CHAPTER 104: LIVE WITH THAT FOREVER

"Maya..." I mumbled under my breath.

I didn’t know why, but the air felt heavy at that moment. The way Maya appeared so casually, as usual, wasn’t supposed to feel strange... and yet I couldn’t shake the unease creeping up my spine.

"How are you, Miss Vale?"

Maya asked, her voice low and lacking the usual cheerfulness.

"Well... surviving?" I answered shortly.

"What is happening?" I asked again, my voice tightening. "I mean..." I drew in a shaky breath. "How did I end up somewhere like a prison... when I was supposed to die?"

There was a pause.

Too long for a system.

"You should be grateful," Maya replied quietly. "Very few people get a second chance like this."

My fingers clenched.

Grateful?

"That doesn’t answer my question," I said softly. "I mean... isn’t it counted as me sacrificing myself for my loved one?"

My voice cracked just a little before hardening. "And I was supposed to return to my world. Not get stuck in that damn place."

The words spilled out faster than I could stop them, "I really wish I could meet that damn fairy."

The air shifted.

"You and that fairy were never meant to meet face to face," Maya replied, her tone suddenly flat. "That is not how fate was written."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

There was a brief pause.

Then her voice sharpened, cutting through the room like a blade. "Because you ruined my plan."

The sentence echoed unnaturally, as if the room itself had spoken.

My blood ran cold, "Your plan?" I whispered.

The air around me vibrated.

Then Maya laughed.

Not the sweet, mechanical sound she always used.

It was low and it sounded like it was annoying.

"That tone of yours..." she mused softly. "So confused. So betrayed. I almost forgot how pretty you look when you realize you’ve been fooled."

My pulse thundered in my ears. "Maya...?"

"Maya?" she echoed, amused. "Oh, that silly little name. I only wore it so you wouldn’t suspect a thing."

The voice changed.

Layer by layer, the false softness stripped away.

"I told you I was guiding you... protecting you... correcting the system parameters," she went on slowly. "And you believed every word."

A chill crawled up my spine.

"No..." I breathed. "You’re lying."

Then her tone dropped into something I had heard before.

Something that made my skin go cold.

"Who do you think taught you to die properly?"

My heart slammed violently against my ribs, "Elyndra?"

She laughed, low and ugly.

"I really didn’t expect you to be stupid enough to kill yourself," she spat. "I planned this for a damn century, and you still found a way to ruin it."

Her voice cracked with blotched fury.

"And I forgot the one stupid thing I should’ve remembered..." Her eyes burned through me, "Phoenixes don’t stay dead."

I froze.

"You weren’t supposed to come back," Elyndra snarled. "You were supposed to stay there forever... stuck in that damn maze."

Her breathing turned uneven, unsteady.

"I calculated everything," she whispered. "Your fear. Your despair. Your loneliness. I built that place to swallow you whole." Her voice dropped more. "But you survived it."

My lips trembled from everything I had been holding in since I was trapped inside that maze.

"Why did you do this?" I whispered. "Who are you?"

"Why?" Elyndra laughed, the sound sharp and ugly. "Because Lucian is mine. Not yours."

The words struck harder than any spell she could’ve cast.

"I waited for him for over a century," she continued, her voice sinking into something dark and poisonous. "I suffered while watching him choose you. Laugh with you. Protect you." Her laugh broke into something raw. "Do you know what it feels like to see someone living the life that was meant to be yours?"

I shook my head slowly. "You don’t own him."

Her eyes burned, "I should have been the one standing beside him. Wearing his ring. Carrying his child. Not you."

Silence crashed between us.

Her eyes burned with something sharp and terrible.

"You think you came back whole?" Elyndra whispered.

My breath caught.

"What...?"

Her emoji on the screen smile curved slowly and cruelly.

"Dying isn’t free, phoenix. You don’t pass through death and walk back untouched."

A cold weight settled in my chest.

"What did you do?" My voice shook. "What are you talking about?"

The floating rectangular panel flickered in front of me, its edges glitching faintly.

"I didn’t do anything," Elyndra’s voice came from the system calmly. "You did."

My breath caught.

"The moment you chose to die..." the words slowed deliberately, "...that was all on you."

My hands tightened at my sides.

"Stop talking like that. Just say it. What are you trying to tell me?"

The screen dimmed for half a second, "Did you really think death only takes one life at a time?"

The room felt colder.

"I don’t understand," I whispered. "What are you saying?"

Static rippled across the panel.

"You weren’t alone when you made that decision, Seraphina."

My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

"What?" I whispered. "What do you mean... I was not alone?"

For a moment, the rectangular screen didn’t reply.

Then faint lines of light scrolled across it, slow, deliberate, like someone choosing their words carefully.

"You always thought that pain belonged to you alone," Elyndra finally said. "That when you burned, only you burned. That when you fell apart, you were the only one paying the price."

My fingers trembled.

"I died by myself," I breathed. "I made that choice alone."

The panel flickered.

"Did you?" she asked quietly.

A strange pressure gathered in my chest. Not pain exactly... but emptiness. A cold, aching hollow where something should’ve been. I pressed my hand there without understanding why.

"I didn’t feel anything," I whispered. "There was nothing... you’re trying to trick me. Stop lying!"

Static crackled across the panel.

Then Elyndra laughed, not loud but satisfied and amused.

"Oh, Seraphina..." her voice dripped with mock pity. "If I were lying, you wouldn’t feel that hole tearing you apart right now."

My breath hitched.

"You think babies announce themselves with fireworks?" she scoffed. "You were still early. Soft. Easy to erase."

"No..." my voice broke. "That’s not—"

"But it is," she cut in. "And guess what makes it even better?"

The air felt like it was suffocating me.

"You didn’t just lose something," Elyndra continued, delighted. "You chose to destroy it. With your own hands."

Her laughter echoed through my skull.

"Do you know what your dear Lucian will think when he finds out?" she taunted. "That you killed his child just to run away. That you chose yourself over his blood."

I shook my head, tears finally burning.

"He saved you," Elyndra whispered poisonously. "And you repaid him by burying what was supposed to belong to him."

The words stabbed deeper than anything she’d said before.

"And now," Elyndra laughed again, bright and cruel, "you get to live with that forever."