Welcome to Gaia! ::

Christrose woke up to the same drab surroundings that she'd been stuck in for the last few days. Heavy footsteps thundered towards her and she quickly checked her violin's condition.

"You," a man's voice said.

"Good day, Mr. Corbolo," she said respectfully, getting off the cot and standing up.

"You have a visitor," he said, and stormed back out the cell.

"Rose? Are you ok?" a quiet voice much like hers said, coming into the poorly lit room.

"I'm fine. How's my mom?"

"I still can't convince her to bring you back," Peony said, sitting on the floor next to Christrose. "I think Steven has throughly convinced her that I'm you."

"Oh."

"Anyways, school starts in about a week...how do you plan on going?"

"I'm locked up in here," came the sad reply. "You'll have to go in my stead."

"Maybe we could swap places during school hours or something? He can't keep you in here for forever..."

"Are you done yet?" Steven Corbolo's voice shouted at them.

"Go. We'll figure something out."

"Take care, sis." Peony looked sad, but followed Steven out the cell and out the office.

Once out the office she unfolded the list she'd made of necessary supplies and headed for the shops to find the things that couldn't be found around the house.

Delighted squeals from across the hall shocked Peony out of a scrutiny of different brands of rosin. "Rose's friends! That pink-haired girl is in college though I remember...erm...

"Danica! Mariah!" she placed the names and made her selections quickly before hurrying across. Maybe they would be able to help her with this new dilemma.

UGH! Neti thought, turning to see who this new friend was. Why did she have to have such a stupid name?

"Hi!" she greeted, feigning happiness. Oh right. The music addict. The one who's mom is insane or something. Always blubbering nonsense. Jeez, leave us along and go play your stupid instrument or something.

Mariah looked up as well, surprised. "What?"

"Actually," Peony blushed a little, "I'm Peony. I'm her double."

She shifted the bag with the music book and rosin to her other hand and wondered how to explain her situation. Not suspecting, she hugged Danella as well.

"Basically my original is on death row now, because her creator wants to replace her with me and marry our mother. Besides getting her out though--I wouldn't know how to do that anyways--we're trying to figure out how to deal with school, which is starting soon. Any suggestions?"

After Peony left, Steven brought a tray of leftover food from the cafeteria.

"I would like it if your mother would just hurry up and sign the contracts," he huffed, waiting for her to eat. "You're such a nuisance."

"You didn't have to kidnap me," she muttered, finishing.

"Shut up, wrech!" he retorted, snatching the tray. With his free hand he struck her, then aimed a well-placed kick with his pointed shoes at her skinny figure.

He marched out, leaving her clutching her waist in pain.

((Sorry, are these colors really hard to read?))

Peony was rather shocked. She'd never met another double before, and was still confused as to why they hated their originals so much.

"Because it's still her life," she replied, confusion evident. "I wasn't necessary. Her mother didn't even ask for a double. I was created as a present from the man courting our mother, half out of flattery, half out of jealousy."

She thought of it for a moment, reaching into her artificial memories and then added quietly, "Are your originals pure evil?"

Thinking she was telling the truth, Peony apologized confusedly. "Sorry," she said meekly. "Why wouldn't you want my original to come back then?"

"Oh," Peony muttered, thinking this over. "That's what mom said." Almost without thinking, she mused aloud, "She said Christrose was too much like her ex-boyfriend, always studying, always practicing, always doing community service projects to be very social. And he did end up ditching her..."

A moment passed for her in silence, and she asked instead, "Still, even if I can't get her back, I need help. You see, I don't have all of her memories. I know only a few of her friends, and I only have her academic knowledge. Until our mom consents to keeping me and killing her, I'm stuck as a nearly memory-less creature...

"Actually, the only real memory I have is having my mind warped to input knowledge quickly."

In his office early again, Lewis sipped his coffee hurriedly and resumed typing furiously on the computer. Business was flourishing, and he had hundreds of profiles to update. He was getting a few orders from out of the country, and would probably need to hire a translator to help process those. Bemoaning the small number of employees he'd hired for the company (all extremely able and talented for efficiency), he wondered why he hadn't thought to hire a secretary. He paused to rifle through a sheaf of papers on his desk, stopping at the last page in the stack. It was okay, he relaxed, he had a vice president to do these things for him.

Danica sighed. "I haven't seen her since I was replaced." She said sadly and hit the wall with her fist.

Danella smiled. "Of course. We must help her. Peony, dear you have to understand you are better."