Aria completed the last letter. And then she blankly sat on her bed, looking at the walls.

There were still too many questions left. Too many questions.

The whole thing about her grandfather, about the lies, about how the chest contained both sets of letter. But most importantly, was her grandmother being truthful?? If so, then how exactly had Taehyung died?

Aria closed her eyes as she understood the significance of what had been written in the painting her Grandmother had made.

"It is my belief that has turned into flames, which engulf me in the burning pain of a truth that is fractured. Even as it melts my existence, the anguish it brings satisfies my heart of the past that took place. Without it, I am nothing."

A knock sounded at her door as So-ra poked her head in, "Aria? Come have dinner."

"No." she crisply said as she got up from the bed, going towards her suitcase, unzipping it.

So-ra was taken aback at the rude tone, "Aria?"

Not bothering to look at her, Aria searched her luggage for the third letter her Grandfather had given her, "Tell me something, does the name Taehyung mean something to you?"

So-ra jerked back, her eyes becoming round.

Aria found the envelop as she turned around and arched her brow, "Or the fact that I am his grandchild?"

"You-you you were never meant to—"

"Leave." Aria said, a break in her voice, "leave, please. Let me read what he had to say."

Not bothering with her, she sat down on the bed as she tore open the third envelop, wanting to know what her grandfather had to say.

So-ra however, sense the edge of the emotional cliff Aria was balanced on. She quietly closed the door, but remained inside the room, sitting down beside her on the bed. Her silent support a huge pillar for Aria.

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Aria.

By now, you know the real truth. In this letter, I have a lot of apologies to make, but I know they will not be enough. It wont be enough because I know what I have done is a sin that can never be forgiven by anyone.

But I need you to hear my side of the story. Hear it till the last because if the only one thing I did right in this life, the only one good thing I did on my own violation, was to love your Grandmother.

I did not lie to you about me loving her since my childhood. I saw her everyday, Every. Day. We were of the same age, but still, she never looked at me. She only ever saw Taehyung.

Since the childhood, Taehyung was possessive of her attention, wanting it for himself when he was close. Anya knew that fact, which was why she never bothered to return the friendship I extended to her. Once, when we were 14, she told me that her Tae would be slightly bothered by it and she had no wish to be the cause of even a scratching discomfort he could experience. To her, he was all she needed. He, was her world.

I envied him, and with passing years, I hated him. It became corrosive because I would see her beautiful smile everyday, and I would see that beautiful smile light up more ethereally when Taehyung showed up.

The reason why I saw her everyday was because we were neighbors. The house beside this Manor, the one you grew in, was Anya's house.

And yes.

Taehyung, was my older brother.

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Aria's hands shook, "But, he never told me about him." Her voice was hollow, "I never heard his name once."

So-ra rubbed her back, "He never did. To anyone."

"But—" aria looked at the older woman, "But it means he lost his family too?"

The older woman's gaze remained flinty at that, she indicated for her to continue the letter.

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Two days after Anya had politely refused me, my offer of friendship, I heard Taehyung talk to my father about loving her. Wanting her hand in marriage. Of becoming better at his business to take care of her. My own parents rejoiced at the confession, never even understanding about my love. All they saw, was their eldest son.

I had never been close to my older brother. Anya was born a month before me, Taehyung had been captivated by her when he was 5, having more interest in her than his own brother. Any spare time he had, he would be with her, any spare time he had in the house, he would be closeted away in his room.

My jealousy and rage started building up to a height that it blinded me. I was a poor poor man in terms of love. I wanted, desired the love that was not mine to begin with, and lost myself in that bitterness of not gaining the thing I wanted.

With each glimpse of her, I fell more deeper for her, with each glance at my brother, my hatred raged hotter than molten lava.

I wanted that bond with her, I wanted her to embrace me, I wanted that joyous laughter. But all of it was reserved just for my brother.

Jealousy is a corrosive emotion, I understand it now. It erodes away any sense, any good that makes you the person you are, to form a rusted, twisted soul. It shapes you with the constant pain, with its constant inferiority into the negative image of the individual you had been. It batters at you, making you blind to the other joys you have, isolating you from the good in your life to only want the thing that is not yours. It causes you to become insecure, to feel insignificant which in reality is just a disillusioned veil.

It looks mild to begin with, but its true form is far more vicious. It is a quicksand, which slowly drowns a person in its evil stench.

Jealousy, is a malady, that changes human in their core.

And I, had been deeply afflicted by it.

I started poisoning my older brother.

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"No. no, please." Aria let out a sob. "Please." She looked up at So-ra, who had been reading the letter with her, her brows drawn, her lips thinned out.

Aria realized she had suspected it.

"I don't want to continue." She whispered.

It was true that she felt greatly moved by her Grandmother's and Taehyung's story, but her grandfather was the only family who had brought her up. He had stayed up countless nights to soothe her when she was a baby, educated her, attended fairs with her, read her books, had tea parties with her imaginary friends, taught her to swim, drive, fight. Had played with her, had taken care of her. Had been her mother, her father, at times, her brother.

Her grandfather had loved her, had gifted her with a childhood most children dreamed about, filled with love and hopes.

He had been the one that made her to be the person she was, it had been his life teachings that she blossomed in.

She did not know if she had it in her to destroy that image of him in her life.

She could not forgive him of this sin.

"The past is what shapes a man to be who he is. If you only ever see his present, disregarding his past, then you can never claim to love them" So-ra somberly said, "Because to love someone, you need to know them and leaving out a chunk of their history to be buried and ignored will only let you see half a picture."

"I know him." Aria's voice was shaky. It sounded false to her own ears.

So-ra tapped the letter, "You don't." then she took a pink letter from the bed, bringing it beside her grandfather's letter, "Let me see if I know you or not" she murmured.

"Placed beside each other, which history do you think needs to be heard? Which past do you think you should sympathize with?" whispering, she gently asked, "Which pain to you, will be greater than the love you hold?"

"The length in the fabric of life allows us to cover parts of it in folds, hiding our past. I need you to know what happened"

Aria bitterly understood what her grandfather had been saying with his dying breath. He needed her to know. To him, that would be his punishment, that would be his atonement.

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At first, I dosed his meals in small quantity, which gave him a constant headache. I thought if he kept suffering from debilitating amount of headache, he would put of the wedding thinking he was dying and refusing to saddle himself to her.

But Taehyung was not a martyr. He pursued extreme consultations to understand the cause, when the physicians could not help, he figured out something to restrict his meals. He used to eat out, at a place no one knew. That route failed.

Instead of the failure showing me the insanity I was pledged to, instead of making me realized just how far low I had sunk in, it spurred me higher.

I couldn't give up. The idea, the hope of her belonging to me had been planted in my head, and I wanted it to become true with a zeal which made me a maniac. A human without any morals or judgment.

It made me a Monster.

I hatched a plan carefully, pushing a job to be required for Taehyung to go personally to solve. During that time, our basement was being closed off, the space was being filled completely to stabilize the structure of the house, but I requested a square potion in a mimicry of a small room to be left in the plan, the door to it hidden behind the wall with a panel.

All worked accordingly. As the day approached, I had been waiting for the morning to come. Our parents had decided to spend the night in the town next to ours along with Anya's father, something about the wedding.

That morning at the breakfast, I asked my brother to follow me. I wanted to show him the room.

He came without any complaints.

I still remember, my hands had been trembling as he had stepped inside, checking the corners, until he caught sight of 2 pages of sheet and a pen on the floor that I had left.

When he had leaned over to check it, with tremors of excitement still making my hand shake, I had hit him on his head hard with a piece of wooden block.

I remember the dazed expression, the betrayal and confusion in his eyes as he had sagged down, his injury bleeding heavily.

I had then let loose all of my resentment right then. My pungency of envy came bubbling out of my mouth as I screamed at him of all the times I had suffered with my ache, with my torment over the unrequited love I carried for Anya.

Taehyung had been stunned. My poor brother, really had no idea of the evil that had corrupted me, that still had me in its grip as I was intent in carrying out a plan which was just halfway done.

But when I had taunted him with writing his Last Letter to her as he died in the room, he had surged to his feet.

Even in the face of such a horrifying treachery from his own blood brother, a deception which would cause any normal human to shatter, Taehyung held strong.

Because for him, his little fairy was his world. I held no significance in comparison.

He had rushed at me, trying to get away, but I had the advantage. He was still disoriented at my blow. It would have been easy enough to place another that could kill him.

But I could not do so.

Even with the evil so strong in me, something in me did not want to be the direct cause of his death. Just like the minions of the foul vile wickedness, I was a coward.

I pushed him with enough strength to make him fall and backed out of the room to close the iron door before he could stand. I locked it with the key I had.

While my brother desperately screamed at me and banged at the door to be let out, to go to his fairy, I sealed the wall over the door.

Then I left.

I left him to die.

With enough money, it was easy enough to bribe the law and witnesses, who concocted a different story for the world to know, and also arranged for a body with the same physique of my brother, which was unrecognizable.

I let the news spread, I let world know. I saw Anya break for the loss of her Taehyung, who was still alive in the house till then.

But my parents had started to suspect the story, probing into it. my brother's fear of height was something I had forgotten.

Once I had dipped in the pond of evil, it spread through me faster than an ink blot. I was blind to everything except my end goal. I wanted Anya, and nobody else mattered to me.

I poisoned my parents drink that night.

I reported them as a heart attack, swiftly carrying out the funeral, without a smidgen of it weighing on my conscience. All the ungodly acts I carried out, none of it bothered me. None.

I was happy. I was truly happy.

A month later, when I heard of her pregnancy, I proposed. Only she mattered to me, not any offspring she had. She accepted.

The ceremony had been quiet, but my delirious joy was such, that her state of mind did not even register. Taehyung's fairy was now mine. Anya was married to me. She was mine.

She was mine!

The joy catapulted me through the sky, I was soaring so high. I held her delicate frame in my arms as I carried her over the threshold of this house, as my bride.

But she . . . she was dead.

As dead as Taehyung's body in the same house she now resided in. The spark in her, her soul that I loved had . . . gone. She was not the person with whom I had fallen in love with.

In my zeal to get her, I broke her. Irreparably. There was no Anya left. Only a husk of the human whose appearance resembled the girl I loved.

Staying with her, watching her, something in me started cleansing. My conscience slowly started sparking back.

My bride was so delicate, she could shatter in a minute. I was afraid that any minute, I would watch her disappear. Days went by and her condition deteriorated. To such an extent that she was barely holding on. I was watching her die before my eyes.

That ripped me from inside out.

At that moment, if I could turn back time, I would have. I would have given her, her Taehyung, just to watch that smile again. She was dying painfully. And she was killing me along with her.

I did the next best thing. I took her to the room my brother had made just for her, the attic. I gave her all the letters my brother had carefully kept with him, hoping to get something, anything, a small sob, a tear from her.

But she remained as expressionless as the lifeless doll she had become.

She ate for the baby, and breathed the air. her expression never changed. She never grimaced, she never cried, she never even winced. But her agony scaled out of her body, naked for any onlooker to notice.

When 3 days before her delivery, she asked for the attic to be locked, I knew. I knew she would die soon. I had held her throughout those three days, had not let her leave my arms. I felt her warm frail body, each minute, but she. . . she never even noticed. She did not protest. She just. . . did not even feel.

The night of the childbirth, when she went in labour, I stayed beside her.

Even in that painful process, though sweat ran through her hair, her face drenched, though her pain caused her body to convulse, though she made sounds of pain, she did not cry.

But when the midwife congratulated her on the birth of a daughter, Anya let out a wail of pain so shrill, so filled with a bone shattering torment, that all the staff, the doctor including me cried with her.

Cried with her for the daughter Taehyung wanted. Cried with her on getting his wish granted.

Her body gave up then. Her heart could no longer keep beating. I was sobbing hard, holding her, refusing to believe the inevitable, when she spoke to me.

In the eight months she had been my bride, she spoke to me for the first time.

With her dying breath, she asked her daughter to be named Aria. The name Taehyung had wanted their daughter to have.

My Love died in my arms right after.

I resented that child for taking her away, even though I knew I was the one to blame. So I refused to name her the name she wanted me to.

Aria,

I was a changed man by the time you were born. A changed man who had committed many sins. You were the only way I thought I could fulfil my penance. I took you in and promised to raise you in the manner my brother and Anya would have wanted to. I loved you, like you should have been loved by them. I treated you, like the daughter, your mother was to them.

And I thought that would be the only thing I could do to atone. The rest, I would pay after my death, in the books of underworld, where no doubt I would be dragged to. To the fires of hell. I accepted that.

But then, the rumors started reaching me about the haunting in the Manor.

I tried my best to look for her, hoping that the rumours were true, but I could never feel her presence. Still, I believe she is still there. And I need you to help her. if my Love is there, help her.

With this envelop I leave you with the key to the basement room. For the wall, press the 6th brick from the 3rd row counting from below from the north east corner. Taehyung's remains, will still be there.

I am sorry.

I am sorry Aria, I know, I shattered the image of me you had in your mind. I know you will never forgive me, but this too, was part of my atonement.

I was a greedy selfish bastard till the end. I could have let you know this story, but I needed to feel your unconditional love for me. At least something connected to her, that I could cherish and protect. I could not bear to feel your hatred in my life, so I chose to have it associated to my name after my death.

If you can find it in your heart, forgive me.

Your Grandfather.

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