Clara's breath caught in her throat as the coldness in the man beside her became impossible to ignore. His eyes were locked on hers with an intensity she had never seen before—like a predator cornering its prey.
"Clara," he said softly, but there was no warmth in his voice now. The name fell from his lips like a threat, laced with something dark. "You think he's real, don't you? You think there's someone out there... waiting for you."
Clara's heart pounded in her chest. Something was terribly wrong. He wasn't the David she had once known. His face had shifted, the familiar lines now twisted with something sinister. Before she could react, his hand shot out, grabbing her wrist with a vise-like grip. Her body froze as he yanked her toward him, his breath hot against her ear.
"You should've never opened that door, Clara," he murmured, his words like ice. "Now, it's too late."
Before she could even process his words, a sharp, searing pain exploded across the back of her head. The world spun violently as something heavy—something like a metal pipe—struck her with such force that her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor. Her vision blurred, and the room seemed to tilt and sway as the edges of the world began to darken.
But even as the darkness closed in, Clara caught a glimpse of something—someone—moving outside the window. The figure on the street corner, the one she had been watching for so long, shifted. It wasn't just standing there anymore. The man, the one she had thought was David, was suddenly in motion, walking toward her building, his footsteps slow but deliberate, as though he knew exactly what was happening inside.
She didn't know if it was a hallucination or a final, fleeting hope before the darkness took her completely, but for that brief moment, Clara thought she saw the real David's eyes—the warmth, the recognition—just before the weight of unconsciousness dragged her down, and everything went black.
