Prologue - Ashes of Yesterday Yesterday doesn't stay buried. It claws its way back-through whispers in the dark, through the scrape of nails against a locked door, through the reflection in the mirror that stares a little too long. You tell yourself it's nothing, just a trick of the mind, but the mind is the cruelest liar of all. They thought memories fade. But some memories don't die-they rot, and the stench of them seeps into everything: into the walls, into the silence, into the dreams that leave you trembling awake at 3 a.m. You don't escape the past. You live inside it. And when love curdles into something unrecognizable, when trust fractures into sharp edges, the ghosts it leaves behind are not the kind that vanish with light. They breathe in your ear, they sit at the edge of your bed, they laugh when you try to pray. Yesterday burned down everything they were. But the ashes are still here. And ashes can whisper.
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