CHAPTER 9

When I returned to the apartment, my coat to body with of regret. I heard the sound of water running in the bathroom. I was sitting on the couch, trying to think of a way to apologize. I looked up at the clock - I hadn't realized it had been 57 minutes already. I stood, walked over, and knocked on the door. No reply.

Knocked again, harder. Still nothing.

Panic began to bloom in my chest. I started banging on the door, shouting her name. Still no sound from inside.

Desperation took over. I twisted the doorknob to my surprise, it was open.

I went in and saw-

The bathtub was overflowing, water dripping onto the cold tile floor. Her wrist lay exposed, a

red line glistening against pale skin. Her eyes were half-closed, her face hauntingly peaceful. I inside, knees hitting the ground as the weight of I seeing slammed into me.

My hands trembled as I cradled her fragile body, feeling warmth slip away like a cruel joke..

"No... no, please... wake up," I whispered, voice breaking.

I looked at the body and-it... wasn't Misha?

What? How could it be?

And then the memories came crashing in-

The letters, the pain, the eyes that weren't hers but someone else's. The way she clung to my like it was a lifeline. The way I projected someone long gone onto someone still drowning.

This wasn't Misha. It had never been Misha..

Seven years ago...

We were an orphan.

No parents. No guidance. Just Misha - my sister, my entire world.

was the light in a world that never gave us any. She made everything feel bearable, like maybe we could survive this life together.

But the world didn't spare her.

She was bullied, harassed, sexually assaulted outside our school one night. She never spoke of it just stared into the distance with empty eyes.

And soon after, she let go.

I was too late.

Misha retreated into a silence that swallowed whole. She stopped talking. She stopped smiling.

Her spirit away - slowly, invisibly, until nothing remained.

Then came the final darkness.

I found her - hanging, gentle as a broken bird from the ceiling, a thin ribbon around her neck, the same pink music box softly playing her favorite lullaby.

Her note: "Don't feel too late."

I held her, shaking, screaming until my lungs cracked. But she was already gone.

I swore then to myself, to silence, to guilt-I would never let that happen again.

So when I saw her, when I met her, I believed in the lie. A lie that I told myself that this girl

was Misha. And perhaps that was the end of her?

But I didn't feel anything... maybe because she's not Misha.

And then I saw a note.

in her other hand, a soaked, crumpled note.

With shaking fingers, I unfolded it. The words stained with tears and water etched themselves

deep into my mind:

"I'm sorry, Fuite. You are truly my escape. My freedom. I love you.

I sat there long after the note slipped from my fingers, soaked through with tears and silence. Th

cold water dripped from the tub's edge like a slow, relentless countdown.

The echo of her absence stretched into the silence, a scream without a sound, a life erased by the weight of my own failure.

Her name - Lucienna meant light.

But darkness had claimed her completely.

And I, who vowed to save her, was the last hand to push her into the void.

I swore once to myself, to silence, to guilt that I would never let it happen again.

But I lied.

A lie I clung to like oxygen: She is Misha.

Perhaps that's where my sister ended not with the ribbon around her neck, but the moment I tried to resurrect her through someone else's pain.

But Lucienna wasn't Misha.

She was a stranger I wrapped in memory and called salvation.

I never even knew her.

I only loved a ghost.

A ghost of the sister I failed.

And in trying to rewrite the past, I only managed to destroy the present.

We were both running.

She from a life that had never once been kind.

And I from the guilt that had hardened into something holy, something cruel.

Two broken compasses pointing toward the same illusion:

That love could undo loss.

That care could rewrite fate.

But I didn't save her.

I killed her.

Not with hands, but with the weight of all the things I projected onto her skin.

And the light she was supposed to carry

That fragile, flickering hope

Was extinguished forever.

And in the ruins of it all, I understood:

We didn't fail each other.

We simply broke in ways that were never meant to be repaired.

THE END