Chapter 10: The Road to the Locked Door

Chapter 10: The Road to the Locked Door
Sunlight bled through the curtains in pale strips, warm on my face, but I felt dredged from a cold lake. The light dragged me up cell by cell from a place I hadn’t wanted to leave. Past seven. My limbs were heavy, my head fogged by dreams that vanished on waking—only a door without a handle, Kael’s voice in a hall of mirrors, Evelyn turning away. Kristine’s warning still coiled in my mind like smoke. Today I would force that door open, even if it cut my hands.

I splashed cold water on my face, brushed my teeth, tied my hair back. The mirror showed a composed young woman, but my stomach fluttered with some unspoken secret. The bathroom smelled of mint and damp towels; outside a motorbike growled, then silence. Below, the usual rustle of my parents’ newspaper had become low, urgent voices beating up the stairwell like distant drums. Curiosity and unease pushed me down the steps.

At the foot of the stairs the living room opened like a stage. The heavy curtains had been drawn back, sunlight pooling on the polished floorboards. My parents sat on the sofa, tea steaming in front of them, and across from them, perfectly upright with a polite smile, was Kristine. Her posture was a little too perfect, like a dancer frozen mid-pose. For a heartbeat the air stilled. My parents’ faces shifted at once—eyes flicking toward me, smiles too quick, their conversation bending mid-sentence as if to fold itself shut. The smell of strong black tea and citrus jam clung to the air, suddenly cloying.

“My dear, did you sleep well?” my father said, his tone bright but stiff. “Kristine has been waiting for you.”

I forced a smile, walked toward Kristine’s chair. “Yes, I slept well.” My voice felt foreign in my own throat, as though someone else were speaking through me. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” I asked her, aiming for playful.

Kristine’s eyes glinted—there and gone, like a blade catching light. “Didn’t you say we’d go to school together today? If I hadn’t come to fetch you we might have been late.”

“Oh—right.” I made a show of snapping my fingers. “Our nine-o’clock class. I completely forgot.” Rising quickly, I added, “Give me a minute to change.”

Upstairs again, I shut my bedroom door and pressed a hand over my racing heart. This had to be the plan she hinted at last night. Outside the window, the garden looked exactly the same—the koi pond rippling, a gardener bending over the hedge—but everything felt tilted. I pulled a dress from the wardrobe without thinking, slipped it on, smoothed my hair, and went back down, pausing only to glance once more at the mirror. The girl staring back at me looked prepared, but my pulse drummed so loudly it seemed to shake the glass.

Moments later we were striding through the foyer like any two girls on their way to campus. The gates of the villa closed behind us without a single question asked. The guard at the post saluted lazily, as if nothing unusual was happening.

The car hummed down the avenue, Kristine’s hands steady on the wheel. I sat beside her, fingers knotted in my lap, the city flicking past in a blur of green trees, flashing billboards, and faces that turned and vanished. Somewhere a street vendor called out; the smell of grilled sweet potatoes drifted in through the cracked window. It should have been an ordinary morning, yet each passing landmark felt like a page being torn from a book.

“What did you tell my parents?” I asked finally.

She kept her eyes on the road. “That I wanted to take you back to the university, help you recover some memories.”

A smile tugged at my mouth despite everything. “You’re always clever, always with some trick up your sleeve.”

Silence settled over the car like a soft blanket, thick enough to feel. My thoughts spilled out before I could stop them. “Kristine… if the results are the same again, what happens then?”

She didn’t answer at first, only tightened her grip on the steering wheel. The sunlight traced a thin line along her cheekbone; the muscles in her jaw worked. I stared at her profile, at the reflection of the sky in the windshield, at my own ghostly face next to hers.

“I really want to live,” I whispered. “I want to know what’s happening around me. And if Kael truly is who you say he is… I want to be the one to unmask him.”

Kristine turned her head at last, her eyes catching mine for a second. “Elysa, breathe. We’ll take it step by step. Don’t rush.” Her tone was calm, but a shadow passed over her face before she looked back at the road. The tips of her fingers were white on the steering wheel.

The engine’s hum, the hiss of tires, the steady passing of streetlights; time stretched and folded. My mind drifted to memories of my first day at the old hospital: the antiseptic smell, the needle’s sting, Kael’s hand brushing mine in the corridor. Was any of it real? After more than half an hour the car rolled beneath a different signboard than the one I knew. We stopped in front of a sleek, glass-fronted building whose name gleamed in three languages, letters catching the sunlight like metal.

I blinked. “This isn’t the hospital where I was examined before.”

Kristine nodded. “No. It’s a private international hospital. My uncle runs it. I asked him personally to take care of you. Come on.”

Inside, the air smelled faintly of antiseptic and lilies. Walls the color of cream, soft lighting, the quiet hush of an expensive sanctuary. A pianist somewhere was playing a muted tune over hidden speakers, notes falling like rain. We walked down a corridor until Kristine stopped at a door and opened it.

A man in his fifties rose from behind a desk, his smile practiced but warm. “You’ve arrived. Please, sit.” His glasses glinted; a heavy gold watch peeked from his cuff. For a moment he looked at me as though trying to place a face from an old photograph.

Kristine gestured toward me. “This is my friend, Uncle. I’d like you to screen her for cancer.”

The doctor nodded, turning to the nurse at his side. She was tall, efficient, her shoes whispering on the tile as she approached me with a folded gown in her hands. The faint scent of lavender clung to her uniform.

“Please change into this,” she said gently. “We’ll begin the tests right away.”

The fabric of the gown was cool against my palms. As I followed her into the adjoining room, my heartbeat thudded in my ears. The truth—whatever it was—lay only a few steps away, waiting like a sealed envelope. Behind me I heard the soft murmur of Kristine’s voice, a question to her uncle too low to catch, and the door clicked shut with a sound like the closing of a vault.