The shadows danced wildly on unfamiliar walls, swaying like ghosts of the past, drawing strange and frightening shapes in the corners of the room that had suddenly transformed into a dark prison. The air was thick and suffocating, carrying nothing but the scent of heavy rain falling outside, mixed with the smell of damp earth seeping from under the closed door, and another smell... a faint metallic scent like blood. Elena was running, running ceaselessly, in an endless maze, where trees intertwined like the arms of giant monsters trying to seize her, and the sounds of a distant battle mingled with the sounds of her rapid footsteps on fallen leaves. She ran with all her might, her lungs burning, her heart pounding violently like insane war drums.
She was running, but to where? She didn't know. She was fleeing, but from what? She was fleeing from the truth that pursued her like a black shadow, a truth she never wanted to confront.
She heard distant sounds approaching, an echo of screams mixed with desperate moans, sounds of men in pain, sounds of a merciless battle.
She remembered his face, her husband's face, his features etched in her memory, his warm smile that used to light up her life.
He was there, fighting for them, for what was called 'Niras' glory', and suddenly, she stopped. She stopped because she couldn't breathe, she stopped because her body failed her.
She saw a man standing before her, emerging from the shadows like a ghost from the battlefield. He was in worn military uniform, torn in places, and stained with mud and dried blood that had turned into dark patches on its coarse fabric.
His eyes, despite his apparent young age, carried an enormous weight, the weight of years of suffering and loss. His face was pale, exhausted by fatigue and fear, and his wet hair clung to his forehead from sweat and dampness.
"Madam," he said in a low voice, barely audible above the increasing sound of the rain. His voice was ragged, as if he struggled to speak, struggled to utter words that carried pain and death within them. "I am very sorry to inform you... He fought with unparalleled bravery and courage... He was a true hero... But..."
The blood froze in Elena's veins, she felt an intense cold spreading through her body, starting from her fingertips and slowly ascending towards her heart, paralyzing her movement and freezing her thoughts.
She felt the whole world spinning madly around her, and the earth shaking beneath her feet as if it were about to collapse.
She knew, deep in her heart, what he was going to say. She had been preparing for it since the moment she bid farewell to her husband at the village gate, his last smile to her, his promise to return soon.
She had been preparing for that news in every anxious moment she had lived through the past months.
But preparing for something doesn't make its impact lighter when it happens, it only increases its cruelty.
"No..." she whispered, her voice like a whisper of the wind, barely audible above the sound of her pounding heart. "Don't say that... It can't be true... He promised me... He promised to return..."
But the soldier did not stop, as if the words were pouring from his mouth with an overwhelming force he could not control. He continued, his words like sharp whips lashing her bare soul, tearing it mercilessly: "He died an honorable death, madam... your husband... a hero... He fell defending his homeland and us... on the front lines..."
Elena collapsed, feeling all strength in her body, every atom of life, suddenly vanish.
She felt herself falling into a deep, bottomless abyss.
She fell to her knees on the muddy ground, her slender hands covering her face, trying to hide her tears that began to pour like rain.
The sound of her sobs tore through the sudden silence of the place, like an echo of her shattered soul.
The world around her was collapsing, turning into a mass of absolute blackness and despair; she had lost her life partner, her other half, her first and last love, the father Theo would only know through the stories she would tell him in the future.
She felt loneliness overwhelm her like a dark sea, and fear for her future and the future of her only son who would be born an orphan. How would she continue? How would she live in a world where he was no longer there? Who would protect her now? Who would care for her? Who would share her joys and sorrows?
And amidst this darkness that swallowed her, she heard a voice. A low, sad, painfully familiar voice.
"Why... why didn't you save me?"
Elena woke up suddenly, jolting in her bed as if she had received an electric shock.
Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, as if trying to escape its ribcage.
Her breaths were rapid and choppy, coming out as desperate gasps; she still felt the impact of the soldier's words, and the weight of the loss that had carved a deep, unhealing scar in her soul, a scar that grew more painful with each memory.
The room was dark, silent, but the faint moonlight seeped through her window, casting pale and flickering shapes on the walls and floor, adding to the atmosphere of melancholy and desolation. She was in her bed, completely alone, and the feeling of loneliness pressed on her chest, reminding her of his painful absence.
She extended her hand hesitantly, very slowly, as if afraid to touch something that might hurt her, towards the other side of the bed, the place where her husband used to sleep.
But emptiness was there, cold and vacant, like the void his absence had left in her life. And suddenly, in that fragile moment between the terrifying dream world and the painful waking world, she saw something.
It was an illusion, a transparent phantom, a ghost of her exhausted mind's making, but it was painfully real, as if she were seeing it as truth, not illusion. She saw Theo standing beside her bed, his small, pale face, his wide black eyes looking at her with profound sadness, the sadness of the entire universe.
He was not the strong, fighting Theo she knew now, but the small Theo, her child whom she used to hold in her arms, in his simple clothes and messy hair. His eyes gleamed with hidden tears, like pearls in the dark, and his small voice, which she hadn't heard clearly in years, whispered in her ear, piercing her soul like a dagger.
"Why... why didn't you save me, Mother?"
Elena froze in place, unable to move, unable even to breathe, her eyes involuntarily wide, unable to turn away from the illusion of her son standing before her, blaming her with his silence and gaze.
The words were like whips lashing her, reopening old wounds she thought had healed with time, wounds of the inability to protect those she loved.
Why didn't she save him? From what would she save him? Wasn't he alive and training in some cave? Did she feel something strange, something dangerous happening to him deep in the forest? Was her maternal instinct, the innate protective instinct, trying to warn her, and she ignored those internal warnings, those faint voices that called her to go to him, to stay by his side?
"Theo?" she whispered in a trembling, barely audible voice, trying to reach out to the illusion, to the ghost of her son who was scolding her.
But the illusion began to fade, disappearing into the darkness little by little, vanishing like smoke in the wind, leaving behind the echo of his sad words, the echo of the question that would haunt her in her nightmares and in her waking hours. "Why didn't you save me?"
The illusion vanished completely, evaporating as if it had never existed, leaving Elena alone in the dark, her heart aching with pain and guilt that seemed to crush her.
These were her deepest fears materializing before her eyes, fears of loss she had experienced once before, fears of inability to protect, fears of absolute helplessness. She had lost her husband, her support and strength, and now her son, her son blaming her for something that hadn't happened?
A strong wave of despair overwhelmed her, like a storm striking her soul; she felt so weak, fragile, incapable of protecting the most precious thing she owned in this cruel world.
She had always relied on others to protect her and Theo, her husband at first, then Celia, her husband's sister, who was strong and wise, and now Kyle, the harsh trainer who seemed like an unmoving mountain. But Celia had left on a quest for knowledge, and Kyle... she didn't know when he would return, or if he would return at all. And Theo... Theo in the cave, as I was told he was training, needing her, and she here, unable to do anything, bound by her weakness and helplessness.
Elena slowly rose from her bed, her body aching from tension and exhaustion, pacing the room with heavy steps, as if searching for something lost, something that could restore some of the strength she had lost.
She looked at Theo's few belongings scattered in the room, his simple clothes neatly folded, the books he read with passion, his wooden training sword placed in the corner. Everything here reminded her of him, reminded her of his presence that used to fill her life with light, and his painful absence that left a huge void in her soul.
She sat on the edge of Theo's bed, the place where Rayn was now sleeping. Rayn... the good boy, Theo's only friend, who was trying to help her, trying to reassure her with his false words. She knew he was lying to her about Theo's condition in the cave.
She saw the fear in his eyes when he spoke of the cave, and she saw the hesitation in his words, and she noticed the contradiction between what he said and what she saw in his exhausted body and tired eyes.
But she allowed him to lie, even encouraged him to do so, because the truth... the truth was unbearable. The truth would completely break her.
The truth was that her son, her only child, was in grave danger. The truth was that she didn't know when he would return, or if he would return at all from that cursed place. The truth was that she felt absolute helplessness, a weakness that devoured her from within.
Her motherhood was aching, screaming in silence. She wanted to run, to scream at the top of her lungs, to cry bitterly until her tears dried, to go to the cave herself and break down its locked doors with the force of will, to bring her son to safety in her arms.
She wanted to protect him from all danger, from all pain, from anything that could harm him. But she knew she was weak, and that she would be a burden on him instead of help; she knew that Theo's world, his new world he had entered, the world of magic and fighting, was a world she didn't belong to, a world she didn't understand.
She remembered Theo's words to her that day when she spoke to him about protecting her. When she told him to train to become strong to protect her, Celia, Kyle, and Rayn. She remembered how he scoffed at the idea of protecting Kyle and Celia because they were "monsters" in strength and skill.
She smiled a sad smile again. Yes, they were incredibly strong, capable of protecting themselves and others, but they weren't with her now in her moment of weakness and despair. She was almost alone, and Rayn was trying hard, with a touching childish sincerity, to fill the void Theo had left.
She looked out the window again, at the darkness covering the dense forest that surrounded the village like a black shroud. She imagined the cave there, somewhere deep in this darkness, swallowing her son into its unknown and terrifying depths. She felt anger rising within her, silent anger, anger at fate, at the cruel, unforgiving world, the world that took her loved ones from her one by one.
"Why is this happening to me?" she wondered in silence, her inner voice like a muffled moan.
Her tears streamed silently down her cheeks, leaving warm trails on her cold skin. "Why is everything I love taken from me? Why am I always the one left alone to suffer?"
She remembered her husband again, his image appearing in her mind with painful clarity, his smiling face for the last time, his eyes gleaming with love, his promise to return safely after the war, a promise he couldn't keep, not because he didn't want to, but because the war was stronger than him. Would Theo's fate be like his father's? Would she one day receive another heartbreaking news, breaking what remained of her heart that was barely healing from the wounds of the past? Would she live to see her son turn into another painful memory?
Elena trembled from the intensity of the fear that engulfed her, as if a very cold wave had submerged her. Fear completely controlled her, paralyzing her movement, freezing her mind, choking her voice in her throat. She felt herself drowning in a dark sea of despair and anxiety, seeing no end to it.
Amidst this inner darkness that almost swallowed her, she remembered something else, something that gave her a small glimmer of hope in the middle of this dark sea.
She remembered Theo's strength that she had noticed growing day by day. She remembered how he pushed himself to his limits in training, how he learned with astonishing speed far exceeding his peers, how he mastered shadow magic, his mysterious element, and how he learned to control the volatile fire magic.
She remembered the look of determination that gleamed in his black eyes, the look he inherited perhaps from his warrior father, the look of a warrior who knows no surrender, who rises after every fall.
'Theo is strong,' she told herself, trying to cling to this small glimmer of hope with all her remaining strength. 'He is not weak and fragile like me.'
But doubt was stronger. Doubt was like a malicious voice whispering in her ear, reminding her of Theo's illusion that appeared to her in her moment of weakness, reminding her of his sad words that pierced her soul. "Why didn't you save me?"
Did he mean that she hadn't tried to understand him enough? Was she emotionally distant from him due to her grief over her husband? Did he mean that she hadn't strongly prevented him from going to the cave in the first place, despite her worry? Was her motherhood insufficient to protect him from himself, from his mysterious destiny that seemed to haunt him?
In truth, she had cared for him carefully; she sometimes pampered him, sometimes punished him. She was originally an ideal mother, but her heart was already damaged before him, it couldn't bear it. Painful thoughts continued to fight in her head, intertwining like complex threads, increasing her pain, confusion, and guilt. She felt as if she was walking in an endless dark maze, not knowing how to find her way out, seeing no glimmer of light at its end.
In the end, with her body and mind exhausted, Elena returned to her bed, slipping under the cold covers, but sleep did not come to her eyes. She remained lying in the dark, listening to the sound of Rayn's regular and deep breathing from the next room, a sound that reminded her of the presence of another person with her in this large house that now seemed empty without Theo and Celia.
She listened to the sound of her exhausted heart beating irregularly, as if it were about to stop.
She thought of Theo, of his unknown fate, of her husband she lost too early, of the life she lost with him, and of the unknown and terrifying future that awaited her and Theo.
She felt the full weight of the world on her slender shoulders, feeling the guilt that gnawed at her, the fear that froze her, the helplessness that crushed her.
But there was also, deep in her heart that still pulsed with life, a very small glimmer of hope, hope for Theo's safe return, hope that he was truly okay as Rayn tried to convince her, hope that one day, somehow, she would be able to protect him from the dangers that surrounded him, even if it seemed completely impossible now.
Elena remained awake for the rest of the night, watching the shadows slowly fade with the dawn that began to color the sky a pale gray, bearing alone the weight of her worries and sorrows, waiting for a new day that would bring more anxiety, and perhaps... just perhaps... some good news about her beloved son for whom she prayed every moment.
She got out of bed again; she knew Rayn would wake up soon and she had to prepare something for him to eat first.
And like any day since Rayn arrived, who had been there for a week now, he ate his breakfast, then trained as usual until he was exhausted, then rested before going to the lie she made for her 'helping Theo with his training'.
But she was seeing him off like any other day. Seeing him off knowing he was lying, and that she was going along with the lie to gain some hope.
'Perhaps something will happen today,' and her daily wish would repeat until she saw him enter the forest, then she would go into the house.
She saw his wounds worsen day by day, guilt filled her heart as he said in his usual cheerful, false tone, "The goblins are increasing in number in the forest, Auntie, don't worry." She was sad to make such a child suffer at her hands, and at the lack of news about Theo.
That same night, before going to bed, she looked in the mirror and stared at herself for a while, but suddenly she found a wide smile reaching her ears on her beautiful face in the mirror.
Elena was very terrified and went to her bed, trying to sleep amidst all those hallucinations and Theo's voice next to her.
"Why didn't you save me, Mother?"