Corvian's voice cracked the quiet like a blade against glass. "I said no. We aren't going to that beach house."
He stood near the window of our small hotel room, the dull daylight crawling up his throat like fog over marble. His reflection in the glass looked less like a man than a sentence carved into light.
I sat on the edge of the unmade bed, the sheets smelling of old soap and smoke. "Why are you dictating my choices?" I said. "He offered two hundred. Maybe he'll pay more."
Corvian turned from the window. His movements were clean, deliberate, like something practiced centuries ago. The air in the room changed with him—charged, thin, expectant. "You ceded the next move; I'm only taking what you gave," he said, closing the distance between us. "And because you don't know what's good for you."
I laughed under my breath. "Right. The devil knows what's good for me."
He leaned close enough that I saw the faint light catch along the curve of his jaw, the stillness behind his eyes. "And what makes you think you're any different from me, Hugo? You talk like you've earned the right to judge. Like you remember what purity even feels like."
His voice stayed calm, but the weight beneath it made the walls seem to draw nearer. "Did you forget what you did to get the blood?" he went on. "The money? You keep treating me like a man—like an equal—and you keep mistaking yourself for innocent."
The air rippled. The mirror by the door bent inward, as though the glass inhaled.
Then everything shifted.
I was standing again in that other room—the one from May 21st. Same hotel. Same breathless quiet. The wallpaper still peeling in thin curls like old skin. The curtains half-drawn, letting a pale, yellow-gray light touch the carpet. There was the armchair near the window, sagging at the edges. The minibar's hum had died long ago, leaving only the soft click of the ceiling fan turning lazily above.
And there I was—sitting on the sofa, waiting. My past self. A drink rested untouched on the glass table. The ice had melted, a thin circle of water marking time that refused to move forward.
The air pressed cold against my back. I turned, and Corvian was behind me—same composure, same cruel calm.
"Take me out of here," I said. My voice trembled more from knowing than fear.
"No," he replied. His tone was almost gentle, as if teaching a child. "The show is about to start."
He placed a hand on my shoulder and turned my head toward the figure on the sofa—toward me. The sight hollowed me. I watched my own fingers twitch against the fabric, restless, waiting for something to happen. The younger me breathed in sharp, uneven bursts, unaware of what was coming. I remembered the taste of that air: a mixture of metal, old perfume, and the faint sweetness of anxiety.
Corvian's hand remained steady on my neck, guiding my sight as if I were a camera. "You see," he murmured, "memory is not mercy. It is instruction. Watch closely, and you'll remember what you traded, and why you can no longer call me human."
The light flickered; the room stilled completely—time itself holding its breath.
Harry came out of the bathroom drying his hands on a paper towel, his smile unguarded, too bright for the dull color of that room. The mirror behind him caught the shallow light and split it in two, so that for a moment he seemed doubled—one real, one reflection—both of them too alive.
"You're really hard to get a hold of," he said, stepping forward.
"Just the hustle, you know." My voice—his voice—cut through the quiet. I heard it twice, once from the boy on the sofa, once in my own skull, echoing like an ache I couldn't name.
"Yeah, you're working really hard," Harry said. He sat down on the opposite bed, the mattress sighing beneath him. The sheets were still creased from another guest's body. His elbows rested on his knees, and for a while he just looked at me—the me of that time—with a kind of cautious sympathy that now feels unbearable. "I can't imagine what you have to go through on the daily to get by."
My throat tightened. I wanted to shut my eyes, to crush them closed until the whole picture disappeared. The air pressed against my temples, heavy and slow.
The other me, the one living inside this memory, leaned back on the sofa and said coldly, "I wish you never have to live the life I do."
Harry blinked. "I had a huge fight with Mom," he said, voice softening as if changing the subject might ease the weight between us. "About my lifestyle in Hollowford. She says it's risky, not worth it. You know, it's really expensive there. I don't even do much, and somehow I end up spending my salary by the second day of pay." He laughed, but it came out small.
The younger me nodded. "Must be inconvenient."
"Well, yeah, a little," Harry said quickly, then winced, words tumbling out to mend what he'd broken. "I didn't mean it like that. I wasn't trying to match you or anything. I know it's never going to be a fair comparison. I was just—telling you how it is."
"Yeah, I know." The younger me smiled tightly, a practiced expression that said let's not do this. "Don't worry about it."
A silence followed. The kind that doesn't sit still—it breathes, fills the corners, touches everything.
"So how's Stephen and Elaine?" I asked after a pause, my tone casual but tired.
Harry exhaled through his nose, running a hand through his damp hair. "Elaine's living in Nocturne City now. Stephen's still home, graduating high school soon, I think." He laughed softly. "I don't really follow up with them anymore."
The sound should have been harmless. It was the sound of a young man talking to his cousin in a cheap hotel room. But all I could hear beneath it was the weight of what he didn't understand.
Watching from this side of time, I wanted to reach out and shake him—to tell him that every word he thought was harmless had been salt in an open wound. He wanted to match me so badly, so desperately, that he dressed it as empathy. He wanted to prove his struggle, to share my ache, without knowing what that ache costs when it doesn't end.
You wanted to match my level so badly, I thought, staring at the boy he was. So, so badly. You had to feign nonchalance, to dress your comfort as hardship. Every word you said sounded like the complaint of someone who never had to count the days by hunger.
Corvian's hand rested on my shoulder again. I hadn't even noticed him step closer. His fingers were steady, cool against my skin.
"Keep watching," he said.
And I did—because I couldn't look away.
In the stillness, Harry shifted, as if realizing the silence had grown too heavy. The version of me sitting on that sofa leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. His tone turned dry, half teasing.
"Aren't you going to offer me something to drink? I kind of feel like this is bad hospitality."
Harry blinked, startled. "Oh—right, I'm so sorry." He laughed softly, rubbing the back of his neck. "There's a lot of bottles here, hold on."
He crossed to the corner cabinet, its surface littered with corks, coasters, a glass ashtray someone had forgotten to empty. His movements were a bit too brisk, the kind of energy that hides discomfort.
"Why are you staying in a hotel?" my past self asked, voice even, eyes following Harry's reflection in the small mirror above the bar.
Harry's shoulders lifted and fell. "I told you. I had a fight with Mom." He opened the cabinet doors; a light inside flicked on, catching the deep reds of the bottles. "She just doesn't understand things, you know? She's the same difficult old self. Doesn't listen, doesn't… understand."
He paused, the glass clinking against another.
"But you never struggled when I was living with you," the other me said. "She treated you like her own son."
Harry's head tilted, his voice lowering as he scanned the labels. "It's not always what it looks like. I know from your point of view it felt that way, but to me, it wasn't just about being treated kindly—fed, brushed, cared for. There were other things. And as a person, I needed to feel like one, not like a guest renting a corner of her affection. She hasn't been kind all around." His hand closed around a bottle. "I know the struggle you've had, but…" He turned, holding it up. "Is wine good?"
The younger me gave a small nod. "Yeah. Wine's good. Continue what you were saying."
Harry took two glasses from the top shelf and set them down, the sound sharp in the quiet. "It's just—sometimes I feel like you judge things only from your side, not how they actually are." He poured the wine, slow, deliberate, the liquid catching a dull glow before he handed me a glass.
"How so?" the other me asked.
Harry exhaled, lowering himself back onto the bed, the mattress sighing beneath his weight. "You said it yourself—how she treated me as her son, and you as her nephew. But even that wasn't easy. I had my own problems with her, different from yours, sure, but still there. I just… I want you to know that having struggles doesn't mean I'm trying to erase yours."
He set the bottle between them on the table and looked up, hesitant, his eyes softening. "I don't mean bad, you know. I've been trying to see you, talk to you like before. Back when we lived in the same house, we could talk about the same things."
The me on the sofa laughed under his breath, the sound brittle. "We could never relate to the same things, Harry." He leaned forward, the glass balanced between his hands. "That's your problem. You got so used to copying me you still are. You're trying to match my struggle."
Harry's lips parted slightly, the light catching on his cheekbone, on the curve of guilt forming there.
"When I was back in that house," I continued, "things were different. Sure, we could talk about what was for lunch, complain about the same food, but that's where it ended. You just said it yourself—your feelings were different. I could never talk to you about the rest of it. About my father being a kidnapper. About him stealing from families. About how he used to take children." My voice in that memory shook—not from anger, but from the pressure of everything it carried. "I could never tell you what that felt like, Harry. You can't understand that.
"I was never part of your world. I just… appeared in it. Some lost piece that didn't fit, wearing borrowed clothes, eating food that tasted like someone else's kindness. You saw me through that narrow little lens of yours—thinking everything I did was some way to prove I belonged there."
Harry's eyes glistened, his hands trembling slightly around his glass.
"It wasn't like that," I said. "It never was."
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then his voice came out small, the apology thin but sincere. "You're right. You're right, I'm sorry. Okay. I get it now."
The me on the sofa looked at him with that tired, wordless acceptance that isn't forgiveness—just exhaustion.
Watching it unfold from the edge of the room, I could almost feel that same ache crawling up my chest, the kind that presses against your ribs until you forget how to breathe.
And Corvian, behind me, whispered like a thought I didn't want to have. "Do you?"
It took me a moment to realize he wasn't talking to Harry.
"Please," I said, my voice shaking, raw from the weight of what I'd already seen. "Please, take me out of here. I've seen enough. I get the point."
Corvian didn't move. He stood with the patience of something that doesn't need time to pass. Then the sharp sound of his tongue clicked against his teeth, deliberate, reprimanding.
"No," he said. "We're not leaving until the show is over. Until you see the full thing." He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing in amusement. "Now turn around, Hugo. Don't make me force you like the last time. Turn around, and take a look at what you've done."
I stared at him, hoping he'd flinch, hoping there was something human in him that could be bargained with. There wasn't. His expression stayed fixed—serene, cruel in its serenity.
I turned back slowly, the air tightening as if it had to make space for what I was about to witness.
The world before me snapped—like a thread pulled too taut—and the memory jumped forward, its edges sharper, cleaner. Harry was still on the bed, his laughter soft, his words blurred. But my eyes locked on something small, almost casual: the other me, the version sitting across from him, slipping a powdery pinch into the dark wine. A simple movement, quick and unassuming, gone before the glass even settled.
My stomach dropped.
The conversation between them went on, but I couldn't hear it. Their mouths moved, gestures familiar, faces alive with expression—but there was no sound, not even air. It was as if someone had closed a lid over the world.
I pressed my palms against my ears, trying to catch any noise, any syllable, but there was nothing—only silence that pulsed inside my head like pressure building behind bone. I remembered what was said, could recite it if I tried, but I couldn't hear it here. My own mind refused to replay it.
"What is this?" I whispered. "Why can't I hear it?"
Corvian didn't answer.
Harry's figure wavered slightly, his smile slowing. He raised the glass, said something lost to me, then drank. My heart pounded so loud it filled the silence.
The other me leaned forward. His lips moved, forming words I already knew but couldn't bear to recall. You want to see a magic trick?
Harry nodded, sluggish, eyes half-lidded. He swayed where he sat. The cards appeared in my past self's hands, shuffling, gliding—an old reflex polished by desperation. The room glowed dull gold from the lamp beside them, and the way the light caught the cards made them look alive.
Harry's head tilted, drifting. He tried to watch, murmured something incoherent, and then his body gave in. His head rested on the pillow, his breath slowing.
The other me froze for a long while. He sat there, still as a figure carved from guilt. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the pendant—the same one that hangs heavy around my neck even now. I could see his hand trembling.
He moved behind Harry, his shoulders shaking. The silence broke only by the smallest sound—the thud of breath escaping him as he drove the pendant's tip into the back of Harry's shoulder, right between the blades. The skin gave easily.
He stayed there, frozen, his hand still gripping the chain, body heaving, lips trembling with words that never came.
I couldn't breathe. My chest felt carved open, my ribs too narrow to contain the panic clawing to get out.
I pressed my hands to my face, squeezing my eyes shut. "Stop," I choked. "Please stop—"
Corvian's fingers caught my wrists, pulling them away with unhurried strength. His voice was close to my ear, steady, patient, almost kind.
"Do not do that again," he said. "The show still isn't over."
And I realized, with a terror so deep it felt calm, that he meant it.
The room did not breathe. It only watched.
Harry lay on his side, quiet, his face slackened into sleep. The me from the memory knelt beside him, the pendant still lodged in the soft flesh between his shoulder blades. My hand—his hand—trembled so hard the chain shivered in the air. The tremor ran up through my arm and into my throat until I thought I might choke on it.
He—I—was crying without sound. The tears gathered and slipped from my chin onto the sheets, small circles that disappeared almost instantly. My stomach twisted. I gagged once, the air catching wet in my throat, and turned my face away from the sight.
When I looked again, I saw the pendant beginning to darken, the red creeping through the metal as though it were breathing, drinking. It grew heavier in my hand, unbearably so. I could feel the pulse of it, the slow drag of blood filling what shouldn't have been able to hold anything.
I pulled it out, trembling, and stared at it from underneath, turning it in the dim light. There was no opening. No slit, no crack, nothing. Just smooth metal, sealed like skin that had never been broken.
For a moment, wonder overcame horror. I remember that part too clearly—the curiosity, the confusion that felt almost sacred. As though something divine had touched the impossible.
Then guilt found its way back in.
The younger me reached for the glass on the table, the one still half-full of wine. His fingers shook as he poured what was left over the small wound. The liquid bled across Harry's skin, staining it deep red again. The wound itself wasn't large—just a round mark, not clean-edged, with uneven ridges like something that had bitten and twisted before it released.
In my head, I heard the thought exactly as it had come then: it'll clean it. Disinfection. As if mercy could be poured out of a bottle.
Corvian's voice slithered in behind me, half a sigh, half amusement. "Even in your most foolish moments, you try to disinfect it."
I didn't answer. I just watched.
He stepped closer, voice low, almost laughing. "Is that kindness? Shooting someone through the chest, then pressing a little plaster over the hole? Hoping it stops the bleeding? It's ridiculous. You're ridiculous."
Still, I didn't turn. My eyes stayed fixed on the image—on Harry breathing softly, the sheet rising and falling with each breath; on the version of myself who couldn't stop trembling. It felt like standing in the same body twice and not knowing which one was real.
Something inside me began to twist apart. Watching it now, I couldn't even say why I had done it. The memory held no clean motive, no single spark that had led to this moment. I didn't feel hatred then, not in the way hatred usually feels. I didn't even feel triumph. I only remember a silence—a deep, still quiet that followed the act, and the sense that it was already done long before I ever lifted the pendant.
Maybe it wasn't love I had for him. Maybe it never was. Maybe I was surviving on what he gave me—his affection, his concern, the small warmth he'd carried over from our childhood. I lived off it the way a dying fire lives off its last ember.
And Harry, gentle, thoughtless Harry, had always been the easiest prey. Odette would never have let me close enough. Elaine would have seen it coming. Stephen would've screamed. But Harry—he had believed in me. He had smiled when he shouldn't have.
Corvian's hand closed around my arm, cold and certain. "You little menace," he said, his tone laced with both admiration and disgust.
Then the world around me folded, and I felt myself being pulled back.
I broke. The sound came out of me like something torn from inside the ribs. My knees hit the floor before I realized I'd moved, both hands pressed over my eyes as if I could claw the sight out. My chest ached in uneven waves, each breath dragging raw through my throat.
"I don't know what happened to him after that day," I said, choking on the words. "He was alive. I heard his voice. He called. I heard him." The thought came in fragments, desperate, unconvincing. "Or—what was even that?"
The world around me still carried the smell of the hotel: stale air, warm dust, the echo of two voices that no longer belonged to us. I wanted it gone.
"They told me," I went on, my hands still covering my face, "at the mountains—they said I didn't need to kill. And I didn't. I didn't kill him. The wound wasn't big, he wasn't even bleeding, nothing happened to him." My palms pressed harder against my eyes until I saw color. "But why can't I take it? Why do I not feel the same courage I felt that day in the hotel?"
Corvian's voice reached me, quiet at first, then clearer—smooth, unhurried, soaked in patience that felt like mockery. "This wasn't courage, Hugo," he said. "Remember when I told you your anger toward your aunt wasn't enough to move you? Apparently, your anger toward Harry was far more fierce."
I lifted my head, tears slicking my cheeks, the skin under my eyes burning. He was standing a few steps away, hands in his pockets, looking at me as though I were a small and puzzling thing.
"You had the idea long before you did it," he continued. "You must have. You went there prepared—with sedatives, didn't you?"
My stomach tightened. The pendant around my neck felt like it was growing heavier with each word.
"I told you a hundred times already," I said, voice breaking. "I get the point!"
He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing in a lazy kind of amusement. Then he sighed, and the sound felt almost human. "Well," he said, "there. Now you remember."
He turned away, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve, the movement unbothered, elegant in its cruelty. "You should get some sleep."
I watched him walk a few steps before the room began to fade around us. My body still shook. The sound of my own crying lingered, quieter now, as if it no longer belonged to me.