"The past is never gone; it lingers, waiting for the right moment to rise again." – Anonymous

  ?? Song Suggestion: "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri.

  The air in Ashbourne hung thick, as if the house itself were holding its breath. Harrison and Emilia stood in the middle of the room, their gazes fixed on the mirror before them, their reflections fractured by the shadows that danced around them. The house seemed to breathe with them, its walls creaking softly as though alive, waiting for something—waiting for them to uncover what had been hidden for far too long.

  Harrison couldn’t take his eyes off the mirror. The woman in the reflection was familiar, but not the same. Her face was a reflection of Emilia, but older—worn by time, haunted by something neither of them could yet understand. The woman’s lips moved, and he could hear the echo in his mind, though no words passed her mouth.

  “Don’t forget me this time.”

  The voice felt like a plea, carried across the centuries. Harrison’s hand shook as he reached out toward the gss, as if by touching it, he might unlock the mystery that bound them to this pce. But before his fingers could make contact, the vision wavered. The woman’s face flickered, melting into the gss, leaving behind only a distorted image of his own reflection.

  He recoiled, his heart pounding in his chest. Emilia stepped closer, her fingers brushing against his arm, grounding him in the present. She had seen it too—the woman in the blue dress. The one who had haunted their dreams, the one who had been with them in some other life.

  “We were her,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure if the words were meant for her or himself. “In another life. We were her, and we failed her.”

  Emilia’s breath caught in her throat. Her heart was racing, the vision repying in her mind like a looping film. She could see the woman clearly now—her eyes, full of desperation, the burning Ashbourne in the background. The same blue dress. And then the voice. The same words she had heard in her dreams.

  “What if…” She hesitated, fear creeping into her voice. “What if we were meant to be her? What if we’re connected to her? The woman in the mirror, the woman in our dreams... we keep seeing her. But why?”

  Harrison didn’t have an answer. He didn’t have the words to expin the pull he felt toward the estate, toward this woman, and toward the fire that had consumed everything. Everything was familiar, and yet, at the same time, it felt like they were walking through a world they didn’t belong to, where the rules didn’t apply, and time had no meaning.

  “We need to understand,” he said, his voice low and steady, though his chest was tight with the weight of the truth they were on the brink of discovering. “We need to understand why she’s still calling us, why we can’t escape it.”

  The First Thread Unravels

  They moved from the room slowly, their footsteps echoing on the old wooden floors, their eyes scanning the decaying furniture and the dust-covered remnants of a life long gone. Emilia’s mind was spinning, the image of the woman in the mirror haunting her thoughts. She felt as though the house itself was alive, watching them, waiting for them to uncover the secret it had been guarding for so long.

  They passed a set of paintings, each one depicting a scene from a time she couldn’t quite pce. The woman in blue was in every painting, standing in the background of each scene like a shadow, forever present, but never the focus.

  At the end of the hall, they found another door—small and unassuming, tucked away behind a faded tapestry. Harrison paused, his hand hovering over the doorknob. Something was wrong. The air had thickened again, and he could feel the presence of something ancient, something tied to the estate itself.

  “What is it?” Emilia asked, her voice small, uncertain.

  “I think we’re not meant to be here,” Harrison whispered, the words almost slipping from his lips before he could stop them. “It’s like we’re intruders in a pce that doesn’t belong to us.”

  But they had come too far. The door creaked open with a slow groan, revealing a room shrouded in shadows.

  The Memory Room

  Inside was a room unlike the others—preserved, untouched by time. The furniture was draped with white sheets, but they were not covered in dust. The room smelled faintly of roses, and the air felt fresh, as though the room had been left in stasis, waiting for them to enter.

  At the far end of the room was a rge wooden chest, its surface carved with intricate designs, almost as if it were a shrine to something sacred.

  Emilia stepped toward it, her fingers brushing against the delicate carvings. As her hand made contact with the chest, the same voice—the voice from her dreams—whispered again in her mind.

  “Don’t forget me.”

  The chest seemed to hum with energy, like it was alive, waiting for her to open it.

  Without thinking, she turned the handle. The lid creaked open, revealing a collection of old letters, their edges browned with age. At the top of the stack was a familiar note—the same handwriting she had seen in the bookshop, in the journal that Harrison had found.

  She pulled the letter out carefully, her hands trembling as she unfolded it. Her eyes widened as she read the words.

  "If you remember me—don’t let them change the ending this time."

  Harrison stepped forward, his heart racing as he read the words over her shoulder. The message was the same. It was the same as the one he had seen in the journal. The same as the one in his dreams. They were linked to this past, to this woman, to Ashbourne.

  “What does it mean?” Emilia whispered, her voice full of confusion and fear. “What is happening to us?”

  Harrison looked down at the letter, then at the room around them. It was as if they had unlocked a door they weren’t meant to open. They had crossed a threshold, and now, there was no going back.

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice heavy. “But we need to find out. This is only the beginning.”

  As they stood there, the room seemed to shift again, the shadows lengthening, the temperature dropping. It felt like the house was reacting to their discovery, as though it were waking up from a long, troubled sleep.

  And in that moment, they both knew—the past was no longer just a memory. It was a force, a presence that had been waiting for them, and it was about to consume them both.

  As Harrison and Emilia dive deeper into their past lives, reality begins to unravel. The past calls to them louder, reshaping their world, while Dr. Sloane’s influence grows. In Chapter 7, they must confront the truth—or risk losing themselves forever.