At midnight, Celine woke to a faint sound, as if someone were walking across the roof. She got up quickly, grabbed a small lamp, and stepped out of the room. The sound continued… soft, steady… slow footsteps, as if they were treading on clouds.
She moved toward the door and pressed her ear against it.
Then…
One tap.
Then another.
It wasn't walking, but… knocking. Someone was standing at the door… and not speaking.
She backed away quickly, grabbed a heavy piece of wood, and waited. The knocking stopped. A deep, absolute silence followed. Then… footsteps retreating.
She returned to the room, and just before stepping inside, she heard Lilia talking in her sleep. She approached quietly, listening to fragments torn out of a dream: "Don't take me… no… I told them I don't know him… the key… the key…"
Celine froze. Was she dreaming? Or remembering? Were her memories tangled with the dream? She knelt beside her and whispered, "Who don't you want to take you?"
But Lilia didn't open her eyes. She only murmured, "The name… the letter… it starts with R."
The next day, Celine decided to go out alone for a few minutes. She needed to catch a phone signal, or at least gather firewood, since the cold had begun slipping through the walls. She urged Lilia not to open the door no matter what happened, then left.
The forest in the morning was less brutal, but its silence was strange, as if it were waiting for a new secret to be spoken within it. She collected some dry wood, then climbed a small rocky rise, trying to catch a phone signal. Finally, a single bar appeared. She sent a message to Eva: "We're in the cabin. They found us. Lilia remembered a name. Starts with R. I need you."
She sent the message, then hurried back.
But as she approached the cabin… something felt wrong. The door was open.
She ran, rushed inside, called out, "Lilia? Lilia!"
No one. The room was empty. The blanket was thrown on the floor. The chair overturned. And on the wall… a sentence written in charcoal:
"We told you not to dig up the grave."
Celine dropped to her knees, as if the air had been sucked out of her lungs. Her heart pounded wildly, tears jumping from her eyes without permission. Then she noticed something small on the bed… Lilia's necklace. She opened it. Inside was an official photo of her as a baby… but behind the photo, written in faded handwriting:
"Mariam Fallon + Ryan Marshall = ?"
The necklace slipped from her hand. "Ryan Marshall"… that R… the name Lilia had whispered.
Now Celine knew Lilia wasn't just a victim. She was the key. And the past that everyone believed was buried… had started to rise from its grave.
Celine stood in the center of the room, the forest wrapping the cabin in an eerie silence. The wind struck the walls like fingers searching for something. In her hand was the necklace, her eyes fixed on the engraved line: "Mariam Fallon + Ryan Marshall = ?" A question at the end of an equation. But who was Ryan Marshall? The real father? The criminal? The savior? And why had Lilia muttered his name as though she were remembering him?
She had no time. Lilia was missing. And the cabin where she had been promised safety had turned into an abandoned trap…
To be continued...