Chapter 6: The Notebook Filled With Failed Plans And Empty Promises

It had taken Emily a while to process the whole thing, and soon, she had come to realise that everything that had happened was more mysterious than she had initially thought.

After settling onto her bed in the room that Ryan had led her to, she began to process everything.

"How did he do it?" she muttered. "It really feels like he performed some sort of magic on me, because that was definitely no ordinary thing."

She tilted her head.

She remembered that the only thing she had done was place her palms on his, and suddenly, she was fine. The pain was gone... Literally everything that had to do with her asthma.

It was unbelievable!

She was still troubled by the curiosity for several moments, so she decided to go to her brother. This time, she was willing to get a proper response rather than just another cunning dismissal.

Ryan was visibly getting prepared to leave the apartment at that time. They had arrived several minutes earlier, but now he was suddenly planning to leave.

Emily had to overlook that because he had never been homebound from the very beginning.

"Emily," Ryan called the moment he noticed her.

"Big Brother. I’ve got something to ask you," Emily said as she approached him.

Ryan’s brows furrowed before he nodded, silently ordering her to go ahead.

"Can you tell me exactly how you managed to get the pain away? And I also want to know if it will come back," she said as she settled on his bed.

Ryan smirked the moment he understood that her curiosity hadn’t been quenched.

"I told you to trust me, Emily. But at the same time, I already knew you wouldn’t rest until you knew what I did," Ryan said as he smiled.

[She’s a very curious person. But don’t take that as something special. The people of Planet Earth are very curious people.]

Soly’s information made Ryan nod.

"It’s impossible for me to overlook it when I know that you are not a priest or some kind of prophet. I also know that you aren’t a magician, Big Brother," Emily said.

"That’s right," Ryan shrugged. "But you know what? That’s going to be a discussion for later."

"When I get back, I’ll tell you what you need to know, okay?"

Emily hesitated for a moment before nodding. She didn’t know if he was trying to dismiss it again, but she honestly couldn’t force him anyway.

...

It was exactly 11:24 AM when Ryan left the apartment, and his direct destination was the old apartment in Mining Street.

The memory fragments had helped him remember that there were some things he had left behind in the room that could still be important to him.

When he arrived there, the room was still as quiet as they had left it, and Ryan made sure he wasn’t wasting time.

He reached out to the old table at the side and opened the drawer. There, he found a small notebook that looked like a diary.

The small black book was already squeezed and old, but when he opened it, he could still clearly see what was written on every page.

This was the main thing that had brought him back here.

A notebook where the former Ryan recorded all his wishes and plans every night after returning from the restaurant while Emily slept.

When Ryan started reading the first set of pages, he became completely drawn in.

"Plans for Emily, my one and only sister..."

"Get Emily proper medical treatment, move her somewhere with clean air because Mining Street air can be toxic, which is not good for her health."

"Get her back into school so she can finish secondary education. Find a good doctor to monitor her health always."

"Save enough money for her university. Buy her a proper phone, new clothes and footwear. Take her somewhere she’s never been, and lastly..."

"Make sure she never worries about rent."

Ryan heaved a long sigh.

He realised he had done a few of these things without even realising it, but it was understandable because these things were emotionally driven.

He knew that it was the right thing to do, but then, the former Ryan had been struggling greatly to keep up with these plans.

It was clear that he hadn’t even accomplished a single one, which highlighted how hard life had been.

"Leave it for me, Ryan," he said before turning to the next pages.

And then, that was when it got more interesting.

"Uncle Gerald’s Record."

That was the title of this part of the book, and Ryan just couldn’t wait to get through it.

"After making all my findings despite the contradictions, I’ve realised that Uncle Gerald manipulated the inheritance documents, took properties belonging to our parents, sold some assets and had even hidden others."

"He’s left us with almost nothing and had used our age and lack of legal knowledge against us."

"Due to our inability to attack his agendas socially and financially, he is getting away with it for now. But once I’m 20 and fully eligible for every national citizenship activity, I’ll make sure I sue him."

"I want him to know that the children he thought were powerless became the people he could never reach."

"And I’ll take back all that he stole from us, and make sure he’s left crawling in the dirt."

Ryan immediately checked the stats and smirked.

[Age: 20.]

"Well, guess what you did when you turned twenty, Ryan... You died," he said to himself.

"You left your sister to die two weeks later, and all these... All these promises became dust," he added.

He then made one last flip to the end of the writeup and saw the last line that hit hard in his heart.

"If I fail, Emily... I’m sorry."

It was a statement that caused a lot of hits to his chest, forcing Ryan to close the notebook instantly.

[Well, Ryan didn’t die anyway.]

Ryan went straight to grabbing the other stuff, including some of the remaining pictures of their parents, ignoring what Soly had said.

But Soly wasn’t done talking.

[He didn’t leave his sister to die two weeks later, either.]

[His soul gave way for another. But his body remained. Now you know what to do to make it happen.]

Once Ryan grabbed all the stuff he had come for, he stepped out of the building.

"Yes. I know what to do."

He boarded a taxi back to the apartment building in a matter of minutes, and once he entered the apartment, he immediately called out for Emily.

She immediately approached him in the living room, where she noticed that he hadn’t returned to settle into the apartment.

He looked like someone who was on the go once again.

"Big Brother."

"Go get dressed. I’m taking you somewhere," Ryan said the moment she stepped in.

And without question, Emily walked away and entered her room.

Within minutes, she walked back into the living room, and they both stepped out of the apartment building.

They boarded a cab again, but this time, they were headed somewhere completely different from Mining Street.

It took a moment before Emily even bothered to ask where they were headed.

"Where are we going, Big Brother?"

And when she did...

Ryan only started with a brief speech.

"You deserve a better life, little sister," he began.

"All these years, we’ve been through so much together, but you have suffered more than I have. I have failed to relieve you of your pain several times, and I haven’t been the brother you wished you had."

"But from now henceforth, I’ll make sure you never lack a thing."