As Noah drifted into sleep, his mind, though clouded with exhaustion, refused to grant him the peace he sought. Instead, it pulled him deeper into the recesses of his thoughts.
In the quiet of the night, the mansion around him seemed to fade, and Noah found himself standing in that strange, white place again—the same one that had haunted him earlier in the night.
This time, though, there was no confusion, no ambiguity about the space. He knew exactly where he was: within his mind. And waiting for him, as always, was the girl.
The girl whose presence in his memories had resurfaced and triggered something inside him.
She stood before him again, as if time had never passed. Her expression was still soft, still filled with the innocence that haunted him.
“Noah…” she whispered, her voice carrying through the emptiness like a ripple on water. It was a single word, but it held the weight of everything he had tried to forget.
His chest tightened. He wanted to turn away, but something in her gaze held him in place.
“I’m not doing anything wrong, I’m just being myself,” he muttered as if trying to convince her.
The girl took a step toward him, her figure somehow becoming more solid, more real with each step. “Promise me,” she said again, her eyes searching his face.
His breath hitched in his throat. How many times had he heard those words? How many times had he made that promise? And yet, here he was—standing on the edge of losing himself once more.
His mind raced, trying to find excuses, trying to justify the things he had done and the person he was becoming again.
But deep down, he knew the truth.
Noah clenched his fists. “I didn’t choose this…I really tried to be a normal high schooler, I got bullied when I had the power to resist. I got cheated on, because I ignored all signs that indicated it, just to forget the schemes… to fulfil my promise.”
“I had no choice,” he said, his voice harder now, as if speaking the words aloud would make them true. “I’m doing what I need to grow, to SURVIVE.” His words echoed around him, but the girl’s expression didn’t change.
The silence that followed was deafening, and for a moment, Noah could hear nothing but the pounding of his own heart.
The weight of everything—the choices, the pressure, the expectations—was pressing down on him, and it felt like the air around him was growing thinner.
The girl’s voice broke the silence. “Is that really what you believe?” Her words were soft, but they cut through him like a blade. She wasn’t angry. She just wanted the truth—something Noah wasn’t sure he could give her.
The girl’s phrase tore through the air like a sharp blade.
He took a step back, the tension building in his chest. The lines were blurring again, and the world seemed determined to push him back into that darkness.
The girl’s figure began to fade, and Noah felt a surge of panic. He wasn’t ready to face this—he wasn’t ready to accept what he knew deep down.
With a sharp gasp, he jolted awake.
His heart was pounding, his body was drenched in sweat.
Noah sat up, pressing his palms to his face, trying to shake the remnants of the dream.
“You’re even following me to my dreams huh?” he muttered to himself as he stared at the ceiling.
Noah swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, the weight of his thoughts pressing down on him as he paced to the window.
The cool night air filtered through the glass as he leaned forward.
Noah let out a small, bitter laugh, the sound almost foreign in the heavy silence of the mansion.
For a moment, he simply stood there, the weight of his realisation settling deep into his chest. His fingers tapped lightly against the cool glass as the truth he had been avoiding clawed its way to the surface.
His eyes darkened, the moonlight casting an eerie glow on his face.
“Fine,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head slightly, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Who am I lying to but myself?”
His eyes darkened as he stared out into the night, but the focus wasn’t on the scenery—it was on his past, on everything that had led him to this moment.
He had been unconscious of his planning at first, or at least that’s what he had told himself. But deep down, Noah knew the truth. Ever since he had gotten the system, every move, every choice, had been deliberate, even if he hadn’t consciously acknowledged it.
“In fact,” he continued, his voice quiet but tinged with a sense of revelation, “even before I got the system, I was already planning this.”
Layla. The thought of her name didn’t sting the way it once had. It was almost amusing now. “I got with Layla because I knew her personality. I knew she was going to cheat on me.” His voice was steady, emotionless.
“She might think that she manipulated me to get what she wants, or that she set the boundaries of physical touch between us. She didn’t… A person like her doesn’t even have the privilege to get my interest, let alone be intimate with me.”
“Only a person like her can,” as he thought of that girl.
“I needed a catalyst, a push, something that would force me to stop pretending. Stop playing the victim and start being proactive. Start being myself again.”
He laughed softly, a sound devoid of humour. “And when I got the system… coming back to who I was, who I really am, was just a matter of time.”
Noah’s fingers tightened on the windowsill, his knuckles whitening slightly as he spoke. He had spent so long pretending to be something he wasn’t, trying to fit into a mould that wasn’t his, trying to keep the darker parts of himself shackled.
But that version of himself had been a lie. He had tricked himself into believing he could change, that he could be someone different.
And Sarah… Sarah