The footsteps echoed in the dark hallway, and with each step behind Damien, I felt a strange mix of fear and curiosity. The light of the candle barely flickered in the room behind us, yet everything suddenly felt more real. Every shadow danced on the walls like ghosts from a past I was just beginning to glimpse. I had no illusions left. Damien's world was not a simple play of shadows and light. It was made of secrets far deeper and wounds he didn't want to reveal.
Damien led me to a massive wooden door, hidden behind a heavy curtain. He placed his hand on the handle, his gaze hardening. A shiver ran down my spine as I drew closer.
"It all begins here," he murmured, his voice lower, more distant. He opened the door without waiting for my response, revealing a room even darker than the others. It wasn't empty, yet every object seemed heavy with weight, with meaning. My heart tightened.
Inside, a large dark wood desk stood at the center of the room. Behind it, an old, worn leather chair awaited its occupant, while an antique clock on the wall, whose hands appeared frozen in time, ticked regularly, like an echo of a bygone past.
Damien approached the desk, his silhouette standing out in the shadow before he slowly sat down. He fixed his gaze on me, almost hypnotic.
"You want to know why I wanted to see you, why I brought you here," he said softly. "But sometimes, the danger isn't in what you see. It's in what you don't know."
Though troubled, I stepped forward, my eyes scanning the room. A large bookshelf filled with books, papers scattered here and there, and… something strange. Photographs. Some were old, others more recent, all showing mysterious scenes, blurry faces, places that were familiar yet distorted by time.
I approached a shelf, picking up a particularly striking photo. A man, who looked exactly like Damien, stood by a fire, surrounded by people whose faces I couldn't discern. An air of mystery hung around the image, as if something important was slipping through my fingers.
I turned the photo toward him. "Who are they? Why this picture?"
Damien turned his gaze away, his hands gripping the arms of the chair with a force that betrayed an inner tension. A heavy silence settled. Then, slowly, he responded: "It was before. Before everything became what it is today. But that's not what you're trying to understand. What you're trying to figure out is why I let you into this world."
I stood there for a moment, speechless, my gaze lost in the image. "And why did you let me in?" I whispered. "Why this choice, Damien? Why me?"
Damien suddenly stood up, walking briskly toward the window. Outside, the city seemed peaceful, but in this room, the atmosphere was anything but calm. A shiver ran through me as his words slowly made their way to me.
"Because you're like me, Élise. A broken soul, a soul searching for something… but maybe what you're looking for isn't what you think," he came closer, his gaze darker than ever. "You think you can understand what brought me here, but there are things you can't see. You don't know what it's like to live with an obsession, Élise. You have no idea what it feels like."
A dull pain surged within me, a nascent understanding that took me by surprise. I forced myself to control the storm brewing inside me. What he said was something I recognized, something familiar. An echo of my own pain.
"I know what it's like," I said in a calm but firm voice. "I know what it feels like to be haunted by your own past. But that doesn't have to define us, Damien. We can't be prisoners of our demons."
He turned abruptly toward me, his eyes locked onto mine with a burning intensity. "You have no idea what you're saying. You don't know how much I wish I could forget, erase everything I've done, everything I've lost. But you can't understand that..."
I stepped forward, standing face to face with him. "Maybe I don't understand everything. But I know what it's like to lose yourself in your own suffering. And I refuse to let you lock yourself away in this silence."
Damien stared at me for a long moment, his face shifting through a series of contradictory expressions. Then, he looked at me, almost seeking an answer, yet distant. "Then it's too late for both of us. You want to help me? No one has ever been able to do it. But I let you in because I thought… no, I thought you would be different."
I looked at him, feeling an inexplicable warmth spread within me, but also a dizziness at the weight he carried. I wanted to help him, understand him, but deep down, I knew I couldn't fix everything. Not him, not me. Not alone.
"You can't save yourself alone, Damien," I said finally, my voice broken but resolute. "But you can choose to leave this darkness. With me."
He stared at me for a moment, then, in a heavy silence, turned slowly, his shoulders slumping. "I don't know if I can still leave this darkness, Élise. But maybe I want to try."
I gave him one last look, sensing a palpable tension in the air, a new uncertainty between us. I felt as though, even though we were close, there was still an immense chasm between us, a chasm I could never bridge.
The silence returned, but this time, it didn't seem as oppressive. It was the silence of waiting, the one where each person knew that difficult choices were to come.