Days passed, but Elise didn't feel like she was making any progress. The deeper she dug into Mia's life, the more elusive the truth became. It was as though Mia had vanished into thin air, leaving behind nothing but a trail of shadows and broken promises.
Elise had kept her distance from Greg, mostly because she didn't know where his loyalty lay anymore. The more she uncovered, the more she wondered if she could trust him—or anyone, for that matter.
The strange messages had continued, but each one seemed more cryptic than the last.
"The truth is a mirror. Every crack you find makes it more distorted."
The words lingered in Elise's mind as she walked through the abandoned warehouse district, a place she had visited several times during the investigation. Something about this place felt different tonight—darker. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she entered the warehouse.
It was quiet, eerily so. No sound of machinery, no workers going about their day. Just the faint scent of mildew and rot, the empty concrete floors stretching out before her.
And then, she saw it. A single, red-stained envelope, sitting on an old wooden crate. Elise approached cautiously, her breath caught in her throat. She reached for the envelope, her fingers trembling.
Opening it, she found another letter. This one was different.
"You're not the first to search for the truth, Elise. But you will be the last."
Elise's heart skipped a beat. She glanced around, her eyes searching the shadows, but the warehouse was still. Empty. Silent. But the weight of the message pressed down on her, heavy and suffocating.
She stepped back, her pulse pounding in her ears. The feeling of being watched returned, more intense than ever before. Someone was following her—someone who knew her every step. And now, they were telling her to stop.
But she couldn't stop. Not now. Not when she was so close.
As Elise left the warehouse, the reality of what she was dealing with began to sink in. She wasn't just investigating a disappearance. She was digging into something far darker, something that would consume her if she wasn't careful. Her obsession with Mia's case had already begun to take its toll. She was losing her grip on the world around her. The line between truth and fiction had blurred, and now, Elise didn't know where the story ended and her own descent into madness began.