The journalist sat across from her again, notebook open, pen poised in his hand. The room felt colder today, the curtains drawn tight, casting everything in a heavy, suffocating gloom. The woman, still as strange as the first time he’d met her, sat in the same worn armchair, her legs tucked beneath her in a way that seemed almost unnatural, bending more then seemed possible. She lit another cigarette, exhaling slowly as the smoke curled up around her face like some kind of mist, obscuring her features for a moment.

He clicked on the digital recorder.

"I guess you want to know about him," she said after a long silence, her voice rasping from the constant smoking.

"Your brother?" he asked, his tone gentle. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear this, but he’d committed himself now. He had to. 

She nodded slowly, eyes unfocused, staring at nothing. “We were close, once. I was the quiet one, you know? He was the one everyone adored. Charming. He knew how to make people like him. It was easy for him.” She took a drag from her cigarette, the tip glowing brightly in the dim room. “I hated that about him.”

“Why?” The question left his lips before he could stop it, and he winced internally. He wasn’t sure if he was digging too deep, but her vulnerability had drawn him in.

She didn’t seem to mind, though. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, as if she were considering the question. “He had this way of twisting things. Making people think he was one thing, when he was really something else entirely. He used to say that people liked him because he was 'honest,' but he wasn’t. He wasn’t honest about anything.” She flicked the ash from her cigarette with a quick, sharp motion, and it landed on the floor with a faint hiss. "But me? I knew better. I always knew."

Her eyes flicked to him, narrowing just slightly, almost as if she were daring him to challenge her. The cigarette between her fingers trembled a little, and she adjusted her grip, inhaling deeply. Her face seemed to shift between calm and something else, something darker, like a storm was gathering just behind her eyes.

"Tell me about him twisting things."

She exhaled slowly, her eyes drifting back to the ashtray in front of her, as if searching for something to anchor her thoughts. The room seemed to get even colder in the silence that followed, thickening with unspoken tension.

"He had a way of manipulating everything," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Words. Actions. He could make you feel like you were the one in the wrong, even when you knew you weren’t. It was like he had this… control over how people saw things, over how they saw him." She took another drag from her cigarette, the tip flaring bright again. “He was always the center of attention. Even when he wasn’t trying, it was just… natural for him. I was never like that. I was just the sister, you know? The quiet one no one really cared about.”

The journalist scribbled down her words, but his mind was already racing. He was starting to see a picture of this man through her eyes, but there were gaps—things she wasn’t saying outright. He leaned forward slightly, trying to steer her further down the path she’d started.

"How did that affect your relationship with him?" he asked, his voice steady.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she flicked the ash from her cigarette, her gaze lowering to her lap. "It made everything difficult. We were supposed to be close, family. But he made it impossible to be close, really close. He always had this way of making me feel small, like I wasn’t worth his time." She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had hardened, as if the memory had taken on new weight. "I guess I resented him for it. I tried to get his attention, tried to prove I was worth something. But it never worked. Nothing ever worked."

The journalist scribbled notes, but his eyes never left her. He could see it now—the bitterness in her tone, the barely contained frustration. He wondered, for the first time, how much of this was true, and how much was a story she was telling herself.

"And when things got worse," he asked, "how did you handle it?"

Her lips twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile, but had a touch of bitter humor in it. "I didn't handle it well," she said softly. "I started pushing back. I couldn’t take it anymore. He was always so perfect, always so adored by everyone—except me. I wanted him to see what he was doing to me, but he never did. He thought I was just… jealous, I guess."

Her voice cracked for a moment, and she quickly took another drag from her cigarette, the smoke billowing out in a dense cloud. The way she moved—her hand shaking as she brought the cigarette to her lips, the way she held herself—gave the impression of someone bracing for something.

"So you pushed back." The journalist’s voice was cautious, probing. He wasn’t sure if he was leading her down the right path, but it was too late to turn back now. "How exactly did that happen?"

Her eyes flicked to him then, sharp and calculating, as if she were weighing the value of his words. For a moment, she said nothing, just stared at him through a haze of smoke. Finally, she leaned back into her chair, pulling her knees closer to her chest in a way that was still disturbingly unnatural.

The journalist's pen hovered in the air, unsure how to follow the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them. She had pulled herself even smaller in the chair, her knees drawn tightly to her chest, the bones of her body sharp and visible beneath her loose clothing. Her skin was pale, almost sickly, with the faintest tinge of grey, like she hadn’t seen the sun in years. He could see the outline of her ribs through the fabric of her shirt, and her hands, though trembling, were thin and fragile, like they might snap under the slightest pressure.

For a moment, the room seemed to shrink around them, the air thick with something unspoken. She stared at her cigarette, watching the tip burn slowly as if lost in thought, her eyes unfocused, distant. When she finally spoke again, it was soft, almost inaudible, like she was speaking to herself rather than to him.

"I started disobeying him," she murmured, her voice low and brittle. "I stopped staying at home when he wanted me there. I stopped giving him everything he demanded." She took a shallow breath, the smoke from her cigarette curling up around her face like some kind of ethereal veil, softening the sharp angles of her features for a moment. "I was never enough for him. No matter how much I gave, it was never enough. But I stopped pretending to be what he wanted. I couldn’t anymore." 

Her voice wavered, cracking slightly as if the words themselves were too heavy to carry. She shifted in the chair, her bones creaking like an old wooden floorboard. The way her body twisted, so unnatural, so wrong, made him feel uncomfortable just watching her. 

"How did you stop pretending?" he asked, leaning forward, his voice gentle. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer, but he had to ask.

She didn’t answer right away. Her gaze remained fixed on the cigarette between her fingers, the tip glowing brightly in the dim room, as though it was the only thing that could hold her attention. Then, as if pulled from some distant place, she spoke again.

"You don’t realize how long you’ve been wearing the mask until it starts to hurt." Her voice trembled as she spoke, the words laced with a kind of haunting truth. "I’d been wearing it for so long, pretending to be someone I wasn’t… to be what he wanted, what they all wanted. But the mask—" She paused, her lips pressed into a thin, trembling line, as if the thought itself was unbearable. "The mask… it melds into your skin, you know?" She said the words as though they were a confession, something deep and terrible, and her hands twitched slightly as if trying to pull the invisible mask off her face. "It grows with you, becomes part of you, and when you try to take it off, it feels like tearing off your own flesh."

The words hit him with a sickening weight, and he didn’t know how to respond. He watched her, her body still so small and fragile, her voice so unsteady, yet her words carried a strange, quiet intensity.

"The edges of the mask dig into your skin," she continued, her eyes still locked on the cigarette, the smoke swirling around her like some kind of miasma. "It presses into your cheeks, into your forehead, and you can feel it stretching, melding, becoming one with you. It doesn’t matter how much you want to take it off—it's already part of you. And it hurts. It hurts more than anything else. But you can’t stop." She let out a shuddering breath, her chest rising and falling sharply as she flicked the ash from her cigarette, her hands trembling.

He couldn't help but notice the hollowness in her cheeks, the way her skin clung to her bones. She was too thin, too fragile, like something that might break at the slightest touch. There was something so desperately unhealthy about her that it made his heart ache, though he wasn’t sure whether it was for her or for the idea of who she had been before the mask became her reality.

"But you couldn’t stop pretending," he said quietly, his voice strained. He wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or to himself.

She shook her head slowly, almost imperceptibly. Her fingers pressed into her arms as if trying to anchor herself to something, anything.

"No," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I couldn’t."

Her voice dropped even lower, a whisper that seemed to shake the room with its weight. She barely moved, but her eyes flicked up to meet his, and there was something cold, something unreadable in them.

"But there were enough changes that he noticed," she said, her words slow, deliberate. "He saw what I was trying to do." She paused, the cigarette now nearly gone, its glowing tip the only light in the room. "He didn’t like it. He never liked it when I stopped being what he expected me to be."

Her hands twitched slightly, and her fingers, delicate as they were, almost seemed to be curling in on themselves, as though she was trying to hold herself together.

"He thought I was defying him," she continued, her voice steadying for a moment, though it held a note of something darker beneath the surface. "And that’s when it started—when he started making sure I understood what it meant to defy him." She didn’t elaborate further, but the implication was enough to hang in the air between them, thick and suffocating.

Her eyes went back to the floor, staring at the ashtray now, her cigarette long extinguished. The moment stretched out, and the journalist could see the tension in her body, the way she pulled in tighter, making herself even smaller as if she was trying to shrink away from the memories.

"He was still the center of everything," she added in a voice that trembled on the edge of exhaustion. "No matter how much I pushed, no matter how much I tried to stop pretending, he always knew how to pull me back into his world. I didn’t have a choice. Not really."

She didn’t look up at him now, just sat there in the heavy silence, the weight of her words pressing down on both of them. Her body remained unnaturally still, too still, like she was bracing herself for something far worse.

The shift in her tone was immediate, almost startling, like a cloud passing over the sun, leaving the room colder than before. Her posture softened, and her hands, still trembling slightly, moved to cradle her knees more tightly to her chest. For the first time, there was a trace of something unguarded in her eyes—something tender, raw, and achingly distant.

"I remember when we were little," she began, her voice now soft and almost dreamlike, as if she were speaking from far away, from a time long past. "Before all of this. Before everything… changed." She paused, her eyes focusing on a faraway spot in the corner of the room, as though seeing something that only she could. "We were inseparable. I was always with him. We did everything together. It didn’t matter if it was raining or if the sun was scorching hot—he was my world, and I was his." She smiled a little, the expression bittersweet, fleeting, like a memory she couldn’t quite hold onto. "We used to play in the garden behind the house. Just the two of us. He’d make up stories, ridiculous ones, like we were pirates sailing across seas or explorers in strange lands. And I’d go along with it, just to be close to him. Just to be with him."

She paused, and the silence stretched on, thick with nostalgia and sadness. She seemed almost lost in the memory, her eyes distant and glassy, the weight of the past tugging at her.

"We’d chase each other around the yard," she continued, her voice rising with the excitement of the recollection. "I remember his laugh—loud, like he thought the whole world should hear it. And I’d run after him, trying to catch him, even though I was always a little slower. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with him." Her voice faltered briefly, but she steadied herself and kept going, her words laced with a deep affection. "We didn’t need anyone else. It was always just the two of us, together. And for a while, that was enough. It was everything."

Her eyes glazed over, and for a moment, she looked lost, like she was back in that garden, running alongside the brother she had once adored. The image of it—the simplicity, the joy of their shared moments—seemed to overwhelm her, pushing against the darker memories that lingered.

"I remember one day, when it was just after a heavy rain," she said, her tone becoming more reflective, her voice almost a whisper. "The ground was all muddy, and we were covered in it, but we didn’t care. We built forts out of branches and leaves, and I remember how warm the air felt, even though the rain had just passed. It was like everything was new again. We didn’t talk about anything serious, we just played. And that was the best part—the simplicity of it. The way the world felt like it was ours, and ours alone."

She exhaled a shaky breath, as though the weight of the memory had become too much to hold back. "I loved him so much then. I never imagined... never imagined things would change." Her voice trailed off, her gaze drifting to her hands, almost as if she were seeing the dirt still stuck to them from that childhood game.

The melancholy in her voice lingered long after the words faded, the room heavier for it. She was still small, fragile in her own way, but for a moment, she had been something else—a young girl, full of love, innocent and wide-eyed, caught in the throes of an unshakable bond that had long since broken. The journalist remained silent, his pen still, watching her with the growing realization that this—this version of her—was perhaps the one thing that had been untouched by the bitterness and hurt she’d recounted earlier. A part of her still lingered there, in that shared innocence, lost to time but never forgotten.

The silence between them stretched, thick with the weight of her memory, until the only sound in the room was the faint creaking of her chair as she twisted herself tighter, folding in on herself with an odd, unsettling fluidity. Her movements were slow and deliberate, as though each motion was carefully measured, a way to shield herself from the thoughts she was tethered to. She rocked slightly, back and forth, a gentle, almost hypnotic rhythm that seemed to calm her, though her face remained tight, unreadable.

The journalist, ever watchful, waited. He didn’t dare disturb the moment with words, letting the tension breathe between them. Her hands, still trembling, were held tightly against her legs now, almost as though she were trying to steady herself. The room felt colder again, a shiver creeping up his spine, but he couldn’t tell if it was the shift in her energy or something more.

Finally, he spoke, his voice quiet but firm, "Tell me about the night your brother died."

Her movements paused at the sound of his voice, the soft rocking coming to a stop as her body stiffened. For a moment, she didn’t speak, her eyes flicking toward him briefly before quickly darting away, her gaze flickering to the cigarette still smoldering in the ashtray. Her lips parted as though to speak, but the words caught in her throat.

The air between them felt heavier now, thick with something unspoken. She exhaled slowly, as though gathering the strength to relive it, but when she finally did speak, her voice was distant, the words coming slowly, like she was testing them for weight.

"It was late," she began, her voice hollow, like the words were not hers but belonged to something long gone. "Too late for anyone to be awake, but... we were. He was always awake at night, always restless." She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, curling her legs further in, as though seeking comfort in the way her body twisted. "I think he liked it that way—when everything else was quiet, and he could be alone with himself."

She looked up at the ceiling, taking a long drag off her cigarette. She began speaking, recounting the events of the night, telling it in a simple, straight forward manner. Listening to her, he could feel him sliding back to that day. Could see the room they had been standing in...

She could feel the cold tile against her back, a brutal reminder of her vulnerability. Her breath came in ragged gasps, each one like a desperate plea for escape. But her eyes locked on the man before her—his sneer twisted with rage, his grip tightening as if he could crush her with a single movement. He was bigger, stronger, and for all the fear flooding her veins, she knew one thing: she couldn't let him win. Not this time. 

He reached for her again, his hand coming down with terrifying certainty, but something inside her snapped. She wasn’t just fighting to survive anymore—she was fighting for her soul, for her peace, for the final shred of control she had left.

Her fingers gripped the edge of the counter behind her, nails digging into the hard surface. Desperation fueled her, and in a flash, her gaze darted to the floor where the knife had fallen. The small, gleaming blade seemed so far away—too far. But there was no other choice.

Without a second thought, she moved, her body surging forward, twisting with a ferocity she didn’t know she had. She threw herself toward the blade, diving for it. Her fingers closed around the handle. The steel was cold, yet it burned in her grip, the weight of it grounding her. She could feel the thrum of her pulse in her ears as she rose, the knife clenched in her hand like an extension of herself.

He was too slow.

Before he could react, she spun around, the knife slicing through the air with a wild, desperate arc. The blade connected with his chest—once, twice—his eyes wide with shock, his breath stuttering in his throat.

He staggered back, his hands clutching at the blood blossoming from the gaping wound, but it was too late. His strength was already faltering, the life draining from his body with each breath that grew weaker. 

She didn’t stop. She couldn’t. 

With a final, guttural scream, she lunged again, the knife sinking deep into his throat. The sound of it, the wet, sickening thud, rang through the room, and his body crumpled like a rag doll, falling to the floor with a thud that echoed in the quiet kitchen. 

Her hand trembled, but she kept hold of the knife, her chest rising and falling in uneven breaths. She stood over him, her heart hammering in her chest, her mind dizzy from the adrenaline. Her skin was slick with sweat, her breath hot and ragged. But as she looked down at him, sprawled lifeless at her feet, with his blood pooling across the tile.

There was no fear in her anymore. There was no terror. Just a deep, suffocating emptiness.

She had survived. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, the weight that had been pressing down on her chest—grinding, suffocating—lifted. Her heart still raced, but the storm inside her had quieted, the panic fading. She had taken back control. 

She stepped away from his body, her legs shaking as she moved to the sink, the knife still gripped tightly in her hand. Her fingers were slick with blood, and her breath rattled in her chest. The silence that followed felt strange, as if the room itself had shifted. 

But it didn’t matter. She was free.

And she would never let anyone take that from her again.