POV: HELENA IVYRA.
Time stopped.
My breathing became short, almost nonexistent. It was as if the hospital air was denser, as if the walls were slowly closing in around me, suffocating me, compressing my chest until I could no longer bear my own emotional weight.
Rose didn't survive.
Noah's words floated through my mind like an inescapable sentence. That combination of senses was simple, yet, at the same time, a semantic whose meaning I didn't want to accept.
In truth, I wanted to deny it with all my might. I wanted only my resistance to be enough to make reality adjust to it… However, I knew that, no matter how much I wanted it, I couldn't.
No matter how much I tried to deny them, no matter how much my soul twisted in a silent scream of negation, something in me already knew it was true.
I felt it. I felt the emptiness. The absence. The cold.
Tears began to fall. Heavy, warm, and silent.
They soaked the white sheet as if they wanted to erase a truth that could never be undone.
Like an eraser trying to wipe away a pen mark… I didn't sob. I didn't scream.
I just cried. Quietly… Understanding that, unfortunately, it was true. Brief flashes of that memory where she had woken me up in the library when I was younger.
'Always so patient… why did it have to end like this?'
My indignation flowed along with my nonconformity. Rose wasn't just someone I considered an aunt… She was a lighthouse.
One of those rare people who make us feel at home even when the world seems like a battlefield.
When I arrived in the city several years ago, I knew no one, nothing. I was a lost, displaced child. And she was one of the first people to reach out to me. She heard me. She saw me. She understood me. And now, all that remained of her was a memory.
'How can an entire person's life be simplified to something so quick, so simple?'
And then Noah, as if all this wasn't enough, said what I never imagined hearing at that moment:
"Listen to me, Helena… I understand that what you must be going through right now is very bad, losing a loved one is always complicated… but I need you to stay calm," he said cautiously.
I felt slightly indignant at the request. I had just found out that someone very important had died… and he was asking me to stay calm?
"How can you ask me that now?" I questioned incredulously.
"Because I need your help," he replied, in a firmer tone. "It's necessary for us to go after H and get justice for what happened to Rose."
I understood his side, but still, I decided to ask what had been pounding in my mind for some time.
"Was H after that papyrus?" I asked, looking directly into his eyes.
"So, you really found file S," Noah affirmed, crossing his arms.
"What you found is an ancient document that H is looking for. The reason is still unknown to us. Did you come into contact with it?"
I explained how I had found file S on the shelf, hidden by an illusory enchantment.
"It gave me a…" I began to say, but as I ran my hand over the mark left by the papyrus, I encountered… nothing.
The mark that had formed… It disappeared as abruptly as it appeared.
I found it strange and told Noah what happened, detailing how the mark appeared on my arm after I touched the papyrus.
He frowned.
"Are you sure about that?" he questioned, skepticism in his voice.
"That's… extremely strange."
"Do you think I'm lying?" I retorted, offended.
"Do you think I'm a child who would fake strength at this point?"
Noah hesitated for a moment, as if he was about to answer. But he looked away towards the door and fell silent for a few moments.
'Is he waiting for someone? Wait… That mental conversation enchantment?'
"Who are you talking to?" I insisted, narrowing my eyes.
"I am not authorized to say," he replied dryly.
His posture changed suddenly. And a formal, cold voice, completely different from before, sounded next:
"Is there anything else to report, Helena?"
I raised my eyebrow, confused by the change.
"What's going to happen now?" I asked.
"That will be my responsibility and that of the other agents," he replied with indifference.
"The matter no longer concerns you. I just need you to tell me: Did H take the file?"
I was astonished by the sudden change. Still, I replied: "
Yes. He took it."
My distrust grew.
"And me? What should I do now?" I questioned.
"Forget about it. Now, the problem is no longer yours," he said, already heading for the door as he put the chair back in its place.
Indignant at his icy tone, I retorted:
"So that's it? You just show up here, destroy something precious, out of incompetence, take someone's life, and just leave like that?"
I saw him turn again, this time, towards me. And for the first time since he arrived, I saw an expression different from the newly adopted coldness.
A sympathetic face?
At that moment, I understood something. Noah didn't agree with the things he had just said or done. He was just… following orders.
"Girl… stay out of this," he murmured, with an icy voice that contrasted with his sad and thoughtful gaze. It was a voice that wasn't his, but of the position he held.
And, just like that, he left. The door closed slowly, but the sound echoed in my head like an explosion. I stood there, paralyzed, staring at the space where he had been seconds before.
An emptiness settled in the room. A bitter silence, that seemed to mock my pain.
"Stay out of this."
Noah's voice echoed in my mind once more.
As if it were possible to just turn the page. And start the new chapter without consequences.
Begin the new paragraph without finishing the previous topic.
As if we were just in a book, where, on the next page, I would already be better, vivid and without scars. As if real life were like the books Rose lent me. Where the pain passes with a new chapter, where the dead become memories and the scars teach lessons. But it wasn't.
In real life, the pain remains. The emptiness throbs. And the questions have no answers.
I sat on the stretcher for a long time. Time passed slowly, as if respecting my grief. The tears returned, now accompanied by sobs, until no strength remained.
'She died… and I couldn't save her.'
Guilt suffocated me. Even knowing that I didn't have enough power to stop that man.
Nothing could get the thoughts out of my head, nor the core of my soul, the guilt.
There was only one single fact, which, like a nail vividly hammered into my mind, reminded me:
I was there.
And even with all my strength, even with everything they said about me, everything I studied… I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't enough.
I lay on my side, curling my body on the stretcher as if trying to hide from reality. My fingers touched the cold sheet, trying to find some trace of comfort there.
Nothing. Not even the moonlight coming through the window seemed welcoming now. I remembered Rose's voice, soft, patient, saying:
"You need to sleep more, sweetie…"
I felt a tightness in my chest. I would trade all the nights of sleep in the world just to hear her talk to me again. Just one more time.
I don't know how long I stayed there, but when I came to, the moon was already starting to hide behind the clouds.
'Forget?'
No. I couldn't. And I didn't want to. Rose didn't deserve to be remembered just as a statistic. Just a number for report purposes, another lost soul on the last day or year.
If there was one thing I, for some reason, hated, it was how newspapers portrayed these numbers on national television.
As if they were just updating some kind of patch notes for a game, where thousands of bots or mobs were eliminated in the last season.
It seemed they forgot that those numbers represented lives. People who had dreams, hopes, and stories.
The coldness with which all this was summarized at the end of life… It was terrifying and sad.
Throughout life, we used words to express ourselves, whether through enchantments, stories, or conversations with friends and family. However, words sadly weren't capable of solving all our problems.
They needed someone to support the invisible foundation that governed society: human logic.
This, in turn, was governed by numbers. Human ideals could be represented by words in our philosophy books, in dialogues and debates.
But when things became serious and important… everything reverted to numbers.
To utility. To efficiency.
Everyone became numbers and reminders that, no matter who we were, in the end, we would just be one more or another in cold quantification.
Rose deserved to be remembered for what she was in life. A vivid and happy memory in the minds of those who were by her side, whether the recurring readers of the library or just her acquaintances and friends.
That's exactly what I was going to do. Honor her memory, in a happy way, even if it was small.
I insisted that she be remembered.