chapter six
907 Words
That night felt longer than any night she had ever known.
She lay awake, staring at the ceiling while the darkness slowly filled every corner of the room. She turned from one side to the other, but sleep refused to come. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the photograph.
MEERA.
The strange object.
The boy.
Her grandmother.
The unanswered questions.
Morning couldn't come fast enough.
She was tired,deeply, completely tired. Tired of being confused. Tired of people looking at her as though they knew something she didn't. Tired of being told that she wasn't ready for the truth.
Most of all, she was angry.
Why had everyone kept so much from her?
What had her life really been about?
Who was she?
What had her grandmother hidden?
And why did everyone seem so determined to protect her from something she didn't even understand?
She wanted answers.
All of them.
Not pieces.
Not hints.
Everything.
When morning finally came, she was already sitting at the edge of the bed.
She barely touched the food Meera left for her.
She simply waited.
Then she heard footsteps.
The door opened.
The boy walked in.
She immediately stood.
“You're finally here.”
He looked at her carefully.
“I said I would come.”
“You also said you were helping me.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I know.”
“And you lied.”
“I know.”
She folded her arms.
“Then start talking.”
He sat across from her.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he began.
“There are things about your life that you were never supposed to discover this way.”
She stared at him.
“Then tell me the right way.”
“It isn't that simple.”
“Everything with you people isn't simple!”
Her voice shook.
“You all keep saying the same thing. ‘You're not ready.’ ‘It's for your safety.’ ‘You don't need to know yet.’ I'm tired of hearing it.”
He remained quiet.
“Tell me about my grandmother.”
“She knew about the people connected to the object.”
“What people?”
“I can't tell you everything.”
She laughed in disbelief.
“Of course you can't.”
He continued anyway.
“She spent years making sure certain things stayed hidden. She knew that if the wrong person discovered what you carried, they would come looking for you.”
Her expression changed.
“Looking for me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
“Because you are connected to something that existed long before you understood it.”
“What am I connected to?”
He looked at her.
“That is one of the things I can't answer yet.”
She stood up.
“Then why did you even come?”
“Because you deserve to know something.”
She waited.
“The life you've known isn't completely what you believed it was.”
Her heart sank.
“What does that mean?”
“It means there are parts of your past that were deliberately kept from you.”
She stared at him.
“Was my whole life fake?”
“No.”
“Then what was real?”
“More than you think.”
She paced across the room.
Her thoughts became tangled.
“If everyone was hiding things from me, then what was my grandmother protecting me from? Was I supposed to find the object? Was someone expecting me to find it? Was all of this a trick?”
“No.”
“Then why does everything feel like one?”
He stood.
“You're asking questions that have answers. But not all of them can be answered today.”
“Why?”
“Because some truths change everything once you know them.”
She turned toward him, tears gathering in her eyes.
“Was I meant to die?”
He froze.
She swallowed.
“Is that what everyone has been afraid of? Did my grandmother know something was going to happen to me?”
“No.”
“Then what am I?”
He didn't answer.
She stared at him, desperate for something—anything—that could make sense of the chaos surrounding her.
He finally spoke.
“You are someone your grandmother loved enough to protect from a world you didn't even know existed.”
That answer only made her more confused.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to run.
She wanted her grandmother back so she could demand the truth from the one person she had trusted completely.
Instead, she stood there silently.
The boy reached into his pocket and placed a small folded paper on the table.
“That's all I can give you for now.”
She looked at it.
“What is it?”
“A beginning.”
She slowly picked it up.
There was a name written inside.
A name she had never seen before.
And beneath it were four words:
Find the place where it began.
She looked up.
But the boy was already walking toward the door.
“Wait!”
He stopped.
“Where is that place?”
He glanced back at her.
“You'll know when you're ready.”
Then he left.
She stared at the paper.
For the first time, she realized something terrifying.
She wasn't searching for answers anymore.
The answers were beginning to search for her.
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