Content Warning: This chapter contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing or triggering; it includes topics like mental health issues and suicide. Reader’s discretion is advised.

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‘Is this my punishment for what I did when I was still alive? But it’s not my fault. I didn’t want it to happen! I was a victim. I needed to do it to save myself, to prevent myself from hurting someone innocent, so why am I here?’

“It’s not your fault.” A familiar voice echoes from nowhere. It is sad but the voice feels like a lullaby.

I look up and see a voluptuous body of a person. Even though she is literally glowing and blinding my eyes, I can still see her sadness and sorrow. Just like me, she is also floating midair. She glides towards me and reaches for my cheek, and I grow back into my twenty-six-year-old self just by her touch. My body shakes as soon as her hand touches me; I can’t control my emotions, and tears start to roll down my cheeks. I put my hands atop of hers and wept.

“It’s okay. Everything’s okay. No one will hurt us anymore,” she says. 

The person in front of me is someone I knew very well — the one who knew everything about me and the one I knew everything about. She is in her prime, a very beautiful lady carved to perfection— my creation, my ideal self: Mariana.

Her smile didn’t waver; the love and concern in her eyes are still evident up until now despite everything. As I meet her gaze, everything comes flashing back to me. Her tears fell the moment she closed her eyes, as she rested her forehead on mine. 

I understood. I knew…

I did it. There’s no turning back.

Sorrow, regret, repentance, satisfaction, acceptance, peace. 

I feel everything surge within me.

I look her in the eye. “Don’t worry about us. Trust me; I won’t lose this time.” 

She didn’t say more and only smiled back at me. We didn’t break eye contact as I watched her fade away. 

‘I’ll make sure there will be no regrets this time,’ I promise myself. 

Oh, how I wish I am only lucid dreaming; there is a side of me wishing for all of this to be just a fantasy, but most of me is hoping it is real. I truly wished for the pain to disappear and I got what I hoped for. 

There is no turning back as I felt myself getting sucked into the newborn’s body… into my new life.