The rain came down in relentless sheets as Elias made his way back to his apartment, the cold seeping into his bones despite the layers he wore. The streets were almost empty, save for a few shadowy figures hurrying under umbrellas. He didn't bother. The rain felt appropriate—a cleansing, or perhaps a punishment.
Julien's words from his dream echoed in his mind. It's not about the fall; it's about what you see on the way down. What did it mean? Was it a figment of his guilt-ridden imagination, or was Julien trying to tell him something?
When he finally reached his building, the old wooden stairs creaked under his weight, each groan a reminder of how fragile everything was.
---
His apartment was a mess, though he barely noticed anymore. Piles of books, empty coffee mugs, and unwashed laundry had become part of the scenery. He tossed his soaked jacket onto a chair and slumped onto the couch, staring at the ceiling.
His phone buzzed on the coffee table, breaking the silence. He ignored it.
Then it buzzed again. And again.
With a sigh, he grabbed it, glancing at the screen. It was Clara.
He hesitated before answering. "What's up?"
"Elias," her voice was tight, almost frantic. "We need to talk."
"About what?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Not over the phone. Can you come over?"
He ran a hand through his damp hair, his exhaustion battling with curiosity. "Clara, it's late—"
"Please," she cut him off. "It's important."
Something in her tone made him relent. "Fine. I'll be there in twenty."
---
When Elias arrived, Clara's apartment was dimly lit, the air heavy with the smell of cigarettes and something sour. She was pacing, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
"What's going on?" he asked, closing the door behind him.
She turned to face him, her eyes bloodshot and filled with something he couldn't quite place. Fear? Anger?
"I met with someone today," she said, her voice shaking.
"Who?"
"Julien's therapist."
Elias froze. "What? Why?"
"She called me. Said there were things I needed to know," Clara explained, her words tumbling out in a rush.
Elias frowned. "And?"
Clara hesitated, struggling to find the right words. "She said Julien was hiding something. Something big. She wouldn't tell me what, but she said it had to do with us. With… our past."
"Our past?" Elias repeated, his brow furrowing. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I don't know!" Clara snapped, running a hand through her hair. "But it's been eating at me all day. I can't stop thinking about it. What could Julien have been hiding? And why would it have anything to do with us?"
Elias shook his head, his frustration mounting. "Clara, Julien's gone. Whatever secrets he had, they died with him."
"Did they?" she challenged, her voice rising. "Because I don't think they did. I think they're still here, hanging over us like a goddamn storm cloud!"
---
Elias took a step back, startled by her intensity. He had seen Clara angry before, but this was different. This was desperation.
"Okay," he said slowly. "Let's take a step back. What exactly did the therapist say?"
Clara took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. "She said Julien was carrying some kind of guilt. Something he thought would destroy us if we knew. And she said he was trying to protect us from it."
"Protect us?" Elias repeated, his voice tinged with disbelief. "Julien could barely protect himself."
"That's not fair," Clara shot back.
"Isn't it?" Elias countered. "Look, I loved Julien. You know I did. But let's not pretend he was some kind of martyr. He had his demons, and he let them win."
Clara flinched at his words, but she didn't argue. Instead, she sat down heavily on the couch, her head in her hands.
"Maybe you're right," she said quietly. "But it doesn't change the fact that there's something we don't know. Something Julien never told us."
---
Elias sat down across from her, his expression softening. "Do you really want to dig this up, Clara? What if it's something we can't handle?"
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with determination. "We're already not handling it, Elias. Julien's gone, and we're falling apart. Don't you think we owe it to him—to ourselves—to find out the truth?"
Elias sighed, running a hand down his face. "Okay. Let's say we go down this rabbit hole. Where do we even start?"
Clara hesitated, biting her lip. "The therapist said Julien kept journals. She didn't have them, but she thinks they might still be at his old place."
Elias stared at her. "You want to break into Julien's apartment?"
"It's not breaking in if we have the key," she said, pulling a small silver key from her pocket.
"Where did you get that?"
"His landlord. I told him I needed to grab some of Julien's things. He didn't ask questions."
Elias shook his head, a mix of disbelief and admiration crossing his face. "You're something else, you know that?"
Clara gave him a faint smile. "So, are you in?"
---
An hour later, they were standing outside Julien's old apartment. The building was dark and eerily quiet, the kind of place where shadows seemed to have lives of their own.
Clara unlocked the door, and they stepped inside, the air stale and heavy with the scent of abandonment.
The apartment was exactly as Julien had left it—books piled on every surface, papers scattered haphazardly, and a faint trace of his cologne lingering in the air.
Clara's chest tightened as she looked around. "It's like he's still here."
Elias didn't respond. He was already sifting through the clutter, his movements purposeful.
"Where would he have kept them?" Clara asked, joining him.
"Knowing Julien?" Elias said. "Somewhere obvious but also impossible to find."
---
They searched in silence, the weight of the moment pressing down on them. Finally, Elias found a small locked box tucked under Julien's bed.
"Got something," he said, holding it up.
Clara hurried over, her heart racing. "Is that…?"
Elias nodded. "Let's find out."
He used a paperclip to pick the lock, and the lid creaked open. Inside were several worn notebooks, their pages filled with Julien's cramped handwriting.
Clara reached for one, her hands trembling. As she opened it, the first line made her blood run cold:
"They'll never forgive me if they find out."
Elias read over her shoulder, his expression darkening. "What the hell was he talking about?"
Clara shook her head, her voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know. But we're going to find out."
The room seemed to grow colder as Clara turned the pages of Julien's journal, her eyes scanning his erratic handwriting. Words were crossed out, rewritten, and smudged, as if he had wrestled with every sentence. Elias leaned over her shoulder, his breath shallow, his face pale.
"What is this?" Clara whispered.
"Keep reading," Elias urged, his voice taut.
---
"I don't know how to carry it anymore. Every time I see them, it's there, staring back at me. They trust me—Elias especially. And Clara, God, she doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve the truth. If they knew, they'd never look at me the same way again. But it's eating me alive. I thought I could bury it, but it's too late now. It's already clawing its way to the surface."
Clara stopped reading, her hands trembling. "What the hell was he talking about?"
Elias took the notebook from her, flipping to another page. "There's more."
---
"That night... I've tried to rewrite it in my head so many times, but the facts don't change. I was the one who made the choice. I thought I was doing the right thing, but maybe I was just a coward. Maybe I didn't want to face the consequences. But now, I see their faces in every reflection, every dream. They're haunting me, and I can't escape."
Elias frowned, his jaw tightening. "What night is he talking about? What choice?"
Clara shook her head, her mind racing. "I don't know. He never… he never said anything about this."
"Keep going," Elias said, his voice sharper now, his impatience rising.
---
Clara turned to the next page, but the handwriting became more disjointed, the words barely legible.
"I thought the silence would save us, but it's become a prison. They don't remember, and that should bring me peace, right? But it doesn't. It makes it worse. Because I remember everything. Every sound. Every smell. Every second of that night. And I know it's only a matter of time before they start to remember too."
"Remember what?" Clara snapped, her voice breaking. "What the hell happened, Elias?"
Elias shook his head, his hands gripping the edge of the table. "I don't know! Julien never said anything. Not to me. Not to anyone."
"Maybe he didn't have to," Clara said, her voice trembling. "Maybe we already know, and we've just… buried it."
---
Elias stared at her, his face pale. "No. That doesn't make any sense. If something like this happened, we would've—"
"Would we?" Clara interrupted, her eyes blazing. "Think about it, Elias. Julien was always the one who held us together, who kept us grounded. If something horrible happened, don't you think he would've done whatever it took to protect us from it? Even if that meant keeping it from us?"
Elias looked away, his fists clenching. "This is insane."
"Is it?" Clara demanded, stepping closer. "Because the more I think about it, the more it feels like I've been living with something just out of reach—like a shadow I can't quite see. Haven't you felt that? Haven't you felt like there's something missing?"
Elias didn't answer, but the flicker of doubt in his eyes betrayed him.
---
Clara turned back to the journal, flipping through the pages with growing urgency. Most of it was indecipherable, filled with fragmented sentences and scribbled-out words. But near the end, she found another passage that made her stomach drop.
"I should've told them years ago. Maybe then I wouldn't feel like I'm suffocating. But every time I try, I see her face. I hear her voice. And I remember what I did—what we did. And I can't. I just… I can't."
Clara's breath hitched. "Her? Who's he talking about?"
Elias shook his head, his face ashen. "I don't know. But we need to find out."
---
They spent the next hour tearing through the rest of the journals, but the answers they sought remained elusive. Each entry hinted at something dark, something unspoken, but Julien had never written the full truth.
By the time they finished, the room was a mess, the journals scattered across the floor. Clara sat on the couch, her head in her hands, while Elias paced back and forth, his frustration palpable.
"This doesn't make any sense," Elias muttered. "Why would he write all this but not say what actually happened?"
"Maybe he was too scared," Clara said quietly.
Elias stopped pacing, turning to look at her. "Scared of what?"
Clara looked up at him, her eyes hollow. "Of losing us."
---
The silence between them was heavy, each lost in their own thoughts. Finally, Elias broke it.
"Clara," he said softly, sitting down beside her. "Do you think… do you think Julien was right? That if we knew the truth, it would destroy us?"
Clara didn't answer right away. She stared at the floor, her mind a whirl of fragmented memories and unanswered questions.
"I don't know," she admitted. "But I think the not knowing is destroying us too."
Elias nodded, his expression grim. "Then we have to keep digging."
"Where?" Clara asked, her voice laced with exhaustion.
Elias hesitated before answering. "Julien wasn't the only one who knew. If this is about our past, there has to be someone else who can fill in the gaps."
"Like who?"
Elias's eyes darkened. "Someone who was there that night. Someone who remembers."
Clara's heart sank as she realized what he meant. "You don't mean—"
"Yes," Elias said firmly. "We need to talk to them."
---
As the weight of his words settled over them, the room seemed to close in, the air thick with tension. Clara and Elias exchanged a glance, both understanding that whatever lay ahead, it would be far worse than anything they had imagined.
And somewhere, in the depths of her mind, Clara felt a flicker of something—an image, a sound, a sensation. Something she couldn't quite grasp but that filled her with a sense of dread.
The silence in Julien's apartment was suffocating. Clara's breathing was shallow, and Elias could feel his own pulse hammering in his ears. The weight of Julien's cryptic words pressed on them both, but the deeper truth remained shrouded. The ghost of Julien lingered not only in the journals but in the shadows of the room, in every misplaced object and unspoken memory.
"Who are you thinking of?" Clara finally asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Elias didn't look at her immediately. His gaze was fixed on the window, the rain streaking down the glass like tears. When he turned to her, his expression was a storm of conflict.
"Caroline," he said.
The name hung in the air like a curse.
Clara flinched. "No."
"Yes," Elias said firmly.
"No, Elias," Clara snapped, her voice rising. "We agreed never to contact her again. After what happened—"
"Exactly," Elias interrupted, his voice sharp. "After what happened. Julien's journals all point to something from our past, Clara. And if Julien was protecting us, who else would he be trying to shield us from?"
Clara shook her head vehemently. "Caroline is poison. You know that. If we go to her, she'll twist everything. She'll manipulate us just like she did back then."
"And what if she's the only one who knows the truth?" Elias countered.
---
Clara stood up, pacing the room like a caged animal. Her hands were shaking, and she clenched them into fists to steady herself. "I can't do this, Elias. Not with her. You don't understand—"
"Then help me understand!" Elias shouted, his frustration boiling over. "Because I'm tired of feeling like I'm living in a fog! I'm tired of Julien's ghost hanging over me, and I'm tired of not knowing what the hell is going on! If Caroline can give us answers, then we have to go to her."
Clara stopped pacing, her back to him. When she spoke again, her voice was hollow.
"You don't remember, do you?"
"What?" Elias asked, confused.
"You don't remember what happened that night," Clara said, turning to face him. "You've blocked it out."
Elias frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Clara closed her eyes, as if bracing herself. "The night Julien kept writing about. The one he said would destroy us. I… I think I know what he meant."
---
Elias stared at her, his heart pounding. "What do you mean you know? What happened?"
Clara hesitated, her eyes filling with tears. "It's not clear. It's like… pieces of a dream. But I remember Julien shouting. I remember Caroline crying. And I remember blood."
Elias's face went pale. "Blood?"
Clara nodded, her voice shaking. "It's just flashes, Elias. But it's there. And I think… I think Julien did something to protect us that night. Something he couldn't take back."
Elias sank onto the couch, his head in his hands. "This is insane. None of this makes any sense. If something like that happened, why wouldn't we remember?"
"Because Julien didn't want us to," Clara said. "He always said he would do anything for us, Elias. Maybe he meant it."
---
The room fell silent again, the weight of Clara's words settling over them. Finally, Elias looked up, his eyes dark with determination.
"Then we don't have a choice," he said. "We need to talk to Caroline."
Clara's shoulders slumped, and she shook her head. "You don't know what you're asking, Elias. Caroline… she's not like us. She doesn't feel guilt. She doesn't care about the truth. She only cares about control."
"I don't care what she cares about," Elias said. "If she knows something, we need to find out. Julien's dead, Clara. We owe it to him to figure out why."
Clara stared at him, her eyes searching his face. Finally, she sighed, her resistance crumbling.
"Fine," she said. "But don't say I didn't warn you."
---
The drive to Caroline's house was tense and silent. Clara stared out the window, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Elias gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
When they arrived, the house loomed before them like a specter from their past. It was an old, crumbling Victorian with peeling paint and overgrown ivy. The windows were dark, and the air around it seemed unnaturally still.
"I can't believe she still lives here," Clara muttered.
"She's probably the only one who could stand it," Elias replied.
They walked up the creaking steps and knocked on the door. For a long moment, there was no answer. Then, the door creaked open, and Caroline stood there, a cigarette in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.
She looked at them with a mixture of surprise and amusement. "Well, well," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "If it isn't my two favorite ghosts."
---
Clara stiffened, her jaw tightening. "We need to talk."
Caroline raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? And here I thought you two had finally decided I wasn't worth your time."
"This isn't a social call," Elias said, his tone cold. "We're here about Julien."
At the mention of his name, Caroline's expression shifted. The amusement faded, replaced by something harder to read. She stepped aside, gesturing for them to enter.
"Come in," she said. "Let's see what skeletons you've come to dig up."
---
As they stepped inside, the memories came rushing back—memories of laughter turned to screams, of promises broken, and of a bond that had been shattered beyond repair.
Clara and Elias exchanged a glance, both silently bracing themselves for whatever lay ahead.
The ghosts of their past were no longer content to stay buried.
The dim light of Caroline's living room cast long shadows across the peeling wallpaper and dusty furniture. The air was thick with the smell of cigarette smoke and something faintly metallic, something that set Clara's nerves on edge. She perched on the edge of a tattered armchair, her fists clenched tightly in her lap. Elias, meanwhile, stood stiffly by the doorway, as though ready to bolt at any moment.
Caroline took her time settling into the couch opposite them, swirling her glass of wine with a smirk that didn't quite reach her eyes. She lit another cigarette, the click of the lighter echoing ominously.
"So," she said finally, her voice dripping with mockery. "You've come all this way. Must be something important to drag you back here."
"Cut the crap, Caroline," Elias snapped. "This isn't a game."
Caroline raised an eyebrow, her smirk widening. "It's always a game, Elias. You just don't like that you're bad at playing it."
---
Clara leaned forward, her voice low but steady. "We're here about Julien."
The smirk faltered. Caroline's hand froze mid-sip, the glass of wine hovering near her lips. For a moment, she looked almost human—vulnerable, even. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by the sharp edge of deflection.
"What about him?" she asked, her tone casual.
"You know what," Clara said, her voice harder now. "He wrote about you. About that night. We want answers."
Caroline's eyes narrowed. "That's a dangerous path you're walking down, Clara. Some doors shouldn't be reopened."
"Don't," Clara hissed, her anger bubbling to the surface. "Don't sit there and act like you're protecting us. You've never cared about anyone but yourself."
Caroline laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. "Oh, sweetheart, you've always been so naïve. Do you think Julien was some saint? That he was the glue holding your little group together? He was just as broken as the rest of us."
---
"Stop dodging the question," Elias interjected, his voice rising. "We're not leaving until you tell us what happened that night."
Caroline stubbed out her cigarette with exaggerated slowness, her gaze never leaving his. "You want the truth?" she said, leaning forward. "Fine. But don't come crying to me when it shatters your little fantasy of who Julien was."
She reached for a cigarette case on the coffee table, her fingers trembling slightly. Clara noticed it but said nothing.
---
"You were all there," Caroline began, her voice quieter now, almost introspective. "But none of you wanted to see it. You were too caught up in your own little dramas, your own fears. Julien—he saw everything. He always did. That's why he tried to fix it, to make it right. But he went too far."
"What do you mean, 'too far'?" Clara demanded.
Caroline exhaled a plume of smoke, her expression unreadable. "You don't remember, do you? Of course you don't. Julien made sure of that. But I do. I remember everything."
"Then tell us," Elias said, his voice a mix of desperation and anger.
Caroline looked at him, her gaze piercing. "Do you really want to know, Elias? Do you really want to peel back the layers and see the rot underneath? Because once you do, there's no going back."
---
Clara's patience snapped. She stood up, her fists clenched. "Stop playing games and just tell us!"
Caroline smirked again, but it was a hollow imitation of her usual bravado. "Fine," she said. "But don't say I didn't warn you."
She leaned back, her voice taking on a detached, almost dreamy quality.
---
"It started with the accident," she said. "You remember that, don't you? The car crash? Of course you do. But what you don't remember—what Julien made sure you wouldn't remember—was what happened afterward. The decisions that were made. The lies that were told."
Clara's heart pounded in her chest. "What are you talking about? What lies?"
Caroline's gaze flicked to Elias, then back to Clara. "You both think Julien was protecting you. But the truth is, he was protecting himself. He made a choice that night—a choice that changed everything. And he made sure you'd never find out."
---
Elias stepped forward, his voice shaking. "What choice? What did he do?"
Caroline's smirk returned, sharper than ever. "He sacrificed someone," she said, her words cutting like a knife. "For you. For both of you. And he made sure you'd never know."
The room fell silent, the weight of her words pressing down like a suffocating fog. Clara felt like she couldn't breathe, her mind racing with fragmented memories and unanswered questions.
---
"You're lying," Elias said, his voice cracking.
Caroline shrugged. "Believe what you want. But deep down, you already know I'm right. That's why you came here, isn't it? To confirm what you've been trying to ignore."
Clara sank back into the armchair, her hands trembling. "Who?" she whispered. "Who did he sacrifice?"
Caroline's expression softened, just for a moment. "That's the question, isn't it? But if you want the answer, you'll have to dig deeper. And trust me, you won't like what you find."
---
The tension in the room was unbearable. Clara looked at Elias, her eyes wide with fear and confusion.
"What do we do now?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
Elias shook his head, his jaw clenched. "We find the truth. No matter what it takes."
Caroline laughed softly, the sound sending chills down their spines. "Good luck with that," she said, lighting another cigarette. "But don't say I didn't warn you. Some truths are better left buried."
As they left her house, the weight of her words hung over them like a storm cloud. Neither spoke as they got into the car, but the silence between them was charged with unspoken fears and unresolved tension.
Whatever lay ahead, they both knew there was no turning back. The truth was out there, waiting to be uncovered—and it would change everything.