Consciousness seeps back into her, slow as a tide, reclaiming a body that feels heavy and unfamiliar. Bianca opens her eyes to an expanse of pure, sterile white.
For a disorienting moment, the line between the lingering dream and this new reality refuses to hold.
Maestro Gray Raven!
She calls that person's name, an impulse she cannot suppress. Her voice reverberates through the vast, white emptiness, leaving nothing in its wake but lonely echoes.
There is no response. No one is here. This place is not a sanctuary; it is a prison of her own making, and the thread that once connected her to that person has now been severed.
She rises to her feet. A new, steely determination anchors her every movement.
Please, wait for me.
Wait for me until I return to your side.
Bianca pushes the door open, her breath catching. Beyond the threshold lies nothing but another suffocating, identical white room—a silent, seamless rebuke to her determined will.
No, not this way.
She opens yet another door, only to confront the same featureless whiteness.
It is a frozen loop, an inescapable prison of sameness, where every direction leads to an identical nowhere.
Yet, against the eerie stillness, her face remains a mask of calm, utterly devoid of fear.
I cannot stop here.
I will not break my promise. I will not.
Though she has lost count of the repetitions, the labyrinth has not relented; it exists to hold her, forever.
A deep, bone-weary exhaustion sets in. The world warps and darkens at the edges of her vision, with shadows threatening to engulf everything.
Yet, her pace does not falter.
These are but illusions... meant to deceive. I will return to your side.
Guide me, I beg of you, in any way possible. Show me where you are.
Let me find my way back to you.
As if in answer, a snow-white butterfly suddenly materializes from the void, its wings beating a soft, papery rhythm as it dances beside her.
This is...
She reaches for the butterfly, her finger barely grazing its wing.
At the touch, it plummets, collapsing at her feet into a lifeless sheet of pale paper.
Upon it lies faint, unmistakable handwriting,
words once penned with a passionate fervor she would know anywhere.
These were the same pages that once lay scattered across that person's room,
which she had so carefully gathered, smoothing each crease with a gentle hand.
She instinctively bends to retrieve it, but before her fingers can brush the page, its edges blacken and curl. It crumbles inward, rapidly dissolving into a whisper of ash.
All around her, more butterflies materialize. The fluttering wings, one by one, lose their magic, falling in a gentle, silent rain of white.
The pages pile like snowdrifts at her feet, threatening to entomb her. With every slight movement she makes, invisible black flames ignite, leaving nothing but ash in their wake.
No! Stop! These are the Maestro's precious works!
She scrambles to smother the eerie flames, but her hands phase through the fire, useless. A cold dread washes over her as she stares at her own fingers, now translucent and shimmering, passing through the world like a ghost.
...!
From the surrounding, pristine white void, a familiar and unsettling voice echoes. The Phantom has once again returned.
You have grown all too exhausted. Why do you still resist your slumber... Bianca?
The Phantom's voice echoes in her mind, a haunting refrain that seems to summon a dull, throbbing ache behind her temples.
No. You are a mere hallucination.
...You are not real.
We have always been one. I am the shadow you cast, the part of yourself you keep locked away... If I were to vanish from this place, what would remain of you? Is that truly your wish?
Will you deny me again, as you always have? To ensure that only you remain... to be the one who protects that person?
The barrage of questions is a chisel against Bianca's calm facade, threatening to split it open and reveal the turmoil beneath.
I will protect that person. I would never harm them.
Because that person means more to me than anything in this world.
Hearing this, the Phantom—her voice a perfect mirror of Bianca's own—answers only with a soft, mocking laugh.
Is that so? A noble sentiment... But is it the truth?
Where were you when danger found your precious Maestro? Lost in the borderlands of the dream... what power did you possess to bring that one back?
You must accept your weakness, Bianca... Your determination, for all its fire, cannot reach everything.
You have always wished to stand in the light, to be bathed in the sun. You fear others seeing you falter... most of all, you fear that person seeing your vulnerability.
And yet, you fail to see the darkness taking root within your own heart.
Have you never truly looked at the full moon? Where the light is brightest, the shadows it casts are the most profound.
This is the truth you must accept... It is your own obsession that has led you here.
I was born from that obsession, nurtured in your dreams. The more you fight me, the more substantial I become.
...
Now, give me your true answer, Bianca... my other self.
Will you truly deny my existence?
I...
She cannot answer; the words are trapped, choked by a truth that contradicts her very core.
The Phantom's questioning hangs in the empty room, a specter born entirely from her own mind.
For it is a shadow cast by herself, a part of her she can no longer suppress.
As this realization solidifies, her own fingers begin to blur, becoming translucent. But within the terrifying dissolution, a final, clarifying thought emerges:
She must be the one to exile her own existence.
I know where I must go now.
Forgive me, Maestro. I cannot let you face any more danger for me.
After a silence that feels eternal, she rises and pushes open the door before her. This time, there is no sterile white room—only the vast, waiting expanse of snowfields.
She steps through, and the knowledge of her direction is absolute.
She does not look back, unconcerned by the blizzard that scours her footprints from the snow behind her, erasing her passage as if it had never been.
After an arduous trek, a dark silhouette finally breaks the horizon at the edge of the white: the theater. The place of their first meeting.
It stands alone against the void, the sole testament to a memory in all that white.
Let it be here.
She pushes open the familiar doors to find the theater utterly deserted. The only sign of life is the silent, rhythmic dance of candlelight in the wall sconces.
After closing the door on the raging blizzard, she plucks a candle from its holder, its small flame a fragile guide into the vast gloom.
Sinking into an audience seat, she gazes at the stage that is no longer hers. Here, in the quiet dark, she is no longer the star commanding all eyes.
After dawn breaks, you wake from dreams to crisp, cool air, ready to embrace the beauty of the day ahead.
In the morning, you sit at a sunlit desk, writing stories that flow directly from the heart.
The candles at the theater entrance gutter and die, and the darkness swallows the ornate doors whole.
In the afternoon, you steal a moment away from busy work to rest on a park bench, watching pigeons strut about, pecking at breadcrumbs.
At night, you stroll through the streets; perhaps a light drizzle falls, but it does nothing to diminish the evening's quiet beauty.
The candles lining the corridors flicker before plunging the path behind her into profound shadow.
Now, the only light left in the world is the solitary flame she carries in her hand.
And when the night deepens, you drift into a peaceful slumber, looking forward to another beautiful day to come...
To know you can live each day in such peaceful joy... that is all I could ever wish for.
As for me... I need only to remain here. Just like this.
She gazes at the guttering candle in her hand, its scorching tears falling one by one to brand her skin. But she doesn't flinch, doesn't seem to feel a thing.
The flame shudders, only growing fainter.
And like that dying light, the last vestiges of her consciousness—clung to so desperately within this dream—threaten to blink out into nothing.
Good night, Maestro.
It is time... for me to rest now.
