(Outside the Black Tower – Lena vs. Lena)
The sky was quiet, too quite
The field surrounding the Black Tower swayed with a breeze that never touched her skin. Every blade of grass bent the wrong way, like it was bowing to something unseen. And above them, the tower waited..dark, pulsing, ancient.
Lena stood a few steps from the entrance, heart pounding in her ears. One more step, and the story could end. But something moved behind her.She turned, and froze.
A girl stepped out from the edge of the crooked trees. Barefoot. Hair tangled. Eyes sunken, burning. Lena's mouth opened, but the girl spoke first.
"You're not going nowhere."
Her voice was cracked glass, thin, sharp, deliberate. Lena stared.
"What…?"
But she knew. The girl was her. Not a memory. Not a hallucination.....Her...The real Lena. The one she hadn't wanted to face. The real Lena stepped closer, her bare feet sinking into the soft dirt. Her expression was raw. Betrayed.
"You deceived me," she said, voice shaking,
"just to take Yona...my Yona. My love."
Her silence said everything.
The real Lena stepped forward again, fury trembling under every word.
"You're not supposed to be there. That world..the real world...that's not yours."
Her voice dropped.
"This one is. This fantasy. This lie. You're the Lena from this world. And you're trying to steal mine."
Lena's gaze flicked toward the tower door. Just a few more steps… But the real Lena stepped in her path, arms spread, trembling.
"You won't go back. Not this time. I will."
The other Lena narrowed her eyes, cold now.
"You? You think after everything I did...everything I earned...you're going to wake up in my place?"
"I stayed," the real Lena whispered. "I suffered. You escaped."
A pause....Then:
"And now you want to escape again...into my life."
They stared at each other..identical, and nothing alike. Two versions of Lena. One forged in pain. One carved by obsession. And the door behind them waited. Only one would walk through it.
The other Lena. The one who'd stayed behind.
The real Lena stepped forward slowly, eyes never blinking.
"You were going to leave again," she said quietly.
"Slip back into the world and steal it like you always planned."
Lena didn't respond at first. Then she gave a slow, bitter laugh. Her lips curled.
"Yes," she said softly."I deserve him. Not you."She tilted her head, almost pitying. "Real Lena."
The name hit like a slap. She'd always called her that..back when their voices used to echo through the mirror room. Back when she'd pretend the other one didn't matter. A shadow. A leftover. The one that suffered in silence while Lena ran free.
The real Lena's jaw clenched.
"You lied to me," she whispered. "You said we were healing. That we were getting stronger together. But all you wanted was my Yona. The one who waited. The one who loved me ."
Lena stepped forward.
"And yet, I'm the one he truly sees. Because I became more than just a memory. I made choices."
"You stole them," the real Lena snapped. "You twisted everything."
Lena just stared at her for a moment. Then her voice dropped.
"You don't belong out there.This is your world now..this dream. This prison. That's where ghosts stay."
She stepped past her, slowly. But the real Lena moved in front of her , blocking the door. Her hands shook, but she didn't back away.
"You're not going back," she said coldly. Lena's eyes narrowed."And what will you do to stop me?"
They stood there...face to face...Then they both moved. It was subtle at first..just a twitch of the hand, a shift of weight, but it was mirrored perfectly, like a reflection caught in an argument with itself.
Lena blinked, and for a second, she wasn't sure which one she was . The dark clothes. The sharp voice. The calm smirk. The bitter smile. Which one had said those things?
"Get out of my way," the Lena in dark clothes hissed.
"I can't let you take it again," the real Lena said, quieter now.
The world around them pulsed. Grass shifted the wrong way. The sky above them shuddered , as if a pressure was building something in the atmosphere unraveling.
"Do you remember?" one of them said. "What it felt like when we first opened the door?"
"I remember too much," the other replied. "That's the difference between us."
Lena took a step forward, and suddenly she was beside herself. Not just a copy. A dozen of her. A flicker, a glitch. Twelve different Lena faces flickered into being in a circle around the door. One sobbing. One smiling. One covered in blood. One wearing school clothes.One with her hair buzzed off. One laughing manically....All watching. All waiting.
"I earned this," Lena whispered. "I did what had to be done."
"Then why are you still haunted?" the real Lena asked.
"I'm not haunted," she snapped. "I'm driven." But her voice cracked.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled backward.The sound folded in on itself, peeling layers off the sky. The real Lena stepped closer. Tears stained her cheeks, but her hands were steady now.
"Do you know why I stayed?" she asked. "Why I let you go?"
The other Lena flinched.
"I didn't let you go to replace me," the real Lena said.
"I let you go so one of us could heal. I thought maybe you'd come back for me. Maybe you'd remember I was still here."
Lena's throat moved, dry.
"You were the weight I had to cut."
"Then why am I still standing?"
The tower creaked, as if listening. The flickering versions of Lena began to whisper, overlapping:
" She lied..."
" You're not the real one..."
"One of you has to die..."
" Or both of you stay."
"SHUT UP!" Lena screamed..
And suddenly all the other versions vanished , like breath against glass. It was just the two of them again. Both panting, trembling. And then..
Noir appeared.
Not a noise. Not a footstep. One moment the space between trees was empty...The next, he was there. Dark coat. Soft smoke curling around him like a sigh. Eyes like glass catching dying light.
Lena...the one in dark clothes went still. Her lips parted in disbelief.
" Noir. From the real world?"
He didn't look at her. His gaze was locked onto the real Lena .She took a step back instinctively. Noir walked forward. Slow. Measured. Unstoppable.
The real Lena's breath caught. She looked terrified, but didn't run. He came closer. She stepped back again, trembling now.
The world narrowed. The tower loomed beside them, its door half-open. He kept walking.
Closer....
Closer....
Until he was right in front of her, so close she could feel the heat of his breath on her skin.
The real Lena's lips parted. Her body froze. She thought he was going to kiss her. His mouth hovered over hers. But no. He didn't kiss her.
Instead, his lips moved past hers. To her ear.
And he whispered something. Soft. Slow. Measured.
Words no one else could hear. The real Lena's entire body shuddered. Her eyes went wide..too wide . Her lips trembled.
"No..." she whispered. "That's not… possible."
And in that moment, the other Lena..the one in dark clothes moved. She saw the fear ripple through the real Lena's face, saw her freeze, and she ran Straight for the tower. The door began to pulse, shimmer, open wider, And she slipped through it, heart pounding, breath ragged.
She turned back just before it shut. And smiled. She had won. She was the one who deserved the real world. But...As the door began to close, she hesitated. She saw the real Lena still standing there. Unmoving. Not fighting. Not even trying to follow. Just… watching.Expression calm. Serious. Still.
And something twisted in Lena's stomach.
" Why isn't she stopping me? Why isn't she running? She sees me..she sees me winning. So why… isn't she fighting?
Her throat tightened. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.And the question bloomed, cold and sharp: "What did Noir tell her?"
The door sealed shut.And...They weren't outside anymore. They were inside the tower. Or a tower. A structure that stretched in every direction up, down, sideways, spirals folding into themselves, infinite and wrong. Mirrors clung to every surface, but the reflections didn't match. Some were delayed. Some inverted. Some smiled when she didn't.
Lena..the one in dark clothes turned in a slow circle, chest rising and falling. She had made it. She had won. The door had closed behind her. But then...A sound. A breath that wasn't hers. She spun around. The other Lena stood a few feet away. Still barefoot. Still pale. Still silent.
Lena's heart thudded hard. "You…" she breathed. "You followed me through." Her voice was sharp, but the words trembled. "You weren't supposed to be able to...this was my door."
The other Lena said nothing.
Lena took a slow step back, watching her, uneasy now. "You can't be here. You're the one who stayed behind. I...I saw the door close."
Still nothing. Her stomach turned. Something was wrong.
"You're not supposed to be here," she said again, quieter this time.
The other Lena tilted her head. A slow, unnatural motion. And smiled. But it wasn't the soft, sad smile of the girl who'd begged for her life back. It was something colder. Wider. Like a mask had slipped. Lena's breath caught in her throat.
" …What the hell is this," she whispered. "How...who are you?"
The other Lena said nothing. Just kept smiling, eyes wide and still. And then.. The tower blinked. Reality snapped..like a pulled thread. AndLena was falling. Not in the way she'd fallen before. not into dreams, not into mirrors. But into memory. Into that impossible space where time bent and reality frayed.
She hit the ground with a gasp. Grass. Dirt. Twisted trees. She looked up..she was there. That place. The field where she had once stood with Yona, Mia, and Ayumi . Where the wind moved backward and the tower loomed in the sky like a secret held too long.
But they weren't here now. They hadn't seen her fall. They hadn't known she slipped through.
She had fallen alone. And the whispering had started again. Only one word this time..over and over...
"Choose."
Lena clutched her head. The wind tore through the trees. The tower rose. And behind her, a reflection moved that wasn't hers. She turned..
And saw her again. The same Lena from the tower. Still smiling. Still watching.
And Lena understood, with a cold chill that reached her bones: "This wasn't the real Lena." And this wasn't the real world. She hadn't won. She had stepped into a trap.
The real Lena stood in the clearing, her breath still trembling in her chest, the weight of a thousand echoes slowly falling away. The sky had stilled. The tower behind her loomed like a closed wound.
And beside her..Noir remained. He hadn't moved since stepping from the shadows. Just watched, silent, unreadable. But his presence held the moment in place, like time itself deferred to him.
Lena turned to him. Her voice broke through the stillness.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Noir didn't speak at first. His gaze remained fixed on her, ancient and calm, like he was seeing something long promised, long overdue. Then, softly his voice like ash and wind..he spoke.
"Now go to him."
Lena's breath caught. Her eyes widened. And it hit her all over again...Yona is here...The words he'd whispered into her ear. The ones that had stopped her heart and broken her stillness.
Not a dream. Not a lie. Not a memory clawed from the edge of sleep. Here...Her Yona. She didn't ask how. She didn't need to...She ran Without hesitation, without doubt, with every ounce of longing she'd locked away for years.
The forest blurred past her. The air turned electric. Her feet pounded the earth as her heart thundered his name. Behind her, Noir didn't follow. He stood at the edge of the clearing, long coat brushing against the windless grass, eyes fixed on her like a sentinel watching fate find its course.
He didn't move. He didn't call after her. He only watched. Watched as Lena disappeared into the trees...into the light breaking between trunks, into the path that bent with her footsteps and opened with her longing.
And when she was finally gone.He closed his eyes. The wind moved, just once.And the Black Tower was silent again.
To be continue...