Élise
The hours passed slowly in the shadow of the room, but a strange feeling intensified around me, as if each second was bringing me closer to a truth that neither Damien nor I were ready to face. Damien was still there, near the window, his gaze lost in the darkness of the night. But his thoughts seemed so far away, elsewhere, in a past he had carefully buried, a past of which he was nothing but a prisoner, despite his efforts to flee it.
I stood in a corner of the room, my arms crossed over my chest, a look of torment in my eyes. No matter how much I told myself I needed to understand, that I had to uncover what haunted him, another question twisted in my mind: why him? Why had he drawn me into this world of darkness, a world he seemed to both want to escape and embrace at the same time? I felt that something deeper was at play between us, something far more dangerous than anything I could have imagined.
I was consumed by an irresistible desire to understand, to unravel the mysteries surrounding this man, but another, darker feeling began to surface, one that chilled my heart. What if it wasn't just him that I desired, but everything he represented: the darkness, the danger, the unspoken secrets that seemed to entwine around him? It was an invisible force that drew me in, urging me to step further into this world that wasn't mine. But I knew, deep down, that I wasn't ready to plunge into it without return.
The flickering light of the candle cast dancing shadows on the walls, as if the room itself was alive, breathing in time with the beats of my heart. The air was heavy, almost tangible, each breath becoming an effort. The space between us was tense, almost unbearable. I knew something was about to happen. There was an intensity in the air, a kind of muffled thrill that ran through me, like a premonition.
Damien slowly turned his head, his eyes meeting mine with a strange, hard-to-interpret gleam. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, his gaze lost in a past I was just beginning to brush against. Then, as if making a decision in the silence of his mind, he headed toward the door at the back of the room.
"Do you really want to know why you're here?" he asked, his voice low, almost a whisper, as if he feared someone else might hear. But there was no one else. It was just the two of us, in this house full of secrets.
A shiver of anticipation ran through me. My heart tightened. Yes, I wanted to know. I needed to know. But at that very moment, I realized I wasn't sure I was ready to understand everything that was about to be revealed.
"Yes, I want to know," I replied in a trembling voice, almost imperceptible. I would have liked to add something, a warning, but the words escaped me. "But I'm not sure I'm ready to understand."
He stopped in front of the door, his back to me. A heavy, almost unbearable silence settled between us. He didn't move, as if waiting for me to make another move, as if the decision to step into this new room entirely rested with me. Then, with a slow gesture, he turned the handle of the door, and it creaked open with a dull sound that resonated like a warning.
The room that lay before me was completely different from the one we were in. It was bare, without any refined decorations, not a single painting or ornamental object. Just bare, grayish, decrepit walls, as if time had left an indelible mark on it. The air was thick with the scent of yellowed paper, as if the books themselves had absorbed the years, the secrets, and the suffering of their owner. The shelves were covered in dust, but it was the library of a man who had tried to lock away his past within pages and pages of carefully written words. But it wasn't just a library: it was a mausoleum, a place where the ghosts of the past had been imprisoned in books, journals, letters, and black-and-white photographs that seemed to belong to long-gone lives, moments suspended in time.
"Come in," Damien said, this time in a firmer voice, as if finally pointing the way forward. "It's time for you to discover what I've kept hidden."
I stood still for a moment, caught between the irresistible desire to understand and the fear of the emptiness it might provoke in me. Finally, I crossed the threshold, my steps echoing loudly in the silence of the room. Once inside, I realized that this library wasn't just a place of reading; it was a sanctuary, a place where the ghosts of the past had been locked away in books, journals, letters, and black-and-white photographs that seemed to belong to lives long gone, moments suspended in time.
I approached a book lying at the end of one of the shelves. It was bound in dark leather, its title erased by time, as if its contents were meant to remain forever hidden, out of reach of prying eyes. My trembling fingers brushed the cover. A wave of emotion overwhelmed me then, a strange mixture of curiosity and fear. This book was much more than just an object. It seemed to be the key to something much larger, a fragment of Damien's past that he had never wanted to share.
Damien sat in a chair by the window, watching my every move with an almost oppressive intensity. "Do you really want to know why you're here, Élise?" he repeated, his voice deep, filled with a certain fatality. "Because you're the only one who can understand what led me to become what I am today."
I stared at him, trying to decipher his words, their deeper meaning. "It's not that simple, Damien," I said softly but firmly. "Nothing in this story seems simple. If you want me to understand, then you need to be ready to show me everything."
I slowly approached the book, lifted it carefully, and began to turn the pages. But as soon as my eyes landed on the handwritten words, a silent scream rang through my mind. It was as if the world around me had stopped. The first sentence hit me like a punch: "It is too late to fix what has been done."
I looked up, my eyes meeting Damien's. He had seen my reaction, and something in his gaze betrayed an emotion he hadn't wanted to reveal.
"You knew, didn't you?" I asked, the book still in my hands. "You knew that one day, someone would discover your past. And you let me enter this world, as if you wanted me to find out."
He stood up abruptly, his face hardened by an emotion I didn't yet understand. "It's not what you think," he said in a broken voice. "It's not what you believe. It's not that simple."
I snapped the book shut, a new determination in my gaze. "Then explain it to me, Damien," I said, my voice trembling but full of strength. "Explain why you chose me. Why you let me into your world of darkness."
He hesitated, his eyes avoiding mine. "Because you… you see what others don't see," he whispered finally. "You see what I hide, what I can't ignore, and yet… there's nothing here you truly want to understand. Nothing at all."
I felt my heart race, a strange and new pain flooding through me. It was a revelation that pierced me. "I see," I said, my voice trembling but resolute. "I see everything you refuse to show. And that's why I need to know, Damien. I need to understand."
Silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken words. Damien turned his eyes away, his face marked by a suffering he could no longer conceal. But he didn't speak. We both knew, as well as he and I, that our lives would now be forever linked by secrets neither of us could escape.
In that room filled with forgotten books, the shadows of the past took on a new form. And I knew, deep inside, that no matter what I would discover, I would never be the same again.