The next series of events does not exist clearly in my memory.
When I try to look back at it now, it feels as if several pieces of that night simply disappeared somewhere between one moment and the next. I remember the loss, the fear, the forest, and the distant beams of torches moving between the trees.
But the exact moment when we left that place… that part is missing.
I do not remember walking out of the forest. I do not remember getting into a vehicle, or travelling anywhere. Those details must have existed, of course, but they are gone now, lost somewhere between panic, exhaustion, and the confusion of a thirteen-year-old mind trying to understand far too much in a single night.
The next clear fragment of my memory finds me in a room. I was already there, settled onto a sofa. The room looked like some hotel room.
Across from me stood two people.
Lady Amelia was there.
And beside her was the man I had seen earlier in the forest—the man who had fought the one wearing the black coat. His name was Mr. Vidot.
Both of them were looking at me.
They were speaking as well, though it took a few moments for my mind to actually notice that they were asking questions.
At the time, their voices sounded distant, almost as if they were coming through a wall. I could see their lips moving, could hear the sound of words being spoken, but my thoughts were slow to follow the meaning.
They might have been asking me if I was hurt.
They might have been asking me what had happened.
To be honest, I cannot remember the exact questions anymore. Even now, when I try to recall those moments carefully, the words themselves refuse to return. All that remains is the vague memory of two adults speaking with concern while I sat there staring at them without truly responding.
For a while, I simply looked around the room.
The quietness of the place felt almost unnatural.
Only a short time earlier, the world had been filled with chaos.
But now there was nothing like that.
The room was still.
The lights were steady.
No one was shouting.
And that was when reality finally began to catch up with me.
When everything had happened in the forest, events had moved too quickly for my mind to truly react. Fear had been present, of course, but it had been buried under confusion and shock. I had simply been moving from one moment to the next without really understanding what was happening.
But sitting there in that quiet room gave my mind the time it needed to process everything.
The realization did not arrive slowly.
It hit all at once.
The closest comparison I can think of is what happens when someone stretches a rubber band farther and farther, holding the tension for a long time, and then suddenly releases it. All the force that had been held back snaps forward in a single instant.
That is exactly how it felt inside my chest.
The emotions that had been pushed aside earlier came rushing back together—fear, confusion, disbelief, and the sudden, overwhelming awareness that my parents were not there.
And then I began to cry.
Not the kind of quiet crying that someone can hide from others, but the uncontrolled crying of a child who suddenly realizes how alone he feels. My vision blurred almost immediately, and I remember struggling to speak while tears kept falling.
I kept asking for my mother.
I kept asking for my father as well.
Those were the only two people I wanted at that moment. I did not care about explanations, and I did not care about the strange people standing in front of me. All I wanted was for my parents to appear and tell me that everything was fine.
Even now, years later, remembering that moment still makes my chest feel tight.
There is a kind of burning that appears in my heart whenever those memories return, as if…..as if it was trying to burn me from inside.
At that time, however, my mind searched desperately for a simpler explanation.
I wanted to believe that none of it was real.
The forest… the fighting… the man in the black coat… all of it felt so unreal that my mind tried to push it into the same place where nightmares usually go.
Sitting there on that sofa, with tears still falling and my thoughts completely confused, I tried to convince myself that this situation was no different from my nightmares.
Maybe I was still dreaming.
Maybe if I just went back to sleep, everything would return to normal.
I desperately tried to convince myself that when I finally opened my eyes, I would be staring at the familiar ceiling of my own bedroom. I would hear the normal morning sounds—my sister loudly complaining about something downstairs, and the faint, comforting clatter of my mother making breakfast. My father would be sitting in the living room, quiet and safe.
The cold forest, the man in the heavy black coat, the suffocating silence of our hallway—it would all just melt away into nothing. My racing heart would finally slow down, the cold sweat would dry, and I would realize I was safe. I just had to sleep. If I could just fall asleep, the morning would fix everything.
That was what I kept telling myself.
Over and over again.
Until the exhaustion from everything that had happened finally dragged me down.
And so, eventually…
I fell asleep.