Elias awoke to the sound of whispers, faint and indistinct. His body ached as though he had been dragged across glass, and his mind felt splintered, as though pieces of it had been removed and rearranged in ways he couldn't comprehend. He wasn't in the field anymore; the suffocating emptiness had been replaced by a dimly lit room.
The room was unfamiliar yet unsettlingly intimate. The walls were lined with bookshelves, but the spines of the books were blank. A single lightbulb dangled from the ceiling, its weak glow flickering like a dying heartbeat. In the corner, there was a mirror, its surface cracked and covered with smudges that seemed to writhe when viewed out of the corner of his eye.
On a small table near the mirror sat the notebook.
It was open to a page Elias didn't remember writing. His handwriting—if it was his—was jagged, almost violent.
"You buried the truth. Now it's digging its way out."
Elias felt bile rise in his throat. The phrase meant nothing and everything at once, its weight pressing down on him like an unseen hand. He reached for the notebook, but as his fingers brushed the page, the mirror in the corner began to hum.
The sound wasn't mechanical; it was organic, almost like breathing. Elias turned slowly, his eyes locking onto the mirror. His reflection stared back at him, but it was wrong. The eyes were too sharp, the mouth curved in a smirk he wasn't making. The reflection raised a hand and placed it against the glass, beckoning.
---
Clara's apartment was silent except for the rhythmic ticking of an old clock she had inherited from her grandmother. She hated the sound but never got rid of it, as if the noise anchored her to something tangible. The photograph of Julien lay on the table, the edges worn from years of handling.
She remembered the last night they had all been together. It had started with laughter, the kind that only comes from a deep, unbreakable bond. But by the end of the night, Julien was gone, and she and Elias were left with the kind of silence that never fades.
Clara poured herself another glass of whiskey, the amber liquid catching the dim light. She knew she couldn't drown the memory, but she could blur its edges, make it hurt just a little less. Her phone buzzed, pulling her back to the present.
The message was from an unknown number:
"He's not alone anymore."
Her chest tightened. She felt as if she were being pulled underwater, her breath caught in her throat. She stared at the words, her mind racing. The message wasn't about Julien. It couldn't be.
Could it?
---
The mirror shattered, but no sound came from the breaking glass. Elias stumbled backward, shielding his face. When he opened his eyes, the shards were floating mid-air, suspended like stars in a dark sky.
The voice that came from the fragments wasn't his own, but it spoke with his tone, his inflections.
"You wanted to forget, but forgetting doesn't erase. It stains."
Elias's knees buckled as memories surged forward, memories he had buried so deeply they felt foreign. Julien's laughter echoed in his ears, but it was quickly replaced by screams. Flames. The acrid smell of burning wood and flesh.
"You didn't do this," Elias whispered, clutching his head. "It wasn't your fault."
The fragments swirled, converging into a shape that resembled a figure—a shadowy, fragmented version of Julien. It stepped closer, its movements jerky and inhuman.
"Fault is irrelevant," the figure hissed. "It happened. And you stood still."
Elias backed away, but there was nowhere to go. The room shifted, the walls closing in. The bookshelves were now filled with photographs—images of Julien, Clara, and himself, each picture more distorted than the last. In some, Julien's face was missing. In others, it was replaced with Elias's.
---
Clara paced her apartment, the message burned into her mind. She tried calling the number, but it went straight to voicemail. She dialed again, this time leaving a message.
"Who is this? What do you mean? Answer me!"
Her voice cracked, the weight of years pressing down on her. She knew she couldn't stay here, not with the photograph staring at her like an accusation. Grabbing her coat, she left the apartment and headed toward Elias's.
As she walked through the rain-slicked streets, memories assaulted her. Julien's smile, his unshakable optimism, the way he had believed in them even when they didn't believe in themselves. And then the fire—the moment everything unraveled.
Clara clenched her fists. She had to tell Elias the truth. It was the only way to stop the spiral they were both caught in. But the truth was a razor, and she wasn't sure either of them could survive it.
---
Elias found himself in a new room, one that shouldn't have existed. It was identical to the dorm room he, Clara, and Julien had shared during their final year at university. The details were perfect, down to the scratch on the desk from when Julien had thrown a book at Elias during a heated debate.
But something was wrong. The room was too quiet, the air too still.
The shadow-Julien was there, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"You remember this place, don't you?" the figure said, its voice a grotesque imitation of Julien's.
Elias nodded, his throat too tight to speak.
"This is where it began," the figure continued. "The night you made your choice."
"I didn't—" Elias started, but the figure cut him off.
"You let me burn."
The words hit Elias like a punch to the gut. He fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face.
"I didn't let you burn! I tried—I tried to save you!"
The figure leaned closer, its shadowy face inches from Elias's. "But you didn't, did you? You hesitated. You let the flames consume me because you were afraid."
Elias sobbed, his body wracked with guilt. "I didn't know what to do. I couldn't—"
"Excuses," the figure spat. "You've been running ever since, but you can't outrun this. You can't outrun me."
The room began to collapse, the walls crumbling into ash. Elias screamed as the shadow-Julien dissolved, its final words echoing in his ears:
"Do you see what I see?"
---
Clara arrived at Elias's apartment to find the door ajar. Inside, the place was a wreck—books scattered across the floor, the desk overturned. But Elias was nowhere to be found.
On the wall, scrawled in what looked like ash, were the words:
"You buried the truth. Now it's digging its way out."
Clara's legs gave out, and she collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down her face. She had been too late. Again.