In my sleep, a certain dream revealed.

A white-haired girl found herself in front of a red old door. In her hand, she saw a fraction of her reflex portrayed on the clean edge of a silver dagger. It looked sharp, as it appeared to be small, almost the size of her slender and pale hand. The tool was thin like her index finger, perhaps a bit more. Despite the lack of fatness, her fingers were long, like those suited to play the piano. I found myself by her side, however, slightly behind, close enough to find out what part of her physical appearance was like, but not close enough to notice the fear within her heart, had it not been by the slight shake of the small metal piece.

Her free hand grabbed the door handle, and then she took a deep breath.

I wish I could've seen her face at that time. There hadn't been many expressions Aurora had made. The icy eyes reflected on the silver, made me believe that it was her, her old self. And in a past dream I had, this figure, too, was there once protected by a shadowy figure. But this girl had to be my sister.

Once the handle turned, a despairing weighted creak followed, loud and eerie enough to pressure and taint my eardrums. The door looked as rusty as it appeared to be heavy. Aurora didn't look old, nor strong enough to push it. Yet, despite how slim her body looked like, she managed to go through the small gap her grand effort had created.

Without wasting a second, I followed through, curiosity bursting within my heart. More than enough willingness to know more about who she was. Who she had been and what she had achieved.

Many were the times I regretted not asking about her past directly. On the contrary, I hoped to have more dreams, or to see fragments of her other life during my sleep.

Yet, they hardly came by, sorrowfully so.

Inside the place there was a man tied to a chair, rope knotted on his legs, arms, torso, and neck. I would surely not manage to escape such a tight embrace, no matter how much I squirmed my body to be free.

The man's face was beaten, lips bruised and bleeding, scars, cuts, wounds too ugly to see, but I didn't take my eyes off of him. He had a black bandage covering his sight.

Like a cat in the dark, I stood there, silently staring.

It didn't take long for me to notice another silhouette, a hazy one, despite the light from the candles. Was it an issue with her own memories? Didn't she remember the person clearly anymore?

There was more to it, I'm certain, but it was beyond anything I could do.

"Aura..."

"Fafia," Aurora's voice sounded as cold as the ice of the moon season, capable of penetrating your body, independent of how many layers of clothing one could be wearing.

'Aura?' I thought to myself, repeating a name that was quite similar to my sister's one. I figured then, with little effort, that it could be a nickname for villagers with long names. Often, they were blessed one by their friends.

"What do you wish to know?"

"His army size or country plans."

She let out a familiar mumble, the one Aurora often used when something made sense.

For a very brief moment, the light from the candles lessened as if a soft breeze went by, attempting to extinguish their flames. However, this place was practically closed, the only entrance being the one we went through, which was still narrowly open. What could it have been that made the surrounding shadows gnaw at their natural nemeses?

Yet, her fingers patted the man's neck, then his face, gently, kindly, filled with love for strangers that I didn't know she possessed, and then the cover on his eyes lessened without her touch, or so it looked like to me, but perhaps not to the silhouette next to the man. Fafia awaited patiently, smirking as if expecting something to happen.

"Gh- ghost!" Erratically, his bones shook, almighty despair coursing through all the veins protected by those firm muscles. Clearly, he had the body a new soldier would dream of, one likely obtained by becoming a war veteran after years of training and hardships.

And for the first time in my life, I learned of true fear: for his eyes almost rolled all the way back, his chocolate skin turning lighter just like caramel, the air shifting colder, and his teeth gritted in disarray. A mist flowed out of his mouth as if his soul attempted to escape it. Bottomless well of despair was the appearance of his irises, as if each one was a black hole to another dimension.

'A less dangerous one than Artana,' I betted such a statement against myself, taking both victory and defeat if it came to it.

What in the world did Aurora do, to instantly turn such a strong and big man into such a scared cat?

The girl took a few steps back. "This again," she whispered lowly enough for only me to hear. Even though her tone sounded depressive and with a hint of tiredness. She sheltered her right arm with her left one, passing her fingers through her smooth skin. I'd seen some women with hairs on different body parts, but I couldn't find a glimpse of any on hers.

Yet, what amazed me the most was her eyes staring at her right arm as if indulged by her skin tone: a pale whiter than the moon, just like her hair. Both contributed to a ghastly appearance, contrasting perfectly with the surrounding darkness.

It made me wonder if that was the reason for her sadness. I took some steps to her right side, adventuring through the place, finding a table with candles and utensils made of metal. I stood by the light. In all that darkness, it reassured me. The objects were bigger and with an appearance far more ruthless than the one in Aurora's hand.

'Blood?' My eyes scrolled from the red dyed in a few of the tools to the body of the man. It seemed he had been tortured, yet had not spoken a single word. Or if he had, clearly, not the one they wished to hear.

"Ghost!" His voice was rough filled with fury, gnawing at the air, but more than his wrath stood his frightened self, filling his heart, leaving no space for any other emotion to reside for long.

"Boo!" Fafia added, amused by his behaviour, causing him to almost jump from his chair, had he not been tied. "Are you ready for possession?"

"No!" A rough cough followed as he barked in despair. It got worse by the second, louder till it stopped, and some blood escaped his lips.
I found the tiny flames on top of the candles to shake as her voice flowed into the trepid corners of the despaired mind of the man, delving deeper into the putrid sewer of his agonizing heart.

"Time is nigh," and her gaze turned colder, hazy, and her hand moved as if holding a baton the way only an experienced maestro would. It looked like the shadow beneath her pushed it to the one trapped in the chair. With a beautiful quarter of a moon arc, a cut on one of the man's finger appeared. In a very brief moment, unwillingly, I took the glimpse of Aurora removing the nail from the still warm skin, leaving an opening for blood to slip through, coursing down the fingertip like a river made of lava, heating up its path, and dripping on the floor.

The man howled in pain, suffering an extra amount from the fear factor alone, causing him to be more perceptible to the consequences.

His shouts echoed throughout the room and the long hall where I had gone through.

I couldn't help myself but to condemn her actions, but at the same time I didn't have any context. Why was she doing it? By the fourth loss of his nail, the man could no longer scream. Instead, he cried.

By the seventh, I had shouted to Aurora for her to stop as he'd blabbered everything they wanted to know.

By the eight, he no longer shed any tears nor uttered words, just soft groans followed as if he was dead on the inside.

It almost looked like he had been reduced to a different man, or something less than one.

"Aura, you've done enough," the woman who had been writing everything the man spewed told her gently.

And with the darkness in her pupils, she stared back at Fafia, who seemed quite pleased with her work.

"Who's Aura?" The girl whom I thought to be my sister's older version whispered, not loud enough for the woman to hear, but I did. That's when I trembled from confusion, willing to know what she meant by that, however, still unable to.

Aura's body turned around, and she walked through the opened door. Unwilling to stay in that unsightly, dark, and awful place.

I followed her back.

And there I stood by her side, slowly noticing the vividness returning to her irises.

Yet, I started hearing and seeing things that didn't make sense.

Rats, cockroaches, larva. Together they played, sung, and clapped at Aura. But their figures seemed distorted, however, I could tell that they looked real to her.

"Thank you, everyone!" The embarrassed look on her face didn't lie. It was an innocent expression of someone young, who firmly believed everything around was part of her daily life.

But the view was filthy, grotesque.

The rats were corpses, bodies filled with holes with dried organs hanging on, most by a thread, woven by the most dimmed shadows I had ever seen. Like puppets their ripped muscles were pulled front and back, sometimes to the sides, wherever the ominous lines pleased.
Eyes gouged out, some creatures even lacking them, hollow, obscure, and twisted sockets of despair. The worst were their human expressions, smiling eerily as if they were beyond insane.

Aurora, who had entered the room, made me think she was someone, but the one that left, the one in front of me, it felt like she was somebody else.

'At least she's not afraid anymore,' it had been the feeling I had received from her shivering hands, possibly knowing beforehand she would have to do bad things.

Her eyes were still hazy, despite how cheerful she seemed to be. It made me wonder what were they seeing that I wasn't capable of. So I got closer to her, seeing the secret hidden in their reflection, and as I got very close, her irises stared directly at me.

I woke up surprised, almost jumping off bed, ending up staring at the darkness of my room till my senses fully returned and my breath and heart rhythm went back to normal.

'Damn it, I was so close,' once again I had failed but it didn't mean I'd give up. Not easily at least. I wanted to know the truth about her, even if it meant waiting decades, or even a lifetime, for it. Meanwhile, I clenched my fists, stared at her, who was sleeping peacefully by my side.

'I'll prove you I'm worthy,' all I truly wanted was her acknowledgement and everything a sister could give.