## Episode 3: One House, Two Strangers
**Narrated by Dilara Aslan**
The guest wing was supposed to be a hundred meters away, with walls thick enough to separate royalty from the real world. And yet, I heard everything.
His footsteps down the marble corridor.
The door creaking open.
The silence between us growing heavier.
Alihan Demir — or whatever he really was — had been in my house for less than a day, and already he was everywhere. In my father's office. In the dining hall. In the air I breathed.
Selma's voice echoed in my memory: *"Thirty days. You only have to endure thirty days."*
But how do you share a house with someone who shouldn't exist?
---
At breakfast, he sat across from me at the grand table. The same table where I used to play with crystal napkin rings while my father dictated business deals. Now it felt like a stage. And we were two actors stuck in a play we didn't choose.
"You don't eat much," Alihan said casually, eyes on my untouched plate.
"I'm selective," I replied, slicing a strawberry with surgical precision.
"You always were," he said.
I froze. "What do you mean?"
He leaned back. "You don't remember me, do you?"
I met his gaze, heartbeat faltering. "The boy under the olive tree. That was you."
He nodded once.
I set my fork down. "You disappeared."
"You didn't come after me."
"I didn't even know your name!"
"And yet here we are," he said quietly.
---
That afternoon, I found him in the library. My father's favorite room. No cameras. No press. Just shelves lined with secrets no one had opened in years.
He was thumbing through a photo album I hadn't touched since I was sixteen.
"What are you doing in here?" I asked sharply.
"Trying to remember what I missed," he replied.
"This house isn't a museum."
He turned a page. "Feels like one."
His fingers stopped on a photo — my tenth birthday. I was smiling with cake on my face. My father's arm was around me. My mother... absent, as always.
"I always wondered what it would be like," he said, "to have a day like that."
I didn't answer.
Because I had wondered the same — what it would be like to have someone beside me who truly stayed.
---
**Day 3.**
We passed each other in the hall again. This time, his hand brushed mine by accident. Or maybe not.
He didn't say sorry.
And I didn't pull away.
---
That night, I stood in front of my mirror, brushing my hair like my mother used to. If she were here, would she call him a liar? Or would she finally tell me the truth?
There was a knock.
I opened the door to find Alihan holding a small box.
"I found this in the attic," he said. "It had your name on it."
Inside was a music box. Silver. Delicate. A ballerina twirled when I turned the key.
I hadn't seen it in years.
"My mother gave this to me," I whispered.
"She did?"
I looked up. "You knew her?"
He paused. "Once."
I stepped closer. "Alihan… what do you know?"
His expression darkened.
"More than I'm ready to say."
I narrowed my eyes. "Are you really my brother?"
He didn't answer.
---
**To be continued...**