Chapter 5, last chapter
1044 Words
She woke to cold soil under her palms.
For a moment she didn’t know where she was—just flashes of trees leaning like tired giants, fog hanging low, and the sour metallic taste of fear still clinging to her tongue. She pushed herself up slowly. The forest looked ruined: branches broken, dirt torn open as if something heavy had crashed through it, faint scorch marks curling across fallen leaves.
Then she saw the bodies.
Kai was the nearest—lying on his side, breathing shallowly, his face pale, eyes closed but twitching like someone fighting a nightmare. A few feet away, Mark pushed himself off the ground, standing slowly, brushing dirt off his coat as if he’d only stumbled on a walk. But his face… his face was tight with something she had never seen on him before.
Worry.
He turned, saw her awake, and approached with steady, almost heavy steps. When he crouched beside her, his breath came out strained. He reached for her neck gently—so gently it confused her—and unclasped the necklace without even touching the chain. It just fell apart like smoke.
She swallowed hard.
“Mark…?”
His eyes lifted.
And for the first time since she’d met him, the cold in them wasn’t sharp.
It wasn’t empty.
She saw something warm buried there—something old, familiar, and aching.
Mark spoke quietly.
“You need to go back. It’s time.”
Her chest tightened.
“For what? Why does everyone keep telling me what I don’t understand?”
He didn’t look frustrated.
He looked tired.
Tired in the way someone looks after carrying a weight for years.
“When you wake up,” he said, “I’ll explain everything. But right now, you have to go.”
She grabbed his wrist.
“No. I’m not leaving without answers this time. I’m done running. Talk to me.”
Mark held her stare.
Then he finally exhaled as if surrendering.
“In the past life,” he said, “you were my wife.”
Her heartbeat stuttered.
“You died,” he continued, voice steady but rough. “It wasn’t natural. Something happened to you, and ever since, I’ve been trying to bring you back—back to where you belong. To us.”
She felt her breath catch. The flashes she’d seen earlier… the warmth, children’s laughter, a face she almost recognized—those weren’t dreams. Not random memories. They were pieces of something real.
“Kai was my friend,” Mark said. “Until jealousy twisted him. He wanted what I had. When you died, he followed me into this world. He found a way to take power. Not like mine, but enough to interfere. Enough to get close to you.”
She stepped back.
“Kai… pretended to save me…?”
“He wanted you to trust him first,” Mark said. “And he almost did it. If that necklace stayed on you, he would’ve taken you somewhere I couldn’t reach.”
Her stomach knotted. Kai had always been the gentle one. The warm one. The one who cared. And all of that… was a mask?
“And you,” she whispered, looking at Mark. “You were the enemy, right?”
Mark didn’t flinch.
“You were never supposed to fear me,” he said quietly. “I only played the villain because it kept you far from him.”
A long silence drifted between them like fog.
Her eyes stung. Everything she believed had been flipped twice over. None of it made sense—but somehow every emotion did.
“Why me?” she whispered. “Why bring me back? Why not someone else?”
Mark stepped closer, careful, almost unsure for once.
“Because I loved you,” he said. “And love doesn’t switch to someone else when life changes. I’ve waited too long to lose you again.”
Her throat tightened.
His voice… it didn’t sound like a villain.
It sounded like someone breaking open, piece by piece.
She didn’t know if she believed all of it.
But she believed the way he looked at her.
“Come home,” he said. “Where you’re meant to be.”
She hesitated, fear and longing battling inside her. But she nodded. Not because she fully understood—but because something in her chest pulled toward him like a thread remembering where it came from.
Mark held out his hand.
She placed hers in his.
There was no spark, no dramatic blast, no explosion of light.
Just a quiet warmth spreading through her fingers… like something forgotten returning to life.
He leaned in.
She didn’t pull away.
Their lips met—soft, steady, nothing wild—almost like a promise pressed into a moment. Safe, quiet, right. When she closed her eyes, the world tilted.
Then—
Everything went dark.
⸻
She gasped and sat upright.
Sunlight filtered through wooden walls. A warm breeze carried children’s laughter from outside. The air didn’t feel heavy anymore. No magic. No fear.
A small house. A real one.
A home.
She stood up, heart racing, and ran through the hallway until she reached an open doorway.
There he was.
Mark—no cold aura, no darkness—sitting on the floor of a sunlit room. His posture relaxed, softer than she’d ever seen him. A child with bright curious eyes sat in his lap, giggling as Mark handed him a carved wooden toy.
Mark looked up when he sensed her.
His expression softened in a way that felt like sunrise after years of storms.
“You’re awake,” he said.
Her eyes filled.
Not with confusion this time.
Not with fear.
With recognition.
She smiled.
The star had finally come together again.
And this time, nothing could pull them apart.
And somewhere deep inside, she felt the truth settle…
Kai was gone.
Magic punished those who twisted it, and he had used too much of it for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t revenge or cruelty — it was simply how their world worked. Magic protected the good, and it consumed the rest.
She let out a quiet breath. Even after everything, a tiny part of her grieved him.
— THE END —
- Writer
