I couldn't close my eyes. Not because of a sound… but because of a sensation gnawing at me from the inside, as if an invisible presence were pressing its weight against my ribs. A cold, visceral unease, a primal instinct whispering that something was wrong.This body… his body… refused to sleep until I understood what had broken it.
I was exhausted, yet unable to stay in bed.A shiver surged down my spine so violently my fingers clenched the sheets. I sat up abruptly, as if someone had just whispered my name directly into my ear.
The room hadn't changed, yet everything felt… distorted.The shadows looked longer, thicker, as if any minute they could peel themselves off the walls.Even the silence had a weight, a breath, a suffocating pressure wrapped around my throat.
I ran a hand over my face, finding my skin icy cold.Was I trembling… or was it Alexander?The line between us blurred a little more with every passing day.
A faint noise came from the hallway. A soft rustle, barely audible, yet enough to make my heart leap painfully in my chest.I froze.My muscles tensed as though seized by a hand I couldn't see.
I stood up, my feet pressing against the cold floor.When I touched the door handle, I recoiled , it was freezing, unnaturally so, as if another hand had been gripping it moments before.I opened the door slowly, praying without even knowing what I was praying for.
The hallway was empty.But the air… was heavy. Thick.Charged like a room someone has just stormed out of after an argument.
Then my eyes fell on the dark stain on the ground.
Blood.
My stomach twisted into a knot.A jolt of panic stole my breath away.I crouched down, drawn in despite myself. It was dried, nearly black… yet the sight of it awakened something deep inside me. An echo. A trembling.
I followed the trail, my heartbeat pounding so violently I felt its rhythm echoing in my temples. Every step felt like walking toward a truth I wasn't meant to know.
I reached a half-open door.A breath of cold air slipped out, so sharp it felt like the room itself was breathing.
Inside, chaos reigned.A desk overturned. Papers ripped apart. A shattered chair.An old violence clung to the walls, and I felt it instantly, as if it seeped inside my chest.
A crushing pressure tightened around my ribs.I nearly collapsed to my knees.Images burst violently within my mind:
Bloody fingers scraping the floor.A voice cracking in fear.A desperate gaze.And a silhouette in the darkness… unmoving.
I gasped for air, my heart stumbling, my hands shaking so violently I had to press them against my thighs to stay upright.If this was Alexander's memory… then whatever he had seen, or done, was far worse than anything I imagined.
Something glinted on the floor.A broken pendant.I picked it up. The metal was so cold it pierced my palm, as if the object still carried the memory of its owner.
Behind me, the faintest rustle.My lungs froze mid-breath.I spun around, throat tight.
Aurelius stood there.
The dim light swallowed most of his face, but I could still see his eyes, two pale, calculating glimmers fixed directly on me.
"You shouldn't be here," he murmured, his voice too soft, too calm.A voice balanced perfectly between threat and tenderness… and that made it worse.
My heart twisted painfully.I stepped back instinctively, like prey cornered by a predator.
"Why?" I managed to whisper.
His gaze flicked briefly toward the blood behind me, then to the pendant in my hand.His eyes hardened in a way that froze me to the bone.
"Because some truths," he said slowly, "do not forgive the ones who uncover them."
And he disappeared as silently as he had appeared.Like a nightmare dissolving right before dawn… yet leaving a burning mark in the mind.
I remained alone. Breathless. Shaking.With the blood.With the pendant.With Alexander.And with the terrifying, suffocating certainty:
The past wasn't just resurfacing.It was trying… to swallow me whole.