Five Years Earlier

  England, United Kingdom, Salisas Corp Building

  Still at Sasha's House

  A Few Minutes Later

  Sasha (14 years old) heard the sound of something falling inside her father's office. Startled for a moment, she recomposed herself, wiping away the tears that streamed down her face.

  Determined to discover the source of the noise, she walked to the door and carefully opened it. What she found was the sight of her dog, who had inadvertently knocked down several of her father's work documents.

  Scattering many of them across the floor in front of the desk. She calmly reprimanded the animal, asking him to leave the room to avoid making an even bigger mess.

  As the dog walked away and left the room, she couldn't help but gently pat his head, even though a faint irritation simmered within her because of the chaos he had caused.

  Still, at no point did she allow her frustration to show in either her words or her actions. While taking a deep breath before facing the task of gathering the papers spread across the floor, Sasha realized the extent of the damage.

  One by one, she picked them up and noticed that some had been slightly crumpled. She then placed them neatly on her father's desk, organizing each page with care.

  However, something caught her attention: a recently opened letter written in her mother's handwriting, along with a family photo.

  It captured a happy moment at an amusement park, taken before the tragic accident and her mother's subsequent death. As she looked at the photo, an involuntary smile formed on Sasha's lips.

  Although she had been just a child in the picture, she vividly remembered the moments of that day, recalling with perfect clarity the special feelings they had shared as a family.

  It was on that occasion that her mother had bought her delicious treats—an unprecedented experience that would be forever etched in her memory.

  [Sasha — Whispering, Deeply Happy & Nostalgic] How I miss you... in the midst of all this, Mom... [Deep, affectionate sigh] —

  After organizing the things her dog had knocked over in her father's room, Sasha, driven by curiosity, felt tempted to read the letter she had found alongside the old family photo.

  It showed her as a very young child, her now-deceased mother smiling and laughing like everyone else — including her older brother, Salin, and her father.

  Yet, aware of her father's privacy, she resisted the temptation. However, a single sentence written by her mother to her father caught her attention, pulling her out of her emotional numbness.

  The letter contained heartfelt words from her mother addressed to her father, referring to Sasha's brother, Salin, and to the car accident in which both mother and son, still very young at the time, had nearly lost their lives when the vehicle flipped violently.

  "My love, I don't want you to do what I know you will do to our son in the future. He is only a child, innocent of what happened."

  "In my eyes, he will never be guilty of the accident that led to my current condition or possibly my future death in that hospital bed."

  "All of this, caused by the toy he threw inside the car while playing, leading to the brake malfunction that made me crash and overturn the vehicle... this will never be his responsibility in my eyes. I might blame myself — but never him, not under any circumstance."

  By great luck, Salin was left only with a few scratches, while his mother, in the same accident — in the overturned car, trying to reach for him — had clearly suffered a severe head injury.

  After several months hospitalized, the complications from these injuries eventually took her life, leaving her unable to walk and blind in one eye, which had been bandaged along with most of her head.

  "The love I feel for our son is greater than any truth, even if the truth declares Salin as the only one to blame for all of this."

  "He will need your support, even more than Sasha will, if he should ever remember in any way what led to the accident. And if that happens, he may end up feeling destroyed in the future."

  "This could lead him into an abyss of darkness — something no father or mother would ever wish for their own child to experience. I beg you, my love..."

  With each word she read, Sasha's eyes widened, and her heartbeat quickened under a wave of shock and anxiety that took over her body. She couldn't form a single simple thought in her mind as so many truths unfolded before her.

  "Do not make the mistake of placing upon him a guilt he does not deserve to carry for the rest of his life, if someday I die from the aftermath of these injuries or from any possible surgeries."

  "For while I have been beside you all in life, during these months confined to this bed, I was able to experience the happiest moment of my life — which was seeing our children smile not once, but many times, even as I grew weaker."

  Sasha continued reading the letter, even knowing it was something deeply intimate between her mother and father.

  Her lips began to tremble, tears blurring her vision — some falling onto the paper after pooling at the edge of her mouth.

  At moments, the faint glint of her teeth showed between her quivering lips as she forced herself to continue reading.

  "But I began to notice in these last few weeks, while watching you and your interaction with our son, that gradually you started to change toward him, especially throughout my many surgeries."

  "Surgeries I had no choice but to face, even in such a frail state, so that I could remain alive for a few more years on this bed for the rest of my life. I know our son loves you deeply, and I know your love for him will not diminish because of a truth that places guilt on our little angel."

  As she reached this part, so close to the end of the letter, Sasha felt a tremendous tightness in her chest.

  Her breath trembled, and her tears fell without control as the conflict of emotions turned her fragile heart into a violent ocean with each new sentence.

  "Do not allow the anger and the guilt you will carry to create an unbridgeable distance between you. Take care of our children for me. And do not follow the path that your anger and guilt have been paving — a path that is tearing you away from our children, especially if you persist in blaming our son."

  Even sensing so much pain in her heart, Sasha pushed herself to read until the very end no matter the cost.

  She needed to know the whole truth — the truth only her mother possessed until the day she died, and the same truth her father knew before everything he later did, including the "unusual" separation whose motive now began to come into focus.

  "This distance results in the breaking of the bond that we both nurtured in our beautiful children, a bond that made them care for one another. Do not let the love between our children be dissipated and erased by the distance or the guilt surrounding the accident, and the one the world insists is guilty — who will never be my beloved Salin."

  "Because I love him more than the truth itself, and I refuse to accept it even if the world claims he is indirectly responsible based on the evidence. So, please, my love... do not distance yourself from him, for you are the person I love most and trust with the care of our beautiful little angels. I will continue loving you, even after reaching the stars. Ps: From Your Other Half."

  Upon reading the last sentence of the letter her mother had left for her father, Sasha felt her legs weaken, and gradually she fell to her knees.

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  Crying in a trembling and deeply painful way after absorbing so much information — and especially the truth that made her see every moment she had lived up to that point in the past from an entirely new perspective.

  She remembered the emergency surgery her brother had needed some years earlier, at a time when Sasha and he were becoming close again, trying to rebuild the bond that distance — created by their father's persistent blame on Salin for their mother's death — had fractured.

  A blame he carried without knowing the real cause of the accident, since he could not remember the final minutes before the car crash. Faced with that memory resurfacing before her eyes — her brother being hospitalized.

  With the chances of that high-risk surgery going wrong being far greater than the chances of success, due to its complexity after he had been attacked with a knife by his ex-girlfriend while he was trying to break up with her after realizing he loved another girl — Sasha felt the weight of that entire moment crash over her once again.

  It was during that critical moment that Salin's father finally let go of the guilt he held about the past — the belief that Salin had caused their mother's death — and.

  After an emotional trigger ignited within his heart at the thought of losing his son in the same way he had lost his wife.

  He resolved to change the mistakes he had committed for so many years from that day on. Despite all the guilt he had nurtured for so many years against his own son.

  It became clear that behind that crushing feeling of blame, there still existed an ember of unshakeable love — one that burned and never went out whenever he thought of his son throughout the years.

  And on that day of Salin's surgery, that ember burned fiercely in his heart as the fear of losing someone he truly loved returned to his life, even if he refused to admit it.

  He realized it through the tears that fell down his face in that white hospital corridor, standing only a few meters away from the doors that could very well be the last ones his son would walk through alive.

  That closed door in front of him — the operating room — had a light glowing above it, letting him know that the surgery was still in progress.

  For several consecutive hours he remained there, refusing to leave, waiting for his son to come out alive.

  All the while, his heart pounded violently in his chest, fueled by anger at himself for what he had caused — for the guilt that had blinded him against his own son.

  Who had been so young and innocent at the time, unaware of the consequences of his actions.

  Back to the Present

  Still in That Same Room

  She watched Sasha, now fourteen, lower her head as tears trickled from her eyes to the floor, falling less and less each time.

  She understood that, throughout all this time in which Salin never knew why he had been raised since childhood by his aunt — his mother's sister — after his mother passed away in that hospital room, the truth had been hidden from them.

  [Sasha — Trembling & Incredulous Whisper] My God, this has to be a joke... Our father and... Our mother kept this secret from both of us. [Trembling sigh] —

  As she grew and matured over the years, she tried to understand and searched for answers behind the strange behavior their father held toward him.

  To Salin, up until now and unaware of the truth, he believed it must have been something he had done to his father, something he could not understand.

  He spent long years asking his aunt why his father acted so distant and, at the same time, prevented him from seeing Sasha for so many years — until Sasha.

  Driven by anger and independence, insisted on going to speak with Salin, even though her father didn't want her to and tried to stop her.

  [Sasha — Trembling Whisper In Denial] I would never... I would never dare to blame my brother, never hate him... [Trembling sigh] —

  [Sasha — Trembling Whisper In Denial] I wouldn't even consider imagining the idea of hating someone I love so much, someone who unintentionally took the most incredible woman in my world from me, I... [Angry sigh of denial] —

  Sasha feels a faint spark of anger burning subtly inside her heart — but it is not directed at her mother or her father.

  It is directed at her brother, and immediately she bares her teeth at that anger now turning against her own emotions, emotions that are gradually shaping her into someone like her father had been for so many years.

  [Sasha — Angry Whisper In Denial] I refuse to feel anger toward you, Salin... I refuse to let my love turn into anger against the one who, now that we are reunited again, takes care of me as if I were still his little sister, even though I'm already so much older... [Trembling sigh, happy & tearful] —

  As Sasha remembers that her father, now in the present aware of the truth and accepting her the way he should have in the past — after her mother, in the hospital.

  Revealed everything to him first and only to him — wishes now only to reach his son. Slowly and painfully, he tries to rebuild the connection with Salin that he himself shattered into pieces out of guilt.

  [Sasha — Trembling Whisper In Denial] I would never turn against... my only brother, I... [Trembling sigh] —

  Now Sasha, knowing the truth, realizes she has always been at the center of this entire web — an essential piece who now holds the knowledge of the secret that only her father knew.

  And her mother, who carried it with her to the stars after she passed. An ocean of conflicting emotions surges inside her in a frighteningly overwhelming way.

  [Sasha — Trembling Whisper In Denial] I will never allow myself to stand against my brother!! I will never let my heart admit that he is to blame for any of this... [Trembling sigh] —

  Sasha feels her heart pounding violently as her love for her brother burns intensely, while her mind tries to twist that feeling into anger through the imagined possibilities of a different future — one where the act Salin committed, the act that led to the accident, never happened, and where their mother was still alive.

  [Melancholic Voice Of Salin From The Past] I wish I could remember what happened for that accident with me and our mother to occur, I... [Deep, thoughtful & fearful sigh] —

  After remembering that sentence from Salin in the past, Sasha, in the present, screams in anguish and pain, clutching her heart even tighter, for she understands that Salin.

  Even without knowing the truth Sasha has now uncovered after reading the letter their mother wrote to their father — was already suffering.

  [Melancholic Voice Of Adolescent Salin From The Past] I feel, deep inside my heart, a sense of guilt bothering me. I'm scared of this feeling, sis... [Deep, thoughtful & fearful sigh] —

  Sasha feels an overwhelming fear at the thought that Salin, in the present, might one day remember everything from before the accident.

  To Sasha, it becomes clear that Salin's mind must have blocked those memories after the intense trauma caused by the accident he unintentionally triggered, even though he was so young and innocent.

  [Melancholic Voice Of Adolescent Salin From The Past] This feeling seems like it's going to consume me from the inside more and more. —

  [Melancholic Voice Of Adolescent Salin From The Past] For some reason I don't understand, it only brings me pain whenever I try to remember what happened that day before the accident. [Deep, thoughtful & fearful sigh] —

  The continuation of Salin's words echo from the past through Sasha's mind amid the total silence of the office.

  While she strikes her fists against the floor, releasing the anger, anguish, and pain overflowing inside her heart.

  She tries to erase every trace of the emotion that threatens to make her see her brother as the villain of this whole story.

  The same way their father unintentionally did, blinded for years by guilt after the death of their mother.

  [Sasha — Trembling Whisper In Denial] Please, mom! Help me get rid of this feeling that's starting to cloud my vision of the person I love most in this world right now — my little brother... [Angry & painful breathing] —

  This very same feeling that tries to consume Sasha in the present — now that she holds the truth in her hands.

  Was the feeling that gradually pushed their father away from Salin in the past, making him believe Salin was to blame.

  His love for his son diminished under the weight of the truth — a truth that could never be admitted without harming the unconditional love that they both.

  Even now, feel for Salin, regardless of his unintentional guilt in the tragedy that caused their mother's death.

  [Sasha — Trembling Whisper In Denial] I will not allow these feelings... this anger, this hatred, to control me the way they controlled our father in the past, I... [Angry & determined breath] —

  Amid that painful and chaotic moment, Sasha presses one hand against her chest, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart.

  Her mind fills with memories — moments shared with Salin from childhood to the recent journey where, after years apart, she was finally able to reconnect with him, laugh with him again, find joy with him again.

  [Sasha — Angry & Determined Voice] ...I WILL NEVER ACCEPT THESE FEELINGS INSIDE MY HEART!!! —

  As Sasha also remembers one of the most beautiful moments she recently shared with her brother.

  She recalls when the two of them watched together a rare celestial event that could be seen near a mountain in the city where Salin currently lives and attends school.

  This very moment became one of the most important ones after their long-awaited reunion following so many years apart.

  During that celestial event, Salin made it clear that what had kept him standing through all the pain he endured over the years was the love he held for their mother.

  And especially the promise she had made him swear: never to stop loving his little sister.

  [Salin And Sasha's Mother — Happy Voice From The Past] ...You two, no fighting. Siblings who love each other must never feel anger toward one another; they must always be best friends, never enemies! [A joyful, lighthearted laugh] —

  This part of the promise now gains a new meaning for Sasha after discovering the truth about the accident and what caused it.

  She now realizes that their mother knew their father might blame him and pull away. Yet this understanding does not make her give up on him, despite his lack of good judgment.

  [Salin And Sasha's Mother — Happy Voice From The Past] ...Mommy will become a little star and will be up there watching over each of you... [Subtle, tired breath] —

  [Salin And Sasha's Mother — Happy Voice From The Past] I want you both to promise me that you will take care of each other and, together, take care of your stubborn father in Mommy's name, until he becomes a little star too — old and wise like a white-bearded Santa Claus. [A trembling, cheerful sigh] —

  In the present, with trembling lips, Sasha releases a scream of anger mixed with an intense ache in her heart, all those emotions merging into a heavy burden brought by the truth about the past.

  [Echoing Voices Of Sasha & Salin (Children) From The Past] We promise, Mommy! We'll take care of Daddy, and of you too, when you get out of bed and can play with us! [Happy, excited laughter] —

  The perspective shifts, pulling back toward the office window. The world seems to slow and quiet as the focus remains on Sasha, who clutches her chest and cries with her head lowered.

  Amid this extreme agony, she remembers her brother's words during their mother's funeral, when they were still children.

  [Salin's Voice (16 Years Old) From The Past] Mommy became a "little star" on this very day, years ago. I don't know why she never told me what caused the accident that day, sis... —

  In the present, after reliving this moment, Sasha lifts her head and screams upwards, expressing her anger and pain.

  Tears run down her face, marked by fear and by the weight of the truth — a truth she refuses to accept as her brother's fault, even though the facts point to him as the sole responsible one, despite how young he was during the accident.

  [Salin's Voice (16 Years Old) From The Past] Was it me who made her become a "little star," sis? I feel like I'm guilty, even though I don't remember what happened before the accident — only the overturned car afterward... —

  [Sasha's Voice (14 Years Old) From The Past] ...You can't be guilty for that. Don't torture yourself over something impossible. The car flipped because of a wrong overtake from the vehicle ahead, which made Mommy crash. There's no way you could be responsible for that, brother... —