Sophieleila had been experiencing dizzy spells in brightly lit places lately.
It was an indescribable sensation–not hypoglycemia, not vertigo–but sudden auditory blurring, limb numbness, and violently erratic heartbeat.
The first episode struck at Initial Media Corporation’s studio.
She’d been assisting with a memorial short film set when she stepped under the lighting rig.
Instantly, her vision whitened, temples throbbing with agony as she collapsed to her knees, gasping for air.
In the haze, someone shouted a name: “Emerie!”
Then scenes flickered:
A hospital corridor.
A film crew’s lights.
Heritage Coast.
That letter pleading for Andrew Williams to attend the memorial.
She jolted awake in the infirmary, back drenched in cold sweat.
Andrew stood bedside, brow furrowed: “You called out a name.”
She feigned ignorance: “Who?”
“Andrew Williams.”
Her heart seized, but she widened her eyes: “Really?”
“Have we met somewhere?”
“Maybe from your interviews.”
She forced a smile. “You’re quite famous.”
He didn’t press, just pinned her with an unblinking stare.
She couldn’t stay, scrambling to her feet to flee.
By the second night, it worsened.
Returning to her staff dorm, she froze upon opening the door.
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Chapter 15
The wooden floor grain.
That half–shattered ceramic mug on the desk corner.
She knew them too intimately.
This wasn’tleila Sophieleila’s room–it was Emerie’s six–year sanctuary from another life.
Her fingers instinctively traced the chipped table edge where she’d once gashed her knee.
She stepped back.
Suddenly, she saw herself in a white dress, swallowing pills on that chair.
She crumpled to her knees.
Agony ripped through her. Ears rang.
“Emerie! Can you hear me?!”
Whose voice?
“Stop chasing the past! You don’t belong there anymore!”
The voice echoed as darkness swallowed her vision–then a hand yanked her upright.
Her eyes snapped open.
She sat not in her dorm, but in a vast theater.
Silence hung thick. Curtains drawn. A lone empty chair center stage.
Sean sat watching her, fingers interlaced, gaze glacial.
“Third collapse.”
Her face paled. “I saw… memories.”
“Not memories. Reality.”
His tone remained flat. “Soul retrograde displacement.”
“What?”
“When you rebirthed into this body, its emotional memories weren’t erased–just forcibly suppressed.”
“You’re reactivating them.”
“That’s a violation.”
Her voice trembled: “It’s involuntary.”
Sean studied her long before speaking:
“Persist, and your soul shatters completely.”
“You’ll lose even this vessel.”
“Then you’ll be neitherleila Sophieleila nor Emerie–just a wraith drifting between timelines.”
“Uncontrolled, you’ll become a shadow existing in no reality.”
“Erased. Obliterated from all existence.”
“No one will remember you lived.”
The words struck her thunderstruck.
288 Vouchers
Sophieleila’s face turned ghostly pale: “How much longer can I hold on?”
“That depends on how badly you still want to get close to him.”
“The more you want it, the closer he gets, and the more you lose control.”
“You want to reclaim your past with him, but the system only allows you to know him anew.”
Her lips trembled: “Can I really not tell him who I am?”
Sean shook his head: “If you want to live, don’t even think about it.”
“Otherwise, this rebirth cycle will become permanent dissipation.”
Whenleila Sophieleila opened her eyes again, she was back in her dorm.
The mirror reflected her pallid face, sweat beading at her temples, and an unfamiliar gaze.
She sat on the edge of the bed like a lost soul, fingers slowly tracing the scar on her calf–one that didn’t belong to her current body.
It was from a fall in her previous life.
Yet now, it had appeared on this new body.
Finally, she understood.
Each step she took toward him shattered her soul a bit more.
And she already couldn’t not go closer.
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Chapter 16
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