Elara gazed at Lisa through the glass, feeling a wave of helplessness and despair. The girl remained absorbed in her own world, oblivious to the danger surrounding her, protected and imprisoned at the same time within that unbreakable glass house. Silas, with his menacing presence, loomed over her, claiming possession of his new "perfect piece."
"Why are you doing this, Silas?" Elara asked, trying to remain calm, searching for a chink in the killer's armor of madness, a way to reach something remotely human inside. "Why are you harming these little girls?"
Silas turned toward her slowly, reluctantly looking away from Lisa. His empty eyes rested on Elara, devoid of emotion, as if viewing her through a thick fog. "I don't harm them," he replied in a barely audible whisper. "I... perfect them. I make them... mine. Forever."
"But you break them, Silas. You mutilate them, you lock them away in this hell," Elara insisted, gesturing at the doll garden that spread out around them. "How can you call that perfection?"
Silas tilted his head, confused, as if he didn't understand the question. "They are... incomplete at first. Full of... imperfections. Of pain, of fear, of... life." He spoke the last word with a tone of revulsion, as if "life" itself were the true imperfection. "I free them from that. I cleanse them. I make them... pure. Like glass." He gestured to the transparent house with an almost religious reverence. "Here, in my glass house, they are perfect. Untouchable. Forever."
Elara shuddered at Silas's twisted and sick logic. His concept of "perfection" was the absolute denial of life, the reduction of girls to inanimate objects, glass dolls frozen in time, stripped of their individuality, their humanity, everything that made them... alive.
"But Lisa isn't a doll, Silas," Elara said, moving closer to the glass, trying to establish a visual connection with the child inside. "She's a real person. She has a family who loves her, a life to live. You can't lock her in here, you can't... break her."
Silas was silent for a long moment, staring at Lisa through the glass with a rapt, possessive gaze. Then he turned back to Elara, and this time, in his empty eyes, Elara thought she glimpsed a hint of… doubt? Inner conflict?
"She's… different," Silas murmured, as if speaking to himself, "She's… strong. Stronger than the others. She resists… my garden. My… influence." He seemed frustrated, almost resentful at Lisa's resistance. "That's why… the glass house. To protect her… from the… corruption of the garden. To keep her… pure… until she's ready."
"Ready for what, Silas?" Elara pressed, taking advantage of the hesitation she thought she detected in the assassin. "Ready to become another broken doll in your garden? Is that what you want for her?"
Silas fell silent again, lost in his own dark thoughts. Then he reached out a misshapen hand toward the glass house and placed it on a transparent panel, right where Lisa's hand rested in her own lap, on the other side of the glass. It was a strange gesture, almost… tender. But the tenderness, in Silas Thorne's mind, was even more disturbing than its cruelty.
"She... can choose," Silas said finally, his voice barely a whisper. "She can choose... to stay in the glass house. To be... perfect. Forever. Or... she can choose... to join the garden. To be... free... like the others." His blank gaze lifted to Elara's, and for the first time, he seemed to search her face for something—an answer, a confirmation, an approval. "What do you say, intruder? What will Lisa choose? The perfection of glass... or the broken freedom of the garden?"
Elara stared into his eyes, trying to decipher the enigma of his tortured mind. Was he really offering Lisa a choice? Or was it just another mental trap, another twisted way of exerting his control? And, most importantly, how could she use this apparent "choice" to save Lisa and escape this mental labyrinth before it was too late? The crystal pact was made. Now, all that remained was to discover its true conditions.
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