Chapter 20: Reflections in the Dark

Caelum stood motionless at the edge of the room, the flickering lights casting elongated shadows against the walls, as if the mansion itself was breathing. Each breath felt like it was being pulled from a depth too dark to understand, stretching time and space in a way that made the ground beneath their feet tremble. They weren’t alone, but the absence of Elias felt more present than any living soul. His absence, like a hole in the fabric of their reality, made everything seem… quieter.

A shadow moved across the room. Caelum’s breath hitched. The shapes in the corners shifted, familiar yet foreign—faces of the past, distorted, unrecognizable, waiting. Waiting for Caelum to remember.

The voice whispered, like an echo that hadn't fully passed. “You’re running from them again, aren’t you? From what you really are.”

Caelum flinched, their gaze darting across the room. The voice had become a constant companion—neither friend nor foe, but an unyielding reminder of everything they feared. They had learned long ago to listen. To its manipulations, its threats, and its promises. They wondered if Elias had ever heard it too.

For a fleeting moment, Caelum’s mind drifted—back to a time before the mansion, back to a time before this fractured existence. Their past didn’t come to them in clear memories, but in snatches of emotions, like jagged pieces of a broken mirror. Loss was the first thing they could feel, a sharp pain that left them vulnerable. It wasn’t a singular moment. It had been a slow burn, an accumulation of moments too heavy to bear.

Flashback

It was a rainy afternoon when Caelum had first felt the weight of it—the absence of someone they had once relied on. Their mother’s absence was an ever-present ache, a gap that no one could fill. She had been the one to make them feel safe, to offer comfort in a world that often felt cold and unforgiving. But she had faded away slowly, like an old photograph that lost its color.

Caelum could still remember the heavy silence that followed her departure—how their father’s eyes had grown darker, more distant. They had never truly understood why their mother left, but it didn’t matter. The hollow space she had left behind swallowed them whole.

The sudden return to the present snapped Caelum’s mind back to the mansion. The walls felt tighter now, pressing in from every side. The memories were becoming too much, and the weight of their past pressed down harder than the dark walls of the mansion itself.

The voice returned, quieter now, almost sympathetic. “You blame her, don’t you? You’ve always blamed her.”

Caelum clenched their fists. Blame. Yes, there had always been a part of them that blamed their mother for leaving. But there was more—so much more.

Flashback

There had been another memory—a memory from later, when Caelum had reached adolescence. A time when their heart had been raw, unprotected. Their father, once a strong presence in their life, had crumbled. He had become something Caelum didn’t recognize: cold, indifferent. They had reached out to him, tried to be the child he needed, but he wasn’t there.

It wasn’t just the neglect that had wounded Caelum. It was the betrayal. The betrayal of not being seen. Not being acknowledged. They had tried to fill that emptiness with something—anything—but it always felt like grasping at smoke. Their mind, once sharp and focused, became muddled, fractured, like the fragments of glass after a fall.

And so, Caelum’s search for meaning began, though they hadn’t known it at the time. A search to fill the void left by their parents, a void that only deepened as they grew older. They had learned to question everything. To doubt everything. Was there even such a thing as reality? Or was the world just a reflection of their fragmented mind?

Back to the Mansion

The voice's words lingered in the air like an oppressive fog. Caelum closed their eyes, fighting the pull of the past. Blame. Loss. It felt like everything in their life had been an attempt to fill the void, to make sense of something they couldn't understand. They had once believed that if they could simply find the missing piece, the one thing that had always eluded them, they could finally become whole. But the more they searched, the more they realized that the search itself was the only constant.

“You can’t escape the truth forever, Caelum,” the voice whispered again. “You’re not running from me. You’re running from yourself.”

Caelum’s heart raced, the weight of the voice’s words pressing down on them. From myself? The realization was as painful as it was freeing. Had they been running from their own reflection, from the parts of themselves they couldn’t bear to see? Had the mansion itself become a mirror, not just of their mind, but of everything they had lost?

A sharp noise broke the silence. Caelum turned. There, at the far end of the room, Dante stood—his form illuminated by the dim light. He was watching them with an intensity that made Caelum’s chest tighten.

“You’re afraid of me,” Dante said, his voice low and almost soft.

“No,” Caelum replied, their voice shaky. “I’m not afraid of you.”

But they knew that wasn’t entirely true. There was a fear, but it wasn’t of Dante himself. It was the fear that Dante represented—a truth they weren’t ready to face.

Dante took a step forward. “Then why do you hide from me?”

Caelum’s throat tightened, and for the first time, they weren’t sure what to say. It wasn’t just fear. It was the realization that, in some strange way, they had been waiting for Dante to push them into the truth. Waiting for someone, something, to force them to confront the darkest parts of their soul.

A beat of silence passed. Caelum finally spoke, their voice barely a whisper.

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

The weight of those words hung heavy in the air between them. Who was Caelum? They were no longer sure. The mansion had become a labyrinth of their mind, filled with echoes of the past and fragmented identities. The questions they had sought to answer for so long—the questions of reality, of self—had become the very walls that trapped them.

Dante stepped forward, his eyes dark and unyielding. "You’ve been running from yourself for so long, Caelum. It’s time to stop. It’s time to face the truth.”