One Woman, One Mountain

The sky was already bleeding into ink when Élise tightened the straps of her backpack and stepped onto the trail. A pale crescent moon hung above the Cévennes, casting long shadows across the pines. The forest exhaled cool, damp air, scented with moss and old stone. Each footstep echoed a rhythm older than her thoughts.

Ten years. Ten whole years since she last walked this path.

The same stones. The same silence. Only she was different now—hollowed by time, by absence, by everything unsaid.

The letter was in her jacket pocket. Still sealed. Still waiting.

She hadn’t read it the day it arrived. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. A week later, Rémi was declared missing. They said it was an accident—fell into the ravine during a storm, washed away by the river. No body. No finality. Just a letter she couldn’t bear to open.

Until tonight.

She had planned the route carefully: a slow climb through the forest, a narrow ridge path, then the final push to the summit before dawn. That was where they used to go, Rémi and her, when they were still whole, before the fractures—before the fight.

She adjusted her headlamp and set off. Gravel crunched beneath her boots. The forest pulsed with life—the cry of a nightbird, the rustle of something in the underbrush, a branch creaking like an old door. The unease of nightfall wrapped itself around her, but it didn’t scare her. Not anymore.

She had come for the silence. She had come for the choice.

Half an hour in, she passed the old stone bench where they’d carved their initials. E + R, etched with a pocketknife at thirteen. She remembered how Rémi had misspelled her name on purpose to make her laugh. “You’re not Élise anymore. You’re ‘Else,’ my twin from another timeline.” He had always believed in impossible things.

The moss had grown over it now. She ran her fingers across the damp stone but didn’t stop.

The first incline began. She welcomed the burning in her legs. Let her body work so her mind wouldn’t. But thoughts crept in like fog under a door.

Why had he sent that letter?

What could possibly be inside that he hadn’t told her already?

What if it changed everything?

She reached a plateau and sat on a boulder to drink. She took the envelope out, turned it over in her hands. Her name written in his slanted script. No date. Just Élise.

She nearly opened it right then.

But no. Not yet.

Not until the summit.

She stood and kept walking.

As the forest thinned, the wind picked up—cooler now, whispering through the trees like someone muttering just out of earshot. The path narrowed, a steep drop yawning to her left. Her headlamp picked out twisted roots, jagged rocks. She moved slowly. Her breath fogged in the air.

Above her, the ridge loomed. She remembered the last time she’d stood there with Rémi—just before the storm rolled in. He had wanted to keep going. She had said no. They had argued. Harsh words, raw in the wind. He had gone on. She had turned back.

She had blamed herself for years.

And now she was here, retracing that route, carrying his voice in her pocket.

At 4 a.m., she reached the ridge. The valley below was a sea of shadow. Stars wheeled overhead, cold and watchful. She stood a moment, breathing hard.

Then she walked to the edge.

There was the summit. One last climb. The wind tugged at her thoughts. She crouched, found a flat stone, and sat cross-legged.

She pulled out the letter.

Her fingers trembled as she broke the seal.

Élise,

If you're reading this, it means I didn’t come back. I’m sorry.

I don’t know how to explain what I’ve been feeling. Maybe I’m broken. Maybe I’m just tired of pretending I’m not. But this climb... this place... it’s the last place where I felt real.

You always believed in beginnings. I’ve only ever seen endings. That’s the difference between us.

There’s something I never told you. That last hike—the one where we fought—I wasn’t just angry at you. I was terrified.

I was going to tell you that day. I had everything ready. I even had the documents in my bag.

I had decided to leave. To go away. Far. To start again. As someone else.

I didn’t just feel lost in my life—I felt wrong inside it. Like I was walking around in a costume too tight, too loud. I know it’s hard to understand, Élise, but... I wasn’t your brother, not really. Not in the way the world saw me.

My name was Rémi. But in my mind, it never fit. I tried to tell myself it was a phase, a trick of the mirror. But it wasn't. I didn’t want to die. I just didn’t want to keep living as someone I wasn’t.

I wanted to become Ariane.

I wanted to transition. I wanted to live.

But I was afraid. Afraid of losing you. Afraid of losing everyone. Afraid of failing, even at becoming myself.

So I came up here to be alone with that truth. Maybe I thought the mountain would decide for me. Maybe I thought you’d find the letter and understand. Or forgive.

If I disappeared, I wanted you to know—it wasn’t rejection. It wasn’t shame. It was me, finally trying to exist.

You always were the brave one, Élise. I hope you still are.

Please don’t let my silence stop you from becoming who you need to be. Even if that means letting me go.

I love you. No matter the name. No matter the face.

Ariane

Her breath caught.

The wind paused, as if listening.

She read the letter again. And again.

Ariane.

She had never imagined...

A memory surged: Rémi at sixteen, sitting silently by the lake, sketching a woman’s face in the corner of his notebook. When she’d asked who it was, he had shrugged, closed the book. “Someone I wish existed.”

She thought it was a crush.

Now she knew.

Tears welled in her eyes—not from sadness, but from the fierce tenderness of the truth.

She pressed the letter to her heart and closed her eyes.

Ariane.

Her sister.

At the summit, the sky began to lighten. Blue melted into rose at the edge of the world.

She stood. The wind no longer felt cold.

“I see you now,” she whispered. “I see you, Ariane.”

Then she turned, and with a steady step, began her descent—toward a morning she was finally ready to meet.