Chapter 9 - The Paralysis of Truth
The ink seemed to pulse on the page, burning its terrible message straight into David’s brain. His psychological shock was so profound that his mind initially struggled to process the grammar. He read the words once, twice, three times, each pass stripping away another layer of his sanity and reality. “Did you tell your new bride what we buried in the orchard, David, or did she tell you why she helped me dig it up?” The sentence made no sense, yet it made a horrifying, absolute sense that threatened to unhinge his jaw. It was a poison-tipped arrow fired from the past. The manicured courtyard around him ceased to exist. The sweet scent of the white roses instantly shifted in his senses, smelling suddenly of damp earth, rot, and old copper. His lungs seized, refusing to pull in air. If Rebecca had written this note today, she was alive. The burned body in the car, the closed casket, the tears he had shed—all of it had been a nightmare illusion. But the second half of the sentence was what truly broke his mind. "...or did she tell you why she helped me dig it up?" The note was explicitly tying Rebecca to Elena. The paranoia hit him like a physical tide of nausea. He was trapped in a room where every wall was made of mirrors, and every mirror showed a different betrayal.
