A pause.
Heavy.
Terrifying.
“You’re her alter.”
***
Rain pounds through the trees, the sound filling the forest like a drumbeat in my ears. Dominic’s words hang in the air between us.
You’re her alter.
For a moment, nothing moves..
The world feels suspended in the space between heartbeats.
“No…” I whisper, but the word feels weak the moment it leaves my mouth.
Because something inside my mind has already begun to shift. The pieces that never made sense before. The dreams, my memories. Just not the ones I remembered living. Images flash behind my eyes. The blonde hair in the mirror. The way people sometimes looked at me like they knew something I didn’t. Andrew’s voice in the office. The conversations that felt half familiar.
It wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t imagination. It was her.
Era.
The rain runs down my face as my breathing becomes uneven. Suddenly the memories start pushing harder. The house. The bedroom. Blonde hair falling forward as someone climbs onto Dominic. His voice whispering my name. Not me, not Sera.
Era.
My knees feel weak because I realize something terrifying. That memory I thought belonged to another woman…
Was never someone else. It was me.
The forest spins around me as the truth finally settles into place. I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’t imagining things. I wasn’t losing my mind. I was splitting it.
And somewhere inside me—
Era had been living an entire life I couldn’t fully remember.
The rain keeps falling and Dominic stands in front of me, silent now but I can barely see him anymore. Because the realization hits me all at once. Sera was never just a name I just made up. She already existed, she was me and I had no idea who I really was anymore.
CHAPTER 24
Diary
The rain pours harder through the trees.
I can’t move. My body feels frozen where I stand, like the ground beneath my feet has turned to stone. My mind is racing too fast to hold onto any single thought. Dominic steps closer. Carefully. Like he’s approaching someone fragile.
“I have hers—” He stops himself, swallowing hard. “Your notebook,” he corrects quietly. “You… you write in it every day.” My head tilts slightly, confusion clouding my thoughts. “In my office,” he continues. “You always sit at the same chair. Same time every day.”
His voice softens. “You kept a diary in the drawer in my office. The one you always locked.” He pauses. “You always put it under my black scarf… the one from St. Luke.”
Another shock runs through me, sharp, sudden. My breath catches in my throat. The scarf. My mind flashes back to the drawer. The black fabric, the initials I thought meant something else. I thought it belongedto Sophie. I thought Dominic had hidden her scarf like some sick trophy.
But it wasn’t hers, It was his.
A St. Luke hospital scarf.