The door clicked shut behind me, sealing off the cold eyes and clipped words of the dining hall.
For the first time since waking, silence wrapped around me like a fragile shield.
I sank onto the edge of the lumpy bed, fingers tracing the cracked wood beneath me.
The ache in my stomach was a quiet roar now, a reminder I couldn't ignore.
But hunger wasn't the only emptiness clawing at me.
My reflection in the crooked mirror caught my eye
Pale skin, tangled white hair, eyes heavy with questions I didn't know how to answer.
I wanted to remember. To understand.
But all I had were fragments, flashes of cold, flashes of light, and a name that felt both foreign and familiar: Aurenne.
I closed my eyes, willing the memories to come.I opened my eyes slowly, blinking against the dim light filtering through the grime-covered window.
The room pressed in around me, worn walls, cracked ceiling, the faint scent of damp and dust.
I clenched my fists, the rough wood beneath my nails grounding me.
Then, from the depths of silence, a flicker: a shiver of movement in my mind, like a broken film reel struggling to play.
A flash, headlights cutting through darkness.
A scream, muffled and distant.
Cold.
And then, nothing.
I swallowed hard, desperate to grasp more, but the fragments slipped away like smoke.
The flicker in my mind grew stronger, like a flame struggling to catch in a damp forest.
Suddenly, I was there.
The sharp clang of metal against metal rang in my ears, echoing through the night like a warning bell.
Bright city lights flashed, harsh and cold, slicing through the darkness like knives.
I tasted smoke, acrid and thick-burning at the back of my throat.
The screech of tires, the crunch of metal folding, glass shattering into a million jagged pieces.
My heart hammered wildly, each beat pounding in my ears, drowning out everything else.
A face.. my face.. blurred and pale under flickering streetlights.
Cold seeped into my bones, deeper than any winter chill.
I gasped, desperate for air that wouldn't come.
Then everything went silent.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
When I opened my eyes again, the world had changed.
Gone were the city's roar and flashing lights.
Instead, there was only stone walls, flickering candlelight, and the weight of a name I barely recognized: Aurenne.
The silk and lace of a dress replacing worn denim and faded tees.
The heavy air of secrets and shadows thick around me.
I didn't know this place.
Or how I had come to be here.
But I knew one thing for certain, the life I had once lived was gone.
And the girl I used to be... was dead.
Questions clawed at my mind, relentless and sharp.
Who was the original Aurenne? What had happened to her?And what was waiting for me in this fractured past?
The answers felt just beyond reach, like whispers lost in the wind. So for now, all I had were these scattered memories , sharp, cold, and haunting.
The memories slipped away like smoke, leaving a hollow ache in their wake.
My breath caught, shallow and uneven.
My hands trembled as I pressed them against my chest, trying to steady the wild thundering of my heart.
Cold sweat beaded at my temples.
For a long moment, I just sat there suspended between two worlds, unsure which was real.
Then, slowly, I pushed myself upright. The rough wood of the bed creaked beneath me as I stood, muscles stiff from disuse.
I took hesitant steps toward the worn desk tucked beneath the grimy window.
The dim light barely touched its surface, but something caught my eye, a faint glint from an open drawer.I knelt down, fingers trembling, and pulled it fully open.
Inside lay a leather-bound journal, its cover cracked and worn with age.
No lock, no seal. Just waiting. I reached out, hesitating for only a moment before lifting it free.
The scent of old paper and ink rose up, filling the quiet room.I opened the first page, the faded handwriting sprawling across the yellowed paper, a secret waiting to be uncovered. I traced my fingers over the delicate handwriting, the ink faded but still clear.
The words spilled out like whispers from another time:
"The mornings are colder now, and the castle feels heavier with every passing day. The weight of my name presses down on me more than the winter chill ever could. I walk these halls like a ghost, unseen and unheard, caught between duty and despair. Father remains distant, his eyes colder than the stone walls. Mother's smiles have grown thinner, her words sharper.Evangeline's laughter rings louder than ever , a constant reminder that I am the shadow in this house, the mistake no one wants to admit"
I swallowed hard, the words settling heavy in my chest.
This wasn't just a life, it was a cage.
Aurenne's cage. And now, somehow, it was mine too.
I turned the page, careful not to tear the delicate paper. The ink on the next entry was smudged slightly, like it had been written in haste, or with shaking hands.
"Evangeline had a new dress today. Silk imported from Valeris, sewn with gold thread and lined with pearls. She paraded through the halls like a princess from one of the stories I used to believe in.They all smiled at her. The maids, the steward, even Mother. As if the sun itself rose for her and I was nothing more than a shadow behind it.Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be seen the way she is. To be loved without condition. To be born from something other than a mistake. Because that's what I am, isn't it? A secret whispered after dark. A consequence brushed beneath expensive rugs and behind locked doors.If I had been born legitimate, would they look at me differently? Would Father speak to me as he does to Calyx? Would I be allowed to sit at the center of the table instead of its edge, silent and invisible?"
I turned another page, slower this time.
The ink here was fresher, darker, shakier. As if written late at night, in candlelight, with a hand no longer steady.
The last entry.
"Something is wrong. I hear things now, voices in the walls, soft and low, whispering my name when I'm alone. At first I thought it was the wind, but the wind doesn't know who I am.They don't look at me the same. Even Evangeline avoids my gaze. Calyx won't speak to me unless Mother is near. And Mother...She smiles too much. As if she knows something I don't. As if she's waiting.I found blood on my pillow this morning. Not mine.I think they've decided something. I don't know what yet, but I feel it. I need to-"
The sentence trailed off there.
No period. No signature.
Just a streak of ink, as if the quill had been pulled away too fast. Or as if something or someone had stopped her from finishing.
I stared at the unfinished sentence, my eyes tracing the last shaky line over and over again.
I didn't move.
The silence in the room had changed, not loud, not quiet, just... heavier.
As if the air itself knew something I didn't.
My fingers tightened around the edges of the journal.
Not mine.
Blood on her pillow.
Voices in the walls.
Something they had decided.
I felt my stomach twist, not from hunger this time, but something colder. Sharper.
She had been scared.
She had known something was coming.
And whatever it was, it had stopped her from writing more.
I glanced toward my bed, that same thin, lumpy pillow still resting against the crooked headboard.
I hadn't checked it when I woke up.
I crossed the room slowly, every step a little heavier than the last.
Pulled the pillow aside.
No blood.
Just damp fabric, flattened by time.
But still, the thought settled under my skin like frost.
Whatever had happened to the original Aurenne... it hadn't been natural.
And now I was here, in her place, wearing her face, living inside the story she couldn't finish.I closed the journal with care, like sealing a grave.