The rain had stopped by the time Ciara reached home, but the world still felt soaked in sorrow. Sleep wouldn't come that night. Her mind was consumed with one thought—Mike was alive, and yet, not the man she had loved.
When dawn broke, she was already dressed, her eyes swollen from crying. She drove back to the station before they even opened, demanding to see him again. Inspector Gabriel hesitated but finally agreed.
"He's calmer now," he said, leading her down the corridor. "But… Mrs. Benson, I must warn you. The man you'll see—he's not quite the same."
Ciara's heart pounded. Not the same. The words echoed in her chest.
When the door opened, Mike was sitting at the same table, staring blankly at the wall. His wrists were cuffed, though he didn't struggle. His hair hung in unkempt strands around his face, and his eyes—those eyes she once adored—looked hollow, like the light inside had died.
The moment she stepped into the room, he turned his head.
"Mike," she said softly, taking a cautious step forward. "It's me."
He didn't respond.
She sat down opposite him. The air between them was heavy, filled with years of silence and the ghosts of everything they used to be.
"Do you remember what I told you?" she asked quietly. "That I'd wait for you? That I'd never stop believing?"
Still nothing. His expression was distant, detached.
Ciara's voice trembled. "Why didn't you come back to me? Why stay out there all these years? I thought you were dead. I lost our child, Mike. I buried our future. And you were out there—what?—hiding from the world?"
He finally looked at her then, and for a fleeting moment, she saw something—pain, maybe regret.
"The world doesn't deserve life," he said at last, his tone eerily calm. "It's too loud. Too greedy. Too artificial. Out there, in the forest, I could breathe again. No screens. No metal. Just silence. Just truth."
Ciara blinked, disbelieving. "Truth? You call that truth?" Her voice cracked. "You left me to face everything alone. You let me think you were gone—dead! I prayed for you every night, Mike. Every single night!"
He lowered his gaze. "You were part of it too," he murmured. "You used the same things that destroy us—phones, cars, machines. You let the noise in."
Something inside her broke. "Are you hearing yourself?" she snapped. "You sound insane! You walked away from your life, from me, for some ridiculous fantasy about purity? You call that living?"
His voice grew colder. "It was the only way to stay alive."
"No," she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You stopped living the moment you walked away."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The ticking clock on the wall was the only sound in the room.
Then, suddenly, Mike's voice softened. "You shouldn't have looked for me, Ciara. The world out there—it changes you. It shows you what people really are. What we've become. I couldn't bring that back to you."
She stared at him, shaking her head. "You think disappearing was noble? You think abandoning your wife, your unborn child, was some kind of sacrifice? You're not a prophet, Mike. You're a coward."
His jaw tightened. "You wouldn't understand."
"I understand pain," she said fiercely. "I understand waiting every night for a ghost to walk through the door. I understand burying our child alone because you weren't there to hold me. You talk about the world being sick, but the sickness was in you."
Mike flinched as if struck. For a long time, he said nothing. Then, in a broken whisper, "I'm sorry about the baby."
She looked at him through her tears. "But not about leaving?"
He didn't answer. His silence was the final truth.
---
When Ciara finally left the station, her body trembled—not from fear, but from release. For the first time, she truly saw him—not the man she loved, but the man he had become.
The police had offered to let her stay while they decided what to do with him, but she couldn't bear another second in that place. She needed air, space, distance.
As she walked to her car, she saw her reflection in the glass window—a pale woman, eyes hollow but burning with something new. Resolve.
For five years, grief had ruled her. For five years, she had been the widow of a living man. But not anymore.
---
That night, she couldn't sleep. The image of Mike's face haunted her—the madness, the emptiness, the strange conviction in his words.
She sat on the edge of her bed, whispering to herself. "The world is sick," she repeated bitterly. "No, Mike. You're the sickness."
For the first time in years, she felt anger sharper than grief. It burned in her chest, cleansing, consuming.
Maybe this was what it meant to move on—not forgetting, but finally facing the truth without breaking.
---
The next morning, Inspector Gabriel called. "Mrs. Benson," he said grimly, "your husband… escaped."
Her blood ran cold. "Escaped? How?"
"We don't know. It happened before dawn. We're searching the area."
Ciara sank onto the couch, gripping the phone tightly. She didn't know whether to cry or laugh.
He was gone again—back to the only world that made sense to him.
But this time, she didn't chase after him.
This time, she didn't beg.
She walked to the mirror, wiped away her tears, and said aloud, "You can keep your forest, Mike Benson. You chose your world. And I'm choosing mine."
---
That evening, she packed a small bag and drove to her mother's house. The road stretched before her like a new beginning—still dark, but open.
As the wind rushed through the open window, she whispered one last goodbye into the fading light.
"For love, I waited. For love, I lost. But for myself… I will live."
Behind her, somewhere beyond the mountains, the forest waited—wild, eternal, and indifferent.
And deep within its shadows, a man named Mike Benson vanished once more, swallowed by the world he believed was pure.