…Trizha stepped into the living room of her family home.
She wore her school uniform, the fabric heavy and stiff, mirroring her depressed expression.
The atmosphere in the house was thick and stifling, made worse by the harsh, golden sunlight that sliced through the window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
In her trembling hand, she gripped a broken camera—shattered glass and cracked plastic that felt like lead.
Claria, her adoptive mother, turned away from the stove in the kitchen.
She had been mid-motion, but the sight of her daughter caused her to freeze.
Claria's concern grew from a thin thread to a thick, suffocating knot in her chest.
She slowly set down her kitchen ladle, the metal clinking against the pot as she wiped her hands on her apron to approach.
"Hey, how was school today?" Claria asked, her voice soft, searching for an opening. "You don't… you don't exactly look like your cheerful self, honey."
"It's nothing," Trizha muttered, her voice hollow and devoid of its usual melodic spark.
Claria's eyes drifted downward, landing on the mangled camera.
Her confusion deepened by the second, a thousand questions bubbling up to her throat.
She wanted to ask what had happened, who had done this, or if Trizha had snapped it herself.
But the wall Trizha had built around herself was visible in the set of her jaw; Claria knew that pushing too hard might shatter her daughter completely.
"Do you… do you need anything? Anything at all?" Claria offered, her hands hovering as if she wanted to reach out but feared the rejection.
"No," Trizha replied, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere past her mother's shoulder. "I'm just… going to my bedroom."
Trizha took a single, heavy step toward the stairs.
Then, the memory shifted, blurring the past with the cold reality of the present.
One step toward the stairs of her childhood home became another step toward the exit of her hotel suite.
One step up the wooden banister became another step down the carpeted hallways of the La Luna Sangre.
She was moving through a waking dream, dressed in a sweet, floral dress and meticulously applied makeup that stood in jarring contrast to the vacant, "lost-the-sense-of-self" expression on her face.
"Trizha… wait!" Claria's voice called out, but this time, the memory fractured.
In the flashback, Claria had tried to follow her daughter up the stairs, desperate to bridge the gap.
But she stopped herself, her hand gripping the railing until her knuckles turned white.
"I have to be the one," Claria whispered to herself back then, her eyes following Trizha's retreating form. "Right about now, the only person capable of dealing with a girl who has lost her way… is her mother."
The past Claria began to climb the stairs after her daughter.
Meanwhile, the present Trizha continued her trek through the hotel.
Another step in the hallway means another step in the memory, until she finally reached the elevator.
She stood before the silver doors, waiting with a chilling patience, seemingly unaware of the world around her.
"Trizha."
Trizha's eyes widened, her shoulders jumping as she was startled by the sound of her name.
She spun around, and for a fleeting, hallucinated second, she saw her adoptive mother, Claria standing there in the hotel hallway, a vulnerably sad expression emerging on her face.
"Do you want to cry?" Claria asked, her voice echoing from that afternoon years ago. "Do you want to just let it all out on my shoulders, honey?"
In the memory, Claria spread her arms wide, leaving herself completely vulnerable to her daughter's pain.
In the present, the elevator doors slid open wide with a mechanical hiss, spreading wide to reveal an empty, waiting void.
Trizha took advantage of the opening, stepping into the metal box as if escaping a ghost.
As the elevator descended, stopping at various floors, the space began to fill.
Groups of students piled in, their chatter dying down as they noticed the girl standing like a porcelain doll in the center of the car.
Trizha remained motionless, her face a mask of arctic coldness.
"Hey… that's 'the' Trizha, right?" one student whispered to another, leaning in close. "She looks… I don't know. She looks like a statue. It's creepy."
"Yeah," the second student replied, glancing at her nervously. "I was going to ask her for a selfie or something, but I don't think she's even 'home' right now. Look at her eyes."
The two witnesses fell into an uncomfortable silence.
When the doors finally opened at the lobby, Trizha rushed out, her shoulder colliding hard with a student entering the lift.
She didn't stumble.
She didn't look back.
She didn't even care to apologize.
Outside, the sky was a bruised purple, heavy with clouds that choked out the sunlight.
Students were scurrying for cover, sensing a storm even though the rain hadn't started yet.
Trizha walked against the tide of people, eventually becoming the only soul left in the open courtyard as she approached the stone fountain.
"So, you broke your camera just because you realized you made someone miserable?"
Claria's voice returned, gentle and steady.
In the memory, they were sitting on the floor of Trizha's bedroom.
Claria was stroking Trizha's hair, her fingers moving in slow, rhythmic circles as Trizha clung to her, sobbing into her mother's lap.
"You realized you made the whole school hate him, didn't you?" Claria asked, her heart breaking for her daughter's dawning guilt.
"Yeah…" Trizha choked out, the unshed tears of the present finally blurring her vision. "I'm sorry. Mom, I'm so, so sorry."
"Shhhhh…" Claria soothed, pressing a kiss to the top of Trizha's head.
She caressed her hair more deeply, trying to anchor the girl to reality.
Her expression was soft, seeing her "baby" finally acknowledging the weight of her reckless mistakes.
"It's fine," Claria whispered. "As long as you know what you did—as long as you recognize the harm without ever losing yourself—it's going to be fine."
Trizha leaned away from her mother's shoulder, a single tear tracing a path through her makeup. "Losing myself? What does that mean? And don't you think that's a bit odd? Why would I lose everything if the only thing I'm supposed to lose is myself?"
Claria's smile widened, but it was a sad, cautionary expression. She patted Trizha's head one last time before cupping her cheek.
"Because, Trizha, your 'self' is… your everything," Claria explained, her voice grave. "That sense of who you are is the glue that holds your world together. The moment you lose that—the moment you become a character instead of a person—will be the very moment you lose everything else. Your friends, your joy, your life."
Claria pulled her back into a hug, her voice turning stern but loving.
"So, until you regain your sanity and stop these distractions… you will never leave that route you chose to walk into."
Trizha stood by the fountain in the present, the memory of her mother's warning ringing in her ears like a death knell.
"...because the ROUTES you take will define the decisions you make. Decisions that will… redefined… and consequence how you live your life best."
She had ignored the advice.
She had lost herself.
And now, she was waiting to see if "everything else" was truly gone.