The Last Message

Chapter 1: The Letter

The atmosphere in her mother's bedroom was heavy with dust and nostalgia.

Mira stood at the threshold, her fingers clutching the doorframe as if she might topple over. It had been eleven years—eleven years since the funeral, since she had packed away most of her mother's belongings, and since she had locked this room away like a crypt. The therapist referred to it as "delayed grief," but for Mira, it was simply the only way she could manage to breathe.

Today, however, the realtor's message was clear: The house must be cleared out by Friday.

She stepped into the room.

The air was infused with lavender, mingled with a more delicate scent—her mother's perfume, the one she wore every Sunday for church. The fragrance pierced Mira's heart with a sharp ache. She moved in a daze, opening drawers and sifting through jewelry boxes, deliberately avoiding the photographs on the dresser.

Then, her gaze fell upon the coat.

It was a tan trench coat, a favorite of her mother’s from the '90s, hanging in the back of the closet. Mira recalled her mother wearing it to parent-teacher meetings, the belt snug around her waist. As she reached for it, she half-expected to find it empty, but the weight felt all wrong.

There was something in the pocket.

Her fingers brushed against a piece of paper.

She extracted a yellowed envelope, its edges worn with time. And then she noticed it—her name, inscribed in a handwriting she hadn’t seen in over a decade.

Mira.

Lina's script.

The world seemed to shift beneath her.

Mira staggered back, her legs colliding with the bed as she sank onto it. The envelope quivered in her grasp. For a fleeting, irrational moment, she contemplated leaving it unopened. She could return it to the coat, hang it back up, and walk away. Some things were better left undisturbed.

Yet she found herself unable to do so.

With urgency, she ripped open the envelope.

The paper within was delicate, almost transparent from age. Although the ink had dulled over time, the message remained clear.

"If you're reading this, I'm not coming back."

A sound escaped her lips—somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

"I'm sorry for leaving without a farewell. If I had tried to explain, you would have stopped me. I needed to leave."

The words began to blur. Mira furiously wiped her eyes, as if she could will the tears back.

"Don't search for me. I'm not lost. I'm precisely where I chose to be."

That was all. No further explanation. No indication of her whereabouts. Just four sentences penned in the flowing script of a sister who had exited her life without a trace.

Mira read it once more. And again.

Eleven years. Eleven years filled with police reports, private investigators, and sleepless nights filled with dread. Eleven years spent wondering if Lina lay lifeless in a ditch, if she had been abducted, if she—

And all this time, she had left a note.

A farewell.

Mira's hands tightened around the paper, crumpling its edges. She felt an urge to scream, to tear it apart, to collapse to the floor and plead with the universe for one more chance, one more conversation, one more moment to say, "Don't go."

But the room remained still.

And the letter, as fragile as it was, refused to tear.

Next Chapter Preview:

Mira locates the retired detective who investigated Lina's case and discovers that her sister purchased a one-way ticket to a coastal town named Blackwater Cove on the very day she went missing.