chapter_9
“The sharp ring of a bell echoed through the abandoned place, slicing through the silence like a warning. Tall pine trees surrounded the area, their dark green shadows whispering secrets in the cold air. A chill crawled down her spine. Her body slowly froze, as if the night itself was gripping her. Her lips turned pale… her breath uneven. And her eyes-red, trembling, filled with something deeper than fear.”
She reached for the bag hanging from her shoulder, his fingers brushing against the worn fabric.
Slowly, he opened it and searched inside…
only to find a few candies resting at the bottom.
She ate the candy while walking.
After a while, without even realizing it, she pulled out the crumpled letter and slowly opened it.
The letter had an address written on it.
Following it, she found herself on a highway-empty, dark, and filled with an eerie stillness.
The road stretched endlessly, wrapped in a creeping silence that made her chest tighten.
In the distance, a figure appeared, lingering in the shadows, standing still as if waiting.
He seemed fine, too normal for a place like this.
Tears gathered in her eyes.
She wanted to cry, to scream, to run, but her body refused to respond, as if she had lost control over herself.
She lost what little strength she had left and collapsed onto the empty black road.
The cold surface pressed against her skin as her vision blurred, the silence around her growing heavier with every passing.
second.The night didn’t pass normally.
It glitched.
One moment it was dark, the next it felt like the same second repeating again and again.
The silence looped, the cold stayed the same, and even her breath felt stuck between moments.
It was as if time had forgotten to move forward.
Next morning, around 10 o’clock, she slowly opened her eyes.
Her vision was blurry, her body still heavy, as if the night hadn’t really ended.
For a moment, she couldn’t understand where she was.
Her eyes moved around the room.
It was small…
too small.
There was only a bed beneath her, a tiny gas stove in one corner, and a table cluttered with basic cooking things.
The air felt still, unfamiliar-like she didn’t belong there.
And something about it…
felt wrong.
She pulled the soft, warm blanket around herself, her hands trembling as she forced herself to sit up.
Every movement felt heavy, unfamiliar.
As she slowly got to her feet, her gaze shifted-and then froze.
On the table, a small, sharp knife lay there…
its blade smeared with dried blood.
For a second, everything stilled again.
Not silence-something worse.
Like the world had paused just for her to notice it.
Her mind snapped awake instantly.
Panic rushed through her as she searched for her bag and belongings-her phone, her diary, the clues…
everything was there, untouched.
She grabbed her bag tightly and turned to run outside, her breath quick and uneven.
But just before leaving, she hesitated for a second, then quickly picked up a few things from the table-some water and bread-her hands still shaking, as if she didn’t even know why she was taking them.
After stepping outside, she stopped abruptly.
It wasn’t empty…
it was a city.
Voices echoed somewhere in the distance, vehicles passed, people moved like everything was normal.
The sunlight felt too real after that endless night.
For a moment, she just stood there, confused.
How did she go from that empty, frozen highway…
to this place full of life?
Something wasn’t matching.
Something was off.
She took out the letter, her fingers still slightly trembling, and stopped a taxi passing by.
As she got in, she showed the address to the driver.
For a moment, he didn’t say anything.
Then he nodded and started driving.
She glanced at him through the mirror…
and froze.
There was something about him.
Something familiar.
Like she had seen him before.
Not just once…
but somewhere deeper, somewhere she couldn’t remember clearly.
A strange uneasiness settled in her chest.
But she didn’t say anything.
She looked away, gripping the letter tightly in her hand.
Right now, nothing mattered more than finding Joe.
The driver turned on some music, soft and calming, filling the car with a strange sense of ease.
The gentle rhythm wrapped around her thoughts, slowing them down.
She leaned back against the seat, her grip on the letter loosening as her eyes slowly closed.
For a moment…
everything felt quiet again.
Too quiet.
She asked the driver, her eyes still closed, who the musician was.
The driver took a quick glance at her through the mirror and smiled gently, saying Enzo.
The name felt unfamiliar, yet something about it lingered in her mind.
She didn’t ask anything more.
The drive felt long, almost endless.
At some point, she opened her eyes again, still tired, and asked the driver how much time it would take.
He replied calmly, saying there was still half an hour left.
She leaned back again, her stomach tightening with hunger.
The driver noticed it through the mirror.
Without saying much, he reached into his bag and handed her a sandwich.
For a moment, she hesitated…
then quietly took it.
The driver glanced at her through the mirror while she ate the sandwich.
“I think… you’re new here,” he said casually.
She didn’t look up.
“Hmm.”
“Not from this city, right?” he asked again, a little more curious this time.
She shook her head slightly.
“Thought so,” he murmured, eyes back on the road.
She stayed quiet, finishing the sandwich slowly, as if even simple conversations felt too heavy right now.
After half an hour, the car finally stopped in front of a library.
It wasn’t just any library-the architecture was breathtaking, the kind that could shake someone’s mind at first glance.
Tall structures, intricate designs…
it felt unreal, almost out of place.
She stepped out of the car and reached forward to pay.
“How much?” she asked quietly.
The driver looked at her through the mirror one last time and said, “The city is welcoming you.”
She frowned slightly.
“What?”
“I was told not to charge you,” he added calmly.
“Have a good day… and welcome to the city.”
Before she could say anything else, he drove away, leaving her standing there with the letter in her hand and a strange uneasiness settling deep inside her.
The city still felt strangely cold despite the crowds.
People moved as usual, busy with their lives-working, earning, surviving, spending-everything normal, yet it all felt distant to her.
She took a deep breath and pulled out her phone.
No messages.
No notifications.
No network.
Just the wallpaper staring back at her-her and Joe, smiling in front of the Eiffel Tower, frozen in a moment that felt like it belonged to another life.
Her fingers lingered on the screen for a second.
Then she locked the phone and slipped it back into her bag, the silence around her somehow louder than before.
She walked into the library.
It was quiet, filled with readers lost in their own worlds, pages turning softly in the silence.
She made her way to the reception desk and handed over the letter.
The lady looked at it…
but showed no surprise at all.
“Ma’am, you can sit there,” she said quietly, pointing toward a corner seat.
Something about her calmness felt unnatural.
Still, she nodded and walked toward the corner, the weight of everything pressing down on her again.
She eased herself down onto the seat.
From the corner, her eyes drifted back to the reception.
The lady was speaking to someone, her posture perfectly polite, every movement controlled and gentle.
It looked normal.
Too normal.
For a second, it felt like she was watching a scene play out…
not real, just repeating.
She quietly roamed her eyes around the area.
The library felt calm, almost too calm, like every sound had been softened on purpose.
Outside, through the large glass windows, the view looked beautiful…
almost unreal, like a picture that didn’t belong to the same world she had just come from.
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The strangest thing wasn’t that she arrived.
It was that the city seemed to know she would.