The night was heavy with silence, the kind that felt too still, too thick—like the world was waiting for something to happen. Alessia sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, surrounded by the remnants of her past.
Her mother’s old wooden chest lay open in front of her, its contents spilling onto the plush carpet. Silk scarves, delicate perfumes now faded with time, and framed photographs of a woman who once held the world in her hands.
Alessia traced a fingertip over the corner of a picture—her mother, smiling, her eyes full of a light that had long since dimmed in memory.
She had been searching for something. Anything. A whisper of truth hidden in the past. And yet, she had found nothing but trinkets and echoes of a woman who had been taken from her too soon.
Until now.
Alessia’s fing
