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They snickered. Poor, naïve Amata had no clue what was lurking outside her window. The stranger’s body vibrated with excitement as they watched her from the shadows of the shrubs across from her trailer.
The broad window highlighted every aspect of her face. Her calm, delicate features emphasized her lack of awareness of her surroundings.
The watcher’s fists tightened as Amata’s face lit with joy as she talked on the phone. Seething, their thoughts ran wild with memories of the woman’s betrayal and lies. How come nobody else saw what a treacherous bitch she was? With a deep exhale of the burning smoke, they pushed away the chaotic thoughts and made themselves settle. Watching, waiting, and observing as Amata went about her day.
The more they watched the traitorous woman, the fuzzier their thoughts became. A shot of pain like a sharp blade thrust into their skull and sliced when they tried to remember why they were there. They pressed their fist against their pounding temple, hoping it would relieve the ache.
It was as though someone had altered their memories, scraping away the last six months of their life like a spade turning soil. Yet, despite the cobwebs that shrouded their memory, they could still vividly recall moments of their childhood. Something they’d rather forget.
Who’d wanted to remember being tossed around in the foster care system like an unwanted rag doll? Then there were the struggles of college and trying to find a job that would pay enough to put food on the table and gas in an old pickup.
Fortunately, they’d landed a job with the Fayette Pinewood Studios in Georgia on the last day of classes, thanks to an overheard conversation between two professors at their state college in Tennessee—about the need for cheap writers. They’d thrown themselves into the conversation without hesitation, offering their services. Thank God that paid off with a job offer right away.
They toiled for years before their golden ticket arrived, an assignment to work on a much-anticipated comic-book movie. To work with such an esteemed cast and crew was dreamlike. But all too soon, their joy turned sour when they met the overbearing, award-winning screenwriter Amata. How could everyone else fall for her arrogance?
Then it all came to a head on that fateful day.
The morning started out normal. A meeting to go over the final draft of the script. Then a couple in the group came up with a dumbass idea for the main timeline that all too soon everyone else agreed on.
Here was the chance they’d been looking for all their lives. With firm conviction, they outlined a better way. When they finished, the elite group stared at them before bursting in guffaws and snorts of laughter. All too soon, a heated argument escalated as the group attacked their idea for no reason.
Amata jumped out of her seat with her nose in the air and her hand up. She shut the assholes down, dismissing everyone, and demanded the two of them discuss it in private.
Furious and outraged at how they’d been treated, they hung their head and followed Amata to her private office. Without giving them a chance to defend themselves, she demoted them for no good reason.
She had no right to do that! No one did. It made them even angrier when Amata threw their hard work back in their face, telling them that’s how it’d be from now on.
And what about those bastards… the ones who laughed at their idea? They should face the same consequences! Why did she go out of her way to protect them?
Then, after ruining their life, Amata had the audacity to pat their hand and address them in a patronizing tone.
Her uncaring attitude after destroying their life made them seethe with anger. But they’d show her. They’d find something about Amata to make her reverse her decision. Not only would they get their job back, but they’d also get a promotion and force Amata to beg everyone to see how wrong she’d been.
In the following weeks, they tried to learn as much as possible about Amata. But that turned out to be a lot harder than anticipated.
She was a complex person with a past that remained elusive. There was only basic information available, including a meager Wikipedia article with only two paragraphs about her career.
The more they looked for details about her, the more nothing seemed to be there.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel, they searched through the dark web to see if they could find anything useful. They waded through pages of alien-invasion theories and other nonsense until they stumbled upon a blurry picture and article about her from the early nineties.
The woman looked like Amata, holding a toddler and leaving the courthouse in Carson City, Nevada. The news article was about the new trend of single mothers adopting kids on their own. Even though the photo was fuzzy, it was clear as a bell it was Amata.
Damn woman hadn’t aged in thirty years. Either she had great genes or something else more nefarious was going on.
When they tried to get information on the child, they came up blank. Like the kid never existed. If they didn’t know any better, they’d have thought the whole thing was a figment of some journalist’s imagination.
That’s when the bigger picture hit them. Amata had to have hidden everything about herself, and only someone with something to hide knew how to do that. This was more than just a work issue. She had to have been involved in what happened to them six months ago. Their pulse quickened. Amata’s deception about her identity had to be at the root of every bad thing that happed since then.
Yes… yes. The insidious voice in their head agreed. Blackmailing won’t do. We have to do something else, something drastic. She has to be stopped since she caused it all.
Shaking their head to focus on the here and now, they narrowed their eyes as Amata finish her conversation and put the phone on the table. Watching the woman stare into space made something inside them snap, like a light switch being flicked on. Instead of anger, a strange sense of peace took over. Everything was ready. It was time for the woman to face justice for the good of the world.
Make her suffer. The voice was back.
Yeah, the bitch had to answer for how she treated them.
No simple death for her.
