On the Other Side:
The mansion was made of marble.
White pillars. Crystal windows. Music in the halls.
It looked like a home built for kings.
But kings didn't live there.
Only masks did.
And behind the masks—
Rot.
It festered in the silence. Crawled in the shadows between portraits.
It whispered in the wood, in the silver, in the stone.
Every surface gleamed with wealth.
But the air stank of secrets.
---
The twins lived on the east wing.
Not in rooms—but in a box.
Behind the servant halls. Beneath the wine cellars.
No fire, no softness. Only damp walls and a single lamp that flickered like it wanted to die.
> "Sun makes you weak,"
the nanny had hissed once, yanking the curtain shut with a crack.
She hated light.
She hated warmth.
And she hated them.
Not because they were wild.
Not because they were disobedient.
But because they were born.
Uninvited.
Unwanted.
Unclean.
Unplanned.
---
They deserve no surname.
No place in the family ledger.
No portrait in the hall.
The servants whispered:
> "Born of sin."
"Fathered during war."
"Mother's identity? Burned with the records."
Some said they were born from violence.
Others said they were curses in skin.
---
The girl, Leya, once called the nanny "Mother"
She was five.
The woman smiled sweetly.
Then shattered her wrist against the corner of a desk.
Elen didn't cry.
He only stared.
He held Leya's broken hand as it trembled like paper in his lap.
After that, they stopped using names.
They didn't need them.
When Leya wept, Elen flinched.
When Elen bled, Leya touched her chest like she was hurt.
They didn't talk much.
They didn't need to.
They were one body split in two.
The servants called them "The Mirrors."
But mirrors only reflect.
These two anticipated.
---
They were trained to walk like nobles.
Speak like nobles.
Smile with closed lips and dead eyes.
But they weren't nobles.
They weren't people.
They were things to be hidden.
Things that tarnished the estate's honor.
So they ate on the floor.
Practiced etiquette with dust in their throats.
They were beaten for existing.
Starved for speaking.
Punished for breathing too loudly.
---
At night, the nanny read poetry aloud.
But not to them.
She read it for herself.
While they sat curled in corners, bones sharp under silk clothes, trying not to cry too hard.
If they did—
The floorboards creaked.
And she heard.
---
They never asked for toys.
They never asked for love.
They learned early:
Hope was a wound that never healed.
Instead, they learned each other.
Leya could sense when Elen was angry before he even moved.
Elen knew when Leya was going to scream before she opened her mouth.
They didn't need adults.
They didn't need friends.
They had only one thing:
Each other.
And that—
was dangerous.
---
The rebellion started in the east kingdom.
But their rebellion started the day Leya said:
> "I want to leave."
And Elen didn't say no.
He just nodded.
And began planning.
---
Leya stole a map.
Elen memorized every guard's rotation.
She marked blind spots in chalk.
He counted shadows between oil lamps.
They said nothing out loud.
Words were fragile.
They had silence.
And silence was unbreakable.
---
When the nanny started locking the doors,
Elen sharpened a shard of mirror and hid it in his sleeve.
Leya twisted old clothes into rope and stuffed it inside the bed leg.
They slept beside splinters.
Dreamed beside bruises.
And every night, they looked at each other.
Just looked.
And that was enough to say:
" We're leaving.
Even if we die doing it."
---
The night they escaped, the sky bled red.
Smoke from the outer district curled into the clouds.
Someone had burned the northern gate.
> "Now," Elen whispered.
---
They moved like ghosts.
Through the pantry. Past the wine cellar. Past the piano room where their father's new wife sipped honeyed wine, her hands pale and perfect.
They didn't pause.
They didn't shiver.
They climbed the attic steps.
Forced open the ceiling hatch.
The roof tiles were slick with frost.
The wind was a knife.
Leya slipped—
Elen grabbed her.
Blood trickled down his hand.
He didn't blink.
One jump.
A hard fall.
Ivy scraped their knees.
The back gate was open—
just enough.
They slipped through.
No shoes.
No coats.
Only stolen breath and cracked ribs and the sound of dogs behind them.
---
An arrow whistled past Elen's face.
Leya stumbled—
He dragged her up.
Someone screamed—
but not them.
They ran.
Faster.
Until the world blurred.
Until the wind tore at their skin.
Until only the dark remained.
---
Then—
Silence.
They collapsed.
Mud against their faces.
Hearts like war drums.
> "Did we escape?" Leya whispered.
Elen didn't answer.
He looked up.
The stars were still there.
But in his eyes—
something was wrong.
Something had snapped in the dark.
Not their bones.
But something deeper.
The kind of thing that doesn't heal.
---
They were still alive.
But something inside them wasn't.
And they didn't care.
Because that part was too soft to survive anyway.
---
But this wasn't the end, no it was the beginning. They though the escaped but if not people then their were monsters to make their life hell.
They ran again, ran and ran till they escaped....
Will they?? Or was something else waiting for them in that dark??