Edge of the Dark

Chapter 97: Chapter 96: The Silent Ending

The city outside Ethan's window was alive, bustling with the rhythm of everyday life, unaware of the storm that had been brewing in the shadows for so long. Ethan sat at his desk, his hands resting heavily on the wood, feeling the weight of everything that had happened and everything that had yet to come. The room around him seemed to grow colder, as if the walls themselves had absorbed the secrets he had uncovered, leaving him with a silence that seemed to echo louder than any truth.

Sophia's words haunted him. "The choice you made... you were never meant to remember."

He had hoped—no, believed—that there was a solution, a way to make sense of the chaos that had unraveled his life over the past weeks. But with every conversation, every revelation, he felt the pull of a deeper, darker truth. The realization gnawed at him: perhaps this was the way it had always been meant to be. A game, a trap, a series of moves made long before he even realized the stakes.

But what was the game? And who had played it?

His phone buzzed, breaking the silence, but Ethan didn't move. He had already seen the name on the screen: Lila. She had been trying to reach him for days, and every time, he had avoided answering. There was nothing left to say.

But this time, something inside him cracked. Perhaps it was the weight of his solitude, the crushing uncertainty of what he had learned, or maybe it was just the need to hear a human voice—someone who wasn't part of the twisted web that had ensnared him.

He answered the call, bringing the phone to his ear.

"Ethan," Lila's voice came through, low but steady, as if she had known all along that this conversation was inevitable. "I know you've been avoiding me."

"I wasn't avoiding you," Ethan muttered, his tone flat, his mind elsewhere. "I just... needed time."

"You've had plenty of time," she replied. "And I've been trying to reach you because you're not alone in this anymore, Ethan. You've never been alone. We're all in this together."

He exhaled slowly, the words feeling foreign, as though he had heard them before in a different life, in a different context. "What are you saying, Lila?"

"I'm saying that we need to talk. We need to come to terms with everything, or this is going to end badly for all of us."

"End badly?" Ethan scoffed bitterly. "It's already ended badly, Lila. We're already past the point of no return."

There was a long pause on the other end, before she spoke again, her voice softer now. "You don't have to face this alone. I... I never wanted you to. I never wanted you to carry the weight of this on your shoulders."

Ethan stared at the blank wall across from him, his mind racing. "You think this is about me, Lila? It's about all of us. I've been running, trying to piece this together, trying to remember, but... nothing makes sense. Everything is falling apart, and I can't put it back together. And now you're telling me that we're supposed to fix it?"

She sighed, the sound laden with frustration, but also with a hint of something else—something darker, something deeper. "It's not about fixing it. It's about surviving it. And you don't have to do that on your own. Please, Ethan. Come to the meeting. Come to where it all started."

Ethan's pulse quickened. Where it all started. That phrase, repeated like a mantra in his mind, carried with it a weight he couldn't shake. The memory that had eluded him, the events that had led him here—they all seemed to lead to one place, one moment, one decision that had irrevocably changed everything.

"I can't," he said finally, his voice trembling with something that felt like a mixture of anger and fear. "I don't know how to undo any of this. It's already too far gone. What's done is done."

"You're wrong," Lila replied. "It's not too late. But it will be if we don't act now."

The meeting place was an old building at the outskirts of the city—abandoned, decaying, yet still standing. It seemed like an appropriate setting for what was to come. Ethan had been here once before, under vastly different circumstances, but this time he had no illusions about the stakes. There would be no more turning back. He was walking into the heart of the storm, fully aware of what lay ahead.

As he entered the building, the air seemed thicker, the silence oppressive. There were no sounds of footsteps or echoes of life. It was as if the building itself had been abandoned by time, forgotten by those who once inhabited it. He made his way down the dark hallway, the distant flicker of light from a broken bulb guiding him forward.

Then he saw her—Sophia Miller. She was standing near the end of the hall, her figure outlined by the dim light, her face unreadable. Her gaze met his, and for a moment, there was only silence between them. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"You came," she said simply, her voice barely above a whisper.

Ethan didn't reply right away. Instead, he took a few steps closer, his heart pounding in his chest. The uncertainty that had plagued him for so long, the nagging sense that something was about to be revealed—he felt it now more than ever. This was it. This was the moment he had been dreading, the moment that would finally tear away the last remnants of illusion.

"Why?" he asked, his voice hoarse. "Why all of this? Why didn't you tell me the truth?"

Sophia's eyes softened, and for a brief moment, the hard edge in her expression dulled. "Because you were never meant to know. None of us were. We were all part of something bigger, something beyond our control."

Ethan shook his head, his hands clenched into fists. "And what exactly was that, Sophia? What was all of this? Who was pulling the strings?"

Sophia met his gaze steadily. "You think it's just one person? No, Ethan. It's a system. A machine. Something that has been running for years, long before any of us got involved. You've seen the damage, you've seen the consequences—but there's always been a price. And now, the price is here."

A chill ran down Ethan's spine, and he instinctively took a step back. "What price?"

Sophia stepped forward, her eyes dark with something that looked like regret. "The truth is—there is no simple way to undo it. The choice was made long ago. You can't change what's been set in motion."

Ethan's mind raced. The choice. The choice that had set everything into motion, the choice that had led him to this place, to this moment of reckoning.

But there was no answer. No easy resolution. There was only the weight of the truth—and the knowledge that it had already been too late for far too long.

Ethan turned and walked out of the building without a word. The cold air hit him as soon as he stepped outside, the weight of everything settling heavily on his shoulders. He could hear the sound of his footsteps echoing in the silence, but nothing felt real anymore. The city stretched out before him, indifferent and unyielding.

What had he hoped to find here? What had he expected?

The silence was the only answer he received.

And as Ethan walked away from the place where it all began, he realized something fundamental: the truth wasn't something he could ever truly uncover. It wasn't something that could be solved, unraveled, or fixed. It was a question that would never have an answer. A story that would never be told in full.

He had reached the end of the line. And the end, it seemed, was a silence that spoke louder than any revelation.