The audio file she warned me about had no name.
Just a blank .m4a.
It didn't come from Elena.
It came from the producer.
The man who tried to erase me.
I stared at it, terrified.
Terrified that what I heard next… might rewrite my version of her.
But I clicked play anyway.
---
It started like a funeral.
Muted piano.
Rain.
A woman humming off-key — not Elena, but something close. Like her shadow.
Then a man's voice.
Cold. Smug.
> "Ezra, I knew you'd get this eventually. She always said you were the type who couldn't let go."
> "So let me help you."
> "She wasn't the muse you imagined."
> "She was a blueprint. I just perfected her."
---
I paused the file.
My hands were shaking.
What did he mean "perfected her"?
I skipped forward 10 seconds. Bad idea.
Elena's voice flooded the headphones again… but not like I remembered.
> "Don't stop. Don't think. Just feel."
It wasn't a message. It wasn't a song.
It was a looped command.
Over and over. Glitching. Repeating. Slightly distorted each time.
> Don't stop. Don't think. Just feel.
Don't stop. Don't think. Just feel.
Don't stop. Don't think—
I tore the headphones off.
---
I knew what this was now.
It wasn't a recording.
It was a trap.
A psychological edit designed to overwrite memory. A fake Elena, built to erode the real one.
I remembered something she said in Chapter 6:
> "Listen to what he stole."
This was it.
He stole her voice.
Edited it. Broke it. Turned it into something he could use.
And now he was feeding it back to me — one piece at a time.
---
I went to my mirror.
I don't know why.
Maybe I wanted to see if I was still real.
Still me.
But when I looked into my own eyes, I heard it again.
Not from the file.
From inside my head.
> Don't stop. Don't think. Just feel.
It wasn't gone.
It had already rooted itself.
That's when I realized...
---
This wasn't just a mystery.
This was a rewrite of identity.
Of memory.
Of sound and truth.
And if I didn't act fast, I wouldn't just lose Elena again…
I'd lose myself.