After picking Maya up from school, I didn't go straight home. My steps carried me to the city library, where archives of residents' records and school enrollment lists had been carefully kept for decades. If Milana had ever truly existed, there had to be some written trace of her—her birth certificate, an address, at least one line bearing her name on paper.
Yet I spent the entire day going through sheet after sheet, file after file, until my eyes burned and my head throbbed. There was nothing. Milana's name appeared nowhere. Not on this year's student enrollment list, nor on any from previous years. No birth certificate, no address record, not a single scrap of evidence that the girl had ever set foot in this city.
"What are you looking for, ma'am?"
The librarian's soft voice startled me. She looked at me kindly, though with slight puzzlement at the stack of files spread across the table before me.
"A school student," I replied, trying to remain calm. "Her name is Milana. I've searched for her information in these files, but there's nothing. I thought it might have been filed somewhere else."
The elderly woman furrowed her brow and thought for a moment before shaking her head with certainty. "Milana... No, ma'am. I've worked here for nearly thirty years, and I've never seen or heard that name. Maybe you should check another area?"
I gave her a faint smile in response, but my heart grew heavier. Another area? She lived here. She went to school there. I had seen her with my own eyes, heard her voice, felt her malicious intent. How could someone be so real and then vanish without leaving even the slightest trace?
That afternoon, I went home with dragging steps. Maya was surely already waiting for me. At my desk, I spread out a blank sheet of paper and wrote down everything I could remember about Milana, hoping I had overlooked something.
Long black hair, pale gray eyes. Always wearing a complete school uniform, though the fabric and stitching felt unfamiliar—not made by any tailor in this city. In front of other people, she seemed perfectly ordinary, but when she looked at me... there was an old recognition in her eyes. As if she had known me for a long time.
My thoughts stopped at the last line. Known me for a long time.
My blood ran cold. That was what I had felt all along but never said aloud. Whenever Milana looked at me, it wasn't the gaze of a newly encountered enemy. She looked at me like someone who had been waiting for a long time, waiting for the moment to arrive.
Then the Devil Prince's words came back to me. The wall holding back your heart is beginning to crack. Was Milana part of that wall? A shadow born from a past I had erased myself?
Night deepened, but my eyes refused to close. I sat by the window, gazing at the full moon shining coldly overhead. If she wasn't an ordinary human... if she wasn't from this world... then what connection did she have to me?
A soft knock came at the front door.
"Ms. Alena?"
It was Dimas. My heart began to pound erratically. I went to open the door. He stood there still wearing his everyday clothes, his face troubled, as if he hadn't been at ease since that afternoon.
"Sorry to bother you so late," he said quietly, glancing at my desk, which was covered with open files. "Are you looking for something?"
I nodded slowly, making no attempt to hide it. "Milana. Every trace of her is gone, Dimas. No one remembers that she ever existed. Even the official records don't mention her name in the slightest."
Dimas fell silent for a long time. He stepped inside slowly and stared at the sheet of paper I had written on earlier. The moment his eyes landed on the description, his face went deathly pale.
"Long black hair... pale gray eyes..." he murmured shakily. He looked up at me in disbelief. "That woman... I've seen her. In my dream."
I froze. "What?"
"On that snowy expanse..." he continued softly, his eyes growing distant as if he were seeing the scene again. "Behind the Devil Prince. The figure standing there, looking at you with an indescribable gaze... that was Milana, wasn't it?"
My breath caught in my throat. It felt as though the world had stopped turning.
"You saw her..." I whispered in disbelief.
Dimas nodded firmly, though his eyes were filled with worry. "She's not just an ordinary school student, sis. Maybe she came from a much older era."
Suddenly, the window behind me shook violently, as if something had shot past outside. When we both turned, a black shadow streaked beneath the dim moonlight, then vanished into the darkness of night.
A sharp pain throbbed through my head, and my vision blurred at once. My knees gave out, and Dimas quickly caught me before I could collapse onto the floor.
My vision gradually cleared, but now I knew one thing for certain. This wasn't merely the past returning. It was fate beginning to unravel. And Milana... was only the beginning.