Elysium: Desired by the Cold-hearted Princess [GL]-Chapter 373: The Empty Room

Seraphina’s POV

I don’t know how long I stayed sitting there on the floor outside Yuna’s room before I finally forced myself to move.

Time felt strange, stretched and warped, like it didn’t want to pass properly. My legs were numb when I stood up, my hands shaking as I brushed them against my pants, even though there was nothing to wipe off. My chest still felt tight, like something heavy was pressing down on it, making it hard to breathe properly.

Get it together, I told myself. Just look. That’s all you have to do.

I didn’t owe Ashleigh my automatic belief. I didn’t owe her panic or tears or fear. Despite the fact that I got no response from Yuna’s bedroom, Ashleigh could still be lying. She seemed like the kind of person that would enjoy lying. She liked watching people squirm and liked dropping little bombs and walking away like she hadn’t done anything wrong. I wasn’t going to let her win without concrete proof.

So I walked back towards the room, trying to push aside my fear. The hallway felt a lot quieter, almost like in the time I spent crying my eyes out and panicking, most people had already gone for class or were hiding in their rooms, and the silence only made my thoughts louder. My heartbeat filled my ears, fast and uneven, and I had to keep clenching and unclenching my fingers just to remind myself that I was still here and still breathing.

I stopped in front of Yuna and Yura’s door.

’This is fine,’ I told myself again. ’This is nothing.’

I raised my hand and knocked, softer this time. "Yuna?" I called, my voice barely above a whisper. "Yura?"

Again, there was no answer.

I waited a few seconds, then knocked again, a little louder. "It’s me," I said. "Can you open the door?"

Still nothing. My throat tightened, but I forced myself to breathe in slowly through my nose and out through my mouth, like I had been taught a long time ago. I couldn’t jump to conclusions yet. There were still explanations that didn’t involve death. Maybe they had both gone out early, maybe Yuna had dragged Yura to breakfast or class, or maybe Yura was still asleep and Yuna had gone ahead.

Yura was a deep sleeper. I knew that much, even if I didn’t know her well. She could sleep through alarms, arguments, and probably explosions if she had to. It wasn’t impossible that she hadn’t heard me knocking.

That thought became my anchor.

"Okay," I murmured, mostly to myself. "Okay."

I reached for the door handle. My hand hesitated just before touching it, and for a second, fear spiked so hard it made me dizzy. I almost pulled away, almost turned around, and decided I didn’t need to know after all, but I did.

I wrapped my fingers around the handle and took a deep breath.

Then I turned it, and the door opened, just like that with no resistance.

My heart dropped so fast it felt like it slammed into my stomach. Slowly, I pushed the door open wider, my movements careful, like I was afraid the room might collapse if I entered too quickly.

The room was empty, not just empty in the sense that no one was there at the moment. Empty in a way that felt deliberate and completely wrong.

The beds were neatly made, the sheets smooth and untouched. No clothes were thrown over chairs, no bags half-packed on the floor, and no signs of a rushed morning or a forgotten item. The desks were clear, the shelves bare except for a thin layer of dust that hadn’t been disturbed in a long time.

Weeks.

It looked like no one had lived there in weeks.

My vision blurred instantly, tears filling my eyes before I could stop them. I took a step inside, then another, my legs moving on their own while my brain struggled to keep up.

"No," I whispered. "No, no, no..."

I walked further in, my hands hovering uselessly at my sides. I looked at Yuna’s side of the room first without meaning to, my eyes searching for something familiar. Her jacket, her bag, and her stupid notebook she never went anywhere without.

There was nothing. It was like she had been erased.

A sob ripped out of my chest, loud and ugly, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe right anymore. My chest heaved as tears spilled down my face, hot and unstoppable. I pressed a hand to my mouth, but it didn’t help, and the sound still came out, broken and raw.

This couldn’t be real.

I stumbled over to the nearest bed and sank down onto it, my legs giving out completely. The mattress felt cold and unused, and that alone made me break harder. My shoulders shook as I cried, my body folding in on itself like it was trying to disappear.

"She can’t be gone," I choked. "She can’t be..."

The words wouldn’t finish themselves. My mind replayed Yuna’s face over and over, her sharp tongue, her stubborn glare, the way she used to stand too close when she was angry. We weren’t friends anymore. We hadn’t been for a while, but that didn’t mean I had stopped caring, and it didn’t mean I wanted this.

The guilt hit next, heavy, and it made me feel even worse than I already felt. I curled forward, clutching my shirt like it could hold me together. My sobs grew louder, tearing out of me without restraint. I didn’t care if anyone heard. I didn’t care if people whispered or stared or judged.

I cried like something inside me had finally snapped.

"I’m sorry," I whispered into the empty room. "I’m so sorry."

The room didn’t answer. It just sat there, silent and empty, a frozen reminder of everything I had lost without even knowing it. I stayed there for a long time, crying until my throat burned and my head ached even worse than before, and somewhere deep down, just under the shock and the grief, a terrible thought settled in and refused to leave.

If Yuna was really dead...

Then I was alive in her place, and I really didn’t know how I was supposed to live with that. I couldn’t live with that.