The hotel room still carried the aroma of the coffee Lior had drunk earlier. Papers, books, and the laptop remained scattered across the table—a chaotic order reflecting his friend's restless mind. Arion, still absorbed in thoughts about what Lior had told him, watched the city through the window. The evening bathed Marais in warm, heavy tones, but for him, nothing seemed as alive as the memory of Seraya.
"So…" Lior began, gesturing with the mouse over the laptop screen, "Elric. I think we need to understand who he was. It's no coincidence that he disappeared shortly after Seraya."
Arion leaned forward.
"What did you find out?"
"He was… a prodigy," Lior said, his voice taking on a more serious tone. "He painted, sculpted—this kind of thing, he mastered almost supernaturally. But suddenly, something changed. It wasn't just his career, Arion… it was him. People close to him said he started acting strangely, isolating himself, saying things that made no sense, seeing patterns where there were none. Until he vanished."
Arion ran his hand through his hair, trying to piece things together.
"And you think his change has any connection to Seraya's?"
"I don't know," admitted Lior, "but the parallels are disturbing. Both of them began to change before disappearing, both had extreme sensitivity to art and the emotions they created… and both left traces. Look at this."
He pulled up a file with old photos of Elric. There were portraits of him as a teenager, with an intense smile and eyes full of curiosity. Then, some images from shortly before he disappeared showed a rigid Elric, expression distant, almost erased, as if he were no longer the same person.
"See?" Lior continued. "Something was erased from him. And he didn't disappear by accident; it seems that… before vanishing from people's sight, he first disappeared from within himself."
"And you found records of when he started changing?" Arion asked, trying to organize the avalanche of information.
"Yes," Lior replied, showing a diary of notes, old newspaper clippings, and forum posts. "Four months before disappearing, he began refusing invitations, missing exhibitions, spending hours alone in studios. Some reports say he talked about 'forms that breathe' and 'silent sound'—exactly terms that resemble what Seraya wrote in her notebook."
Arion raised his eyebrows, feeling the connection between the two cases tighten like a knot.
"So it wasn't just my perception in Marais," he whispered. "Seraya, Elric… they didn't just disappear. Something began to manifest, and their art… was a way of recording it."
Lior nodded, thoughtful.
"Exactly. But what does it mean? What kind of phenomenon makes someone change like that, and why only artists?"
"Maybe it's sensitivity," murmured Arion, "or maybe it's something these artists attract without realizing it. But… if that's the case, we need to find the pattern, the signs that lead to it."
The two remained in silence for a few minutes, each absorbing the magnitude of the discovery. Outside the room, the city seemed ordinary, but to them, every light, every shadow carried the tension of what they might encounter.
"Lior…" Arion began hesitantly, "do you think they could still be… out there? Or that they left traces we can follow?"
Lior smiled faintly, but without joy.
"I think so. And if they left traces, we can find them. But it won't be easy. Not everything visible is true. Not everything that disappears… disappears completely."
Arion leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. He thought of Seraya, thought of Elric, and for the first time felt that they were truly on the right path. The mystery wasn't just a series of coincidences; it was something expanding, affecting the perception of art, of people… of the world around them.
"So… our next step," Arion said, determination growing, "is to follow any lead we can find about Elric. Discover where he was when it all started. Understand what happened to him. Maybe… just maybe, it will lead us to Seraya."
Lior nodded, carefully closing the laptop.
"Tomorrow we begin. First step: buy tickets to the place where Elric lived."
Silence fell over the room again, but it wasn't the heavy silence of before. There was anticipation, a sense of purpose. For the first time in months, Arion felt that they were truly moving forward.
And as the night fell over Marais outside, both knew they could no longer turn back. Every clue, every fragment of memory pulled them forward—to the truth and to whatever had swallowed Seraya and Elric.