The first thing she felt was light.

Soft, warm light that didn't belong to where she thought she was. For a moment she didn't move. She just lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to understand why everything felt so real.

Because the last thing she remembered was not light.

It was silence. Heavy, endless silence that swallowed everything.

Her fingers tightened slightly against the bedsheet before she even fully opened her eyes. The fabric was soft, expensive, familiar in a way that made her chest uneasy.

Slowly, she sat up.

Her head spun a little, like her body hadn't fully accepted that she was awake yet. She looked around the room and went still.

This room... she knew it.

Not as a stranger. As someone returning.

Her breath slowed as she stood and walked toward the mirror near the corner. Each step felt heavier than it should have, like she was walking through memory instead of reality.

And then she saw herself.

She stopped completely.

Sixteen.

That thought came first.

Sixteen years old.

Not twenty-two. Not broken. Not empty.

Just... her.

Alive.

Whole.

Her hand lifted without thinking, pressing lightly against the mirror as if it could prove this wasn't her imagination.

Cold.

Real.

"This... isn't possible," she whispered, but even she didn't believe it fully.

She stared longer. Same face, but softer. Younger. Untouched by everything she remembered. But her mind was anything but empty. It was full.

Memories hit her.

Not gently.

All at once.

Her family. The house that once felt like hers slowly becoming a place she no longer fully belonged in. Her father's cold silence. Her mother's quiet disappointment. Her brothers slowly drifting away without ever saying it.

And Stella.

The girl who didn't take anything—but still replaced her everywhere.

Scarlett closed her eyes for a second, but it didn't help. Everything was still there. Every mistake. Every comparison. Every time she smiled when it hurt.

And then—

Zyan.

Just his name made something tighten in her chest.

Cold. Untouchable. Heir to the world's number one company. Someone people didn't approach—they calculated around him.

But she hadn't calculated anything.

She had chased him.

Followed him everywhere, convinced that if she stayed close enough, he would eventually see her.

But he never did.

Not once.

Zyan had always been the same—calm, distant, unreadable. Like she didn't exist in his world at all.

But there was something else.

Fear.

Her fingers tightened slightly at her side.

He had never raised his voice. He never needed to. His silence alone was enough. The way he looked at her sometimes—cold, indifferent, almost annoyed by her presence—made something inside her shrink even when she tried not to show it.

There were moments she remembered too clearly.

Standing too close. Following too far. Speaking too much.

And him—looking at her like she was nothing worth reacting to.

Not hatred.

Worse.

Indifference with authority.

Even in her past life, when she chased him openly, there had always been a quiet fear inside her too. Not of harm—but of how small she felt in front of someone who didn't acknowledge her existence.

And now, standing here again at sixteen, that fear hadn't disappeared.

It had returned with her.

Scarlett stepped back from the mirror and sat on the edge of the bed. Her mind was no longer confused. It was clear now in a way that almost hurt.

Her family.

Stella.

Zyan.

Her past life.

That memory came quieter than the rest.

And then—

her death.

That memory didn't come like the others.

It came heavier. Slower. Like her mind didn't want to show it, but couldn't stop it.

She remembered the last day.

Not dramatic. Not cinematic. Just... empty.

She was crossing the road when everything froze for a split second. A car came too fast. Headlights blinded her. No time to move, no time to react. The impact broke everything into silence she could never gather again. And the last thing she felt wasn't pain—but a strange emptiness of letting go.

The world didn't stop.

It just moved on.

And she had never been the quiet kind of girl who disappeared easily.

She was loud. Reckless. Always too much for every room she entered. She spoke before thinking, laughed too loudly, loved too intensely, and never learned how to hold herself back. She didn't fit into silence—she broke it.

Her family saw it as chaos. Her father called it lack of control. Her mother called it immaturity. Her brothers called it noise. Even Stella's calm made her feel louder, more out of place.

A silent room. No voices. No footsteps. No one calling her name. Just the end of everything she had once tried so hard to hold onto.

Twenty-two.

Gone.

She lowered her gaze slightly.

She didn't cry.

That version of her had already done enough of that.

"This is the beginning," she said softly.

Somewhere outside, the mansion continued like nothing had changed. But she knew better now.

Everything had already changed.

She stood again, steadier this time, and looked at herself in the mirror one last time.

Sixteen.

Not broken yet.

Not lost yet.

Not finished.

"I won't repeat it," she whispered.

And this time, it wasn't a wish.

And fear... was still there too.

But now—

she will conquer it

                                                   𐙚˚࿔ thank you𝜗𝜚˚⋆

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