pressure and threw the book at the man.

"Here take it. Let Abbe go." Tears running down her cheeks.

"It seems you have a good girlfriend." The man praised before dropping Abbe and picking the book up off the ground. Lilith rushed over and held Abbe in her arms afraid of any injuries done to him.

Walking out he bellowed, "Forget everything you both know because the fate I will return to you if you look into this again is one worse than death."