I swallow.
I don’t look at the screen. I don’t need to. The words are burned into the back of my eyelids.
“He said I remembered the place with the white walls.” My chest tightens. “He said they lied to me there.”
Damien doesn’t blink.
That’s how I know.
“They told me I was hallucinating,” I continue, every word cutting deeper now. “They told me the boy with the moths wasn’t real. That no one ever came. That I stopped talking because my mind fractured.”
I take a step closer.
“He told me to ask you what you did the night I stopped talking.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Damien’s jaw locks so hard I hear his teeth grind.
“Answer me,” I say.
Still nothing.
The room feels smaller. The walls breathe. The cabin creaks like it’s listening.
“Damien,” I whisper, and my voice finally breaks, “what did you do.”
He exhales.
Long. Controlled. Like he’s choosing which truth to give me and which one will destroy us both.
“You didn’t stop talking,” he says quietly.
My stomach drops.
“What.”
“You stoppedresponding,” he corrects. “You went quiet because you were listening to something else.”
My pulse roars in my ears.
“To who.”
He looks at me then.
Really looks.
And there’s fear in his eyes now — not of River.
Ofme remembering.
“That night,” he says slowly, “they took you to the white room because you wouldn’t answer their questions. You just sat there. Staring at the wall. Whispering.”
