Chapter 150: Confusion Or Trap

"Elara? Who are you?"

The question came from behind the blue door.

Dillan stood motionless.

He knew that voice.

It was his own, stripped of every trace of adulthood. Small. Uncertain. Almost painfully innocent.

But the question itself felt wrong.

He had known Elara.

He remembered her sitting beside him beneath an old tree. He remembered promising to give her a name. He remembered the fear that had driven him to reach into her memories.

Yet the boy behind the door didn’t recognize her.

Elara stepped toward the doorway.

Dillan caught her wrist.

"Wait."

She looked down at his hand.

He released her immediately.

"Sorry."

"Don’t apologize for being afraid," she said. "Just don’t let your fear make another decision for me."

Then she entered.

Dillan followed.

The room was small, with pale blue walls and a wooden floor covered in scattered toys. A little boy sat beside the window, drawing circles on a sheet of paper.

Four years old.

Dark hair.

Hazel eyes.

A tiny scar on his left knee.

Dillan remembered that scar.

The boy looked up at the visitors.

His gaze passed over Elara without recognition.

Then he stared at Dillan.

For several seconds, neither version of him spoke.

Finally, the child frowned.

"Why do you look like me?"

Dillan crouched in front of him.

"I’m you."

The boy considered that answer.

"That’s stupid."

Despite everything, Dillan almost smiled.

"Yeah. I suppose it is."

The child returned to his drawing.

Elara watched him with an expression Dillan couldn’t decipher.

"Do you know who I am?" she asked.

The boy glanced at her.

"No."

Elara’s fingers tightened around the fabric of her dress.

"Have you ever seen me before?"

"No."

"Have you ever dreamed about me?"

The boy shook his head.

Then he pointed at the paper.

"Do you want to see my friend?"

Dillan looked down.

The drawing showed a little boy standing beneath a tree.

Beside him was a second figure.

A girl.

Her face had been carefully erased.

Not crossed out.

Not scribbled over.

The paper itself had been rubbed thin where her features should have been.

Elara knelt beside the child.

"Who is she?"

The boy shrugged.

"I don’t know."

"Then why did you draw her?"

"Because somebody told me to."

Dillan felt the room grow colder.

"Who told you?"

The child looked toward the closed closet.

For the first time, his cheerful expression faltered.

"The woman who lives in the walls."

Silence swallowed the room.

Celia appeared in the doorway behind them.

"Dillan, don’t open the closet."

He slowly turned his head.

"Why does everyone keep telling me what not to do?"

"Because you have a terrible history of doing it anyway," Celia replied.

"Fair."

The boy giggled.

It was a tiny, ordinary sound.

For one fragile moment, the room felt normal.

Then the closet door knocked from the inside.

Three times.

The boy immediately crawled behind Dillan.

"She knows you’re here."

Elara stood.

"Who?"

"The woman."

The closet knocked again.

A soft voice followed.

"Dillan?"

Marielle’s face appeared pale in the doorway.

She stared at the closet as if she had seen a ghost.

"That voice..."

Dillan looked at her.

"You recognize it?"

Marielle nodded slowly.

"I haven’t heard it since the first incident."

The Witness Record appeared above the child’s drawing.

ORIGIN LOCK: INTERNAL MEMORY SPACE.

CHILDHOOD MEMORY: VERIFIED.

SUBJECT ELARA: NOT PRESENT IN THIS RECORD.

CONTRADICTION DETECTED.

Dillan stared at the notification.

"Not present?"

Elara said nothing.

The Record continued.

MEMORY OWNER: DILLAN RUREN.

RECORDED CHILDHOOD COMPANION: NONE.

EXTERNAL WITNESS ACCOUNT: ELARA.

CONFLICT: BOTH ACCOUNTS CANNOT BE TRUE.

Dillan looked at Elara.

She was staring at the boy.

"Maybe I wasn’t there," she whispered.

"No."

The answer escaped him before he could think.

Elara looked at him.

"You don’t remember me in this room."

"I remember you elsewhere."

"That’s not proof."

"I know."

"Then don’t turn your memories into a prison just because you’re afraid of losing me again."

Dillan lowered his eyes.

She was right.

He hated that she was right.

And this time, he wouldn’t argue.

"Tell me what you remember," he said.

Elara took a slow breath.

"I remember meeting you beneath the tree. I remember you asking me to stay. I remember the day you tried to change my memories."

She looked toward the closet.

"But I also remember another day. A day when you looked directly at me and asked who I was."

The child peeked out from behind Dillan.

Elara continued.

"I thought you were pretending. I thought you were angry with me."

Her voice trembled.

"Now I wonder whether you genuinely didn’t know."

The closet handle began to turn.

Dillan rose.

"Elara, get behind me."

She gave him a sharp look.

He corrected himself immediately.

"Sorry. Would you like to move away from the door?"

"Much better."

She stepped beside him.

The closet opened.

There was no monster inside.

No shadow.

No distorted figure.

Only a mirror.

And in the mirror stood a little girl with dark hair, wearing a white dress.

Her face was perfectly clear.

Elara stopped breathing.

The girl raised one hand.

Elara raised hers in response, almost involuntarily.

Their reflections matched.

Except for one detail.

The girl in the mirror was crying.

Elara wasn’t.

Not yet.

The girl pressed her palm against the glass.

Her lips moved.

No sound emerged.

Dillan stepped closer.

"What is she saying?"

Elara shook her head.

"I don’t know."

The boy suddenly spoke from behind them.

"She says you’re the one who left."

Elara turned toward him.

"What?"

The child pointed at the mirror.

"She says you left him first."

The girl’s reflection began to fade.

Before she disappeared, her mouth moved one final time.

This time, Dillan understood the words.

"You weren’t the first Elara."

The mirror cracked.

A fragment fell to the floor.

The Witness Record flashed violently.

IDENTITY CONFLICT DETECTED.

SUBJECT: ELARA.

ORIGINAL STATUS: UNVERIFIED.

POSSIBLE DUPLICATE: DETECTED.

Dillan stared at Elara.

She stood perfectly still.

For the first time since she had returned, she looked genuinely lost.

Then the little boy tugged at Dillan’s sleeve.

"Can I ask you something?"

Dillan looked down.

"Of course."

The child pointed at Elara.

"If she’s not the first Elara..."

He hesitated.

His eyes filled with tears.

"Then where did the real one go?"

Nobody answered.

Because from somewhere beneath the floor, a second child’s voice began to cry.

And it sounded exactly like Elara.