After following her uncle to the mogue she returned to the house, the house she had grown in the house she had lost her mom now she have also lost her father,as she stepped into the mansion it felt different now—colder, quieter, almost hollow without his presence. As Lilly stepped inside, she was greeted by the familiar scent of polished wood and old leather, but there was an emptiness that seemed to echo through the halls. She took a deep breath, steadying herself as she began to move arround, each step stirring up memories she had long tried to forget.
Her first stop was the dining room. She ran her fingers along the surface of the table, remembering the countless meals shared there. Some had been lively, filled with laughter and chatter, while others had been strained and silent. But the memories that came rushing back were of the early years, just after her mother had died. She had been only five, and her father had taken it upon himself to cook for them. The meals had been terrible—undercooked, over-salted, or just plain odd combinations of flavors. She smiled despite herself. He had tried so hard, his face always wearing a look of determination as he set down another failed dish.
She could still see him now, standing at the stove, attempting to master a recipe from one of her mother's old cookbooks. "How's that taste, Lilly?" he would ask, only for her to screw up her face and push the plate away. "Guess I'm not quite there yet," he'd mutter, forcing a chuckle. She could hear the pain in his voice even then, the loss that lingered in every meal, the vacuum her mother left
was heavy for him even more heavier as he tries to make her not to feel that vacuum.
Shaking off the bittersweet memory, Lilly left the dining room behind and wandered into the living room. The big flat-screen TV dominated the wall, just as it always had. Her father had loved his news programs, though he never watched them passively. He was always critiquing the reports, grumbling about bias or how governments and powerful figures manipulated the stories to fit their own narratives. It was one of the reasons she had become an investigative journalist—to seek the truth buried beneath the polished headlines.
"Wonder if he still watched the news, even with me in it," she murmured to herself. The thought sent another sharp sting through her chest, a reminder of the distance that had grown between them, the distance that could have been shortened only if she had just kept her pride aside and visited him even if it was just a day.
She sank into the leather sofa, hoping to find some of the familiar comfort it once gave her. But instead, all she found was the memory of their last argument, which had unfolded in this very spot. She could still see the look of disappointment on his face, his jaw clenched as he tried to make her understand his perspective. "Lilly, you don't know what you're getting yourself into," he had said, his tone sharp with frustration. "This kind of work... it's dangerous. You could be doing anything else." But she had stood her ground, as always, telling him that this was her calling, that she wasn't going to walk away just to make him feel better. Thinking about it now she couldn't believe that there last conversation was an argument filled with disagreement that lead her to leave home.
A sob broke from her lips, and she buried her face in her hands. The pain of that memory was fresh, raw. She cried until there were no tears left, until her chest felt hollow. Then she sat back, wiping her eyes. Her father's voice echoed in her mind, a memory from when she was a teenager. She had fallen off her bike and scraped her knee, crying loudly in the middle of the street. "Baby, don't cry in public. You're a big girl now." He had lifted her up and brushed the dirt off her knees, his expression firm yet gentle. Even then, he had tried to teach her to be strong, to hold back her tears.
A faint smile touched her lips. Absentmindedly, her hand traced the shallow grooves in the arm of the sofa. She felt a small, hard object beneath the fabric. It brought a familiar memory—a mischievous grin spread across her face. Her father used to hide the TV remote control batteries in the edges of the sofa when he wanted to make sure she finished her homework before watching cartoons. "Old habits," she whispered.
But as she dug her hand deeper into the narrow crevice, she didn't find batteries. Instead, her fingers wrapped around something unexpected— She pulled it out, "a flash drives", staring at it in her palm, her brows knitting together in confusion. Why would there be a flash drive hidden here?
It wasn't like her father to be careless with things like this. And if he had hidden it, then maybe... just maybe, it was something important. Something he hadn't wanted anyone else to find.
A chill ran down her spine as she turned the small device over in her hand. It seemed so out of place in a house filled with memories of the past. Yet, somehow, she knew that whatever was on it might just be the key to understanding the secrets her father had taken to the grave.
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