The truth never comes beautifully. Sometimes it arrives like a storm. Destroying everything we've believed in all this time.
Alya finally confessed. She did know Naya. Even more closely than I ever could have imagined.
But she denied hurting Naya.
“I loved Naya like a sister,” she said.
“Then why was she afraid of you?”
“I don’t know.”
Nara entered the room.
“You do know.”
Alya looked at her.
“You still blame me?”
“Because you are the cause of it.”
I stood between them.
“What really happened?”
Nara began to cry.
“Three years ago, Naya found out that Alya was hiding something. Something connected to the accident.”
I fell silent.
“What accident?”
Nara looked at me.
“The accident that changed your life.”
Slowly, everything came to light.
The night before Naya disappeared, she had actually been on her way to meet me.
But the accident happened.
Naya survived, but lost part of her memory.
Alya was the first person to find her.
Then she took Naya away.
“Why?”
“Because Naya was afraid,” Alya replied.
“Afraid of me?”
“Afraid of herself.”
I didn’t understand.
Then Alya showed me an old recording.
In the recording, Naya said that she had a memory disorder and was afraid she would hurt the people she loved.
I cried.
For years, I thought Naya had left me.
It turned out she had gone because she believed she was dangerous.
But there was still one question.
“Then who was the woman I saw at the old house?”
Alya fell silent.
Nara didn’t answer either.
Then a woman’s voice came from behind me.
“That was me.”
I turned around.
A woman stood in the doorway.
Her face was identical to Naya’s.
“Naya?”
She smiled.
“I never died, Raka.”
The world seemed to stop.