Luna opened her eyes, greeted by a sharp headache, her vision struggling to focus on anything, leaving everything slightly blurred.
She was confused and disoriented, her body barely responding as she tried to push herself upright.
She stayed like that for a few seconds, waiting for her mind to settle, but as it did, the pain in her head began to fade, making room for something that had been forcibly buried,
the awareness that she had lost the last person dear to her.
The tears that had refused to come until that moment finally began to fall, as the weight of that cruel reality crashed down on her all at once.
'Emily… I'm sorry… I… I couldn't protect you.'
Her fingers curled weakly into the sheets beneath her, trembling as fragmented memories resurfaced one after another: Emily tied to the chair, her bruised face, the faint, broken whisper telling her to run.
Luna squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could somehow push those images away, but they only grew sharper, more vivid, carving themselves even deeper into her mind.
A shaky breath escaped her lips, followed immediately by another, even more uneven than the first. The room around her remained silent, yet inside her head, everything was unbearably loud, the echo of her own screams, the sound of something shattering, and the wet, sickening noise of bodies hitting the floor.
Her shoulders began to shake as she pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to stifle the sobs threatening to spill out. Guilt twisted inside her like a knife.
She had been there. She had seen Emily's final moments.
And she had still been too late.
Luna's shoulders trembled as the sobs she had tried to held back finally broke free. She pressed her face into her hands, her breath short and uneven, as the grief she had tried to bury for so long poured out all at once, like a dam that had finally given way.
She didn't know how long she stayed like that. Minutes, maybe more. The world beyond her pain simply ceased to exist.
Only when her breathing slowly began to calm did she notice it.
A presence.
Someone else was in the room.
Her body stiffened, and she slowly lowered her hands, her tear-blurred eyes shifting toward a corner of the room. A familiar figure stood there, silent and still, watching her.
Him.
The figure who had saved her in the forest a few days ago.
The same mysterious person she had glimpsed in the alley before losing consciousness.
The realization came almost immediately. If she was alive, if she was here instead of lying among the bodies in that blood-soaked house, it had to be because of him.
Luna wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, trying to compose herself despite the trembling that still ran through her fingers. She forced herself to sit up straighter, even as her chest ached from crying.
Her eyes drifted slowly back to him.
For a moment she said nothing, as if searching for the right words, or perhaps the courage to say them at all.
"You… saved me… again," she murmured, her voice fragile, barely there. Her fingers tightened slightly in the sheets. "Why?"
The question hung in the air, heavier than the silence that followed.
There was no anger in her tone. Nor gratitude.
Just a deep exhaustion… and something broken.
'Why didn't you let me die?'
She didn't speak it aloud, but the meaning behind the question was clear enough, hidden just beneath the surface.
The figure did not answer.
He simply remained there, his gaze fixed on her, sharp, piercing, yet strangely calm. For a moment, Luna found herself unable to look away, her thoughts slowing as she lost herself in the depth of those eyes, as if they were trying to see straight through her.
The silence stretched on.
Just as she began to sink back into her grief, already expecting nothing, not a single word from the mute figure who, since the moment she had first met him, had never once spoken, a voice broke through.
"Be…cause I… wanted to."
His voice was rough and broken, as if he hadn't used it in a long time, still remembering how to form the words.
Each syllable seemed a physical effort: his mouth, his vocal cords, his whole body straining to give life to that sound. Luna stared at him, surprised, caught between awe and fear. It wasn't just the meaning of the words that struck her, but the very fact that he had spoken.
"You… can talk?" she whispered, her mind still struggling to catch up. For a brief moment, the pain and despair that had been drowning her receded, pushed aside by pure bewilderment. He could speak? Since when? And why had he never done so before?
Evan, still inside his clone's body, watched her carefully, sensing the questions turning over in her head, and gave a small nod.
"Still… getting used… to it," he said slowly, which only confused her further.
Then he moved, stepping toward her.
Luna tensed for a moment, instinctively bracing herself, but the tension left her just as quickly. If he had wanted to hurt her, he wouldn't have waited until now. And in that moment, her sense of self-preservation felt distant anyway, dulled by a grief that made everything else feel pointless.
What happened next, though, pulled her back.
The figure extended a hand toward her, holding something between his fingers: a letter, crumpled and stained with blood.
Luna took it, confused, glancing up at him as if asking what it was.
He said nothing. Just watched her, as if inviting her to find out for herself.
She looked down at the letter in her hands. After a brief hesitation, she noticed what appeared to be a wax seal, dark red, already broken, no longer holding the letter shut.
At the sight of it, her eyes narrowed slightly. Curiosity pushed her forward. She opened the letter and began to read.
The first words seized her attention immediately, and something inside her snapped. The hand holding the letter tightened involuntarily, and her pupils began to bleed into a dangerous shade of red as a faint but volatile aura started to radiate from her body, like a fire on the verge of igniting.
"Nicolas…"