Nir's heart stopped for a single beat.
The voice was not merely a memory.
It carried the exact same tone.
The same calm.
That warmth he had never forgotten despite the passage of years.
His mother's voice.
Yet she was dead.
He knew that.
He remembered her funeral.
He remembered the empty house afterward.
He remembered that night when he sat alone, unable to understand why someone could vanish from life so simply.
And yet...
The voice was now coming from behind a door that did not belong to this world.
"Nir..."
The call echoed once more.
This time, closer.
Nir raised his head.
Lyra approached him.
"Did you hear that?"
He did not answer.
His eyes were fixed on the door.
The old man said:
"Do not approach it."
Nir looked at him.
"It's my mother's voice."
"I know."
Nir froze.
"How do you know?"
The man lowered his eyes.
"Because she called you the exact same way the first time."
Silence fell.
Nir felt a chill creep through his body.
"The first time?"
The man nodded.
"Before you understood your true nature... you believed everything you heard behind that door."
"And what happened?"
The man raised his gaze to him.
"You opened the door."
No one moved.
"And what did you see?"
The man answered:
"You saw your mother."
Nir's breath caught.
"She was actually there?"
"Yes."
Lyra's fingers trembled.
"How?"
The man looked at her.
" Because the door does not manufacture lies."
Then he returned his gaze to Nir.
"It uses truths."
Nir stepped forward.
"What does that mean?"
"It means the voice you are hearing is not an illusion."
"Yet her presence behind the door is impossible."
"As far as this world is concerned... yes."
The man paused briefly.
"As for what lies beyond the void, 'impossible' is a word with no value."
Nir drew closer to the door.
He raised his hand.
The man shouted:
"Do not touch it!"
His hand stopped just before the handle.
"Why?"
"Because the door does not open by force."
Nir looked at the black handle.
"How does it open then?"
"By desire."
Nir fell silent.
"Everyone who tried to open it wanted something."
"Some wanted power."
"Some wanted immortality."
"And some wanted to recover someone they had lost."
The man looked straight into his eyes.
"And you want your mother."
Nir did not answer.
The truth was stark.
Yes.
He wanted her.
Even after all these years...
A small part deep inside him wished he could hear her voice just once more.
To see her.
To ask her why she had left.
To tell her things he never got to say.
Then the voice came from behind the door.
"I am here, Nir."
He closed his eyes.
And remembered.
A hand wiping his hair when he was a child.
A voice laughing when he returned from school.
An embrace whose value he only understood after losing it.
A single tear fell down his face.
Lyra raised her eyes to him.
She had never seen Nir cry before.
The voice said:
"Open the door."
Nir's hand drew near the handle.
Then it stopped.
He stood still for seconds.
And finally...
He withdrew his hand.
He said:
"No."
Silence descended.
"Nir..."
"My mother is dead."
The words were painful.
Yet they came out steady.
"And I don't know what lies behind this door."
He looked at the man.
"But I know one thing."
Then he looked back at the door.
"If she were truly my mother... she would never ask me to open a door that might destroy the world."
The voice vanished.
For the first time since its appearance...
There was no reply.
Then the chamber began to shake.
The ancient runes went dark.
And the colossal eye retreated into the darkness.
As for the door...
It began to crack.
The man screamed:
"Get back!"
Nir stepped back.
And the door exploded from within.
Instead of something pouring out...
Light emerged.
A calm, white light.
And in its center, a woman appeared.
She stopped before Nir.
A face he knew.
Eyes he knew.
A smile he knew.
Then she said:
"You have grown, my son."
The world froze for Nir.
He could no longer hear anything.
He no longer saw Lyra.
Nor the man.
Nor the cave.
Everything that remained before him...
Was her.
His mother.
She extended her hand toward him.
"Come."
Nir stood motionless.
His eyes filled with tears.
Yet this time...
He did not step forward.
He said in a broken voice:
"If you are truly my mother..."
He paused.
Then completed:
"Then tell me something no one else knows."
The woman smiled.
And for the first time...
Her features shifted.
Her smile grew wider.
Colder.
Then she said:
"You were never my son."
The light extinguished.
The woman vanished.
And Nir remained standing before the open door.
Yet that final sentence...
Was no lie.
He knew that.
Because the void within him...
Had responded to it.