Chapter 92

With Miss Kai’s departure, the atmosphere in the private clinic shifted from a heavy grief to a sharp, clinical urgency. Adeline had summoned her mentor, Professor Vane, a man whose reputation in neuropsychiatry was as formidable as his silence. He arrived within the hour, his presence announced by the rhythmic tap of his cane against polished marble, a sound that echoed through the sterile corridor like a metronome counting down an unseen verdict.

He stood before the observation window of Williams’s suite, his gaze severe and analytical.

Inside, the room was a void of absolute white. Williams lay on the bed like a statue carved from marble, draped in silk. Her dark hair spilled across her shoulders, an ink blot against the snowy pillows. She stared toward the window, her gaze following the microscopic drift of dust motes caught in the sunbeams.

She did not move. She did not blink. But she was breathing.

“What phase is she in?” the professor finally asked, his voice low.

“Mutism,” Adeline replied, joining him at the glass. “I would say she is adrift between two shores. But Professor, there is something abnormal about her behavior during the crisis that forces me to reconsider her entire prognosis.”

“What is that?”

She gestured toward a private consulting room. Once the door clicked shut, the silence of the clinic felt even more profound.

“When she was shot, she retreated to her villa,” Adeline began, pacing the small room. “She isolated herself completely. That aligns with her personality structure: control, autonomy, and a total refusal of vulnerability.”

The professor sat, listening with practiced attention.

“But during that same period,” Adeline continued, “while she held Esther Dara hostage, she allowed Evelyn Hazel to care for her. In other words, to touch her. And that is entirely inconsistent with her defensive profile.”

Adeline was aware of every detail of the villa siege, reconstructed from the accounts of the henchmen who had stood guard outside.

“What’s your argument?” the professor pressed.

“Dr. Williams has spent a decade treating human bodies as mere machines to be serviced. She has a documented elective tactile defensive response. Why break it for a captive?”

The professor was intrigued to learn that Williams had managed her own gunshot wound. Even if this was with Esther’s forced assistance, he could not overlook the fact that the doctor, being the only qualified trauma specialist at that moment, had to deal with an inexperienced young woman whose identity she supposedly didn’t know. To him, Dr. Williams’s ability to compartmentalize her pain was astonishing—being her own doctor while simultaneously being the patient. He looked at Adeline with measured kindness, keeping his own thoughts to himself so as not to disrupt her psychiatric investigation.

Adeline rushed to a desk and pulled a document from a file. While she searched, she continued, “Upon the arrival of the police, I spoke with her before she was escorted here. I asked her why she had done it, and she replied, ‘Evelyn Hazel doesn’t belong to me.’ She didn’t say Esther. Why revert to the false name when she already knew Hazel was actually Esther Dara?”

The professor poured a glass of water, the liquid crystal clear in the light. “Are you suspecting a failure in her dissociative wall?”

“I don’t know anymore. I’m lost,” Adeline trailed off, pressing a finger to her forehead. She finally opened the document detailing Williams’s clinical status. “Based on Miss Rogers’s original programming, Williams should now be suffering from classic Dissociative Identity Disorder, DID. That means she has two distinct alters with separate consciousnesses. One is the cold doctor, the other the original Williams locked deep within a forgotten section of her brain. But that framework no longer holds.”

“Why not?”

“Because DID requires dissociative amnesia between identities. Dr. Niran Williams is the constructed executive identity, a trauma adapted persona built to suppress affection and attachment, she is capable of doing anything to protect her reputation, but she is not violent. And the original Williams, however, is the adolescent self. Emotional. Attached. Capable of both love and rage. She is the one capable of extreme violence.”

Adeline showed him a report. “In this case of dissociation, neither is supposed to be aware of the other. But when she said, ‘Evelyn Hazel doesn’t belong to me,’ that wasn’t confusion. It was boundary recognition. The Doctor recognized that Hazel belonged to a part of her soul she could not fully access. Or perhaps she knew exactly what she was doing.”

“You mean she knew Evelyn Hazel belonged to her original self as Esther Dara?” the professor asked, astonished.

“Yes.” She stood, pacing slowly. “This is not classic DID. This is a fragmented self-state system, trauma-induced compartmentalization with partial co consciousness.”

The professor’s eyes sharpened. “But if she was conscious of the other alters, you are contradicting yourself. Williams disfigured Esther Dara. She acted with brutal violence and shot people. This supports the idea that the original Williams was resurfacing in a state of psychosis.”

“Then the real Williams would never have called her Evelyn. It wasn’t the original Williams I saw at the arrest. I am certain I was still talking to the Doctor.”

The professor shook his head in disbelief. “That is crazy. When I am listening to you, I have the impression you believe Dr. Williams was disappointed because she discovered Evelyn was not hers.” He gave a short, dry laugh. “Or are you suggesting the two identities were battling within the same mind for the same woman? The Doctor loves Evelyn, and the original loves Esther? Adeline, come on. Let us return to the original hypothesis.”

But Adeline remained quiet, staring intently at the half-filled glass of water. After a moment, the professor realized how focused her gaze was.

“Are you serious?” he asked.

“Yes. That is what I believe.”

“Adeline, that is impossible. I know such cases exist, but they are exceedingly rare. In this case, everything happened as we feared. Makizal revealed Esther’s identity, Dr. Williams snapped, the original identity resurfaced, and chaos ensued. Perhaps in that moment of panic, you misunderstood her. She was in shock, and I, too, still have difficulty processing their miraculous reunion.”

“Professor…”

“No. Let me ask you. If your hypothesis is right, how do you explain Dr. Niran Williams having feelings for Evelyn when she was designed to be void of emotion? And why would the Doctor act so violently when she is the non-violent of both alters? It makes more sense that her violence resulted from her reverting to the original Williams. Esther is the woman who humiliated and betrayed her. She would have killed Esther if the police had not arrived. So if your bright mind insist it was the Doctor you saw, then no one would have been hurt.”

The professor’s words sounded final, but Adeline was not ready to surrender.

“Listen to me, please,” Adeline urged, leaning forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I have an intuition that Esther was not hurt because the original Williams resurfaced. It was the Doctor who hurt her. Perhaps because she was disappointed to have lost a battle against herself. But something is off.”

Adeline walked toward a large human brain illustration on the wall and placed her fingers on it. “I am sure the Doctor uncovered that inner alter,” she whispered.

“Very well. Let us follow that path for a moment,” the professor said, standing. “First, did you study Miss Rogers’s methods?”

“I did,” Adeline replied. “Williams was isolated in a white room and left to herself to observe her reactions. That was when she began her scribbles.” She rushed toward her desk and handed him some photos. “She showed signs of extreme violence, which is why she initially got isolated. A few days later, Roger will have an idea and will come up with phase two. Testing her level of consciousness with a megaphone.”

“A megaphone?”

“A microphone and an internal speaker. Every day, she tried to communicate, but Williams remained silent. That is when she finally introduced her unconventional method by placing a mirror in the room. At first, Williams kept breaking it every time it was placed before her. But Miss Rogers did not give up. She replaced the mirror and recited mantras: ‘Niran Williams will never be anything if she doesn’t become it herself.’ ‘If Niran Williams wishes it, the world will be as she wants it to be.’ ‘Look at yourself.'”

Adeline continued, “Eventually, Williams began to look at her reflection and murmur the mantras. She created her own phrases, like her famous media quote, ‘Once again, Dr. Niran Williams will give you good news.’ Miss Rogers’s recitations became her internal voice. It brought her back to order every time she looked in a mirror.”

“Good. Then how did Dr. Williams succumb to Evelyn Hazel, if she was so well fortified?” the professor asked, crossing his arms.

“What if it wasn’t love, but obsession?” Adeline said. “A control-driven fixation.”

“Go on.”

“According to Rogers’s method, memories were supposed to return progressively. But what if Dr. Niran Williams unlocked a fragment of the original memory, the memory of submission through love? If she loved Evelyn, she would be romantic. But if she were obsessed with control, she would search her brain for every possible way to tame her prey. In that rush, she accidentally awakened the passionate desires of the true Williams.”

“So, you are suggesting she held Evelyn captive not just because of the embryo, but because of an ego-driven need to dominate her? How does that make sense?”

“Maybe Evelyn was not giving her the submission she desired. To force that surrender, she searched her own mind for a weapon and opened a door she was not supposed to touch.” Adeline argued. “Dr. Williams has been having flashes for a long time. I believe she knew of the other identity’s existence. She managed to tame a part of the true Williams, but one part remained impossible to conquer, the part that belonged to her emotions, including Esther Dara. Trauma survivors who repress attachment often convert intimacy into dominance. What appears as desire is often an attempt to master vulnerability.”

“But the Doctor isn’t the survivor,” the professor countered. “She has no concept of the original trauma.”

Adeline exhaled and stared at him. “I feel like you are not trying to understand. I am telling you that the true Williams held onto a love for a woman that the Doctor was unaware of. Destiny brought that woman back. Dr. Niran Williams sensed it, and the true Williams blocked that compartment hermetically to prevent the Doctor from destroying it. She did not recognize her, but she felt her.”

Their voices rose before the room fell silent. Adeline walked back to her desk and kept turning the pages of her text.

“Adeline, I am not against you,” the professor pressed. “But do you realize how crazy you sound? You’re making so many hypotheses at the same time. You are confused.”

“We are psychiatrists,” she snapped. “Craziness is our normal. You are missing it.”

“I understand what you are saying,” the professor replied, his tone sharpening. “You are suggesting the Doctor, a construct of pure logic, fell into a labyrinth where a sealed door of emotion was hidden. And when she opened it, it transformed into something far more complex.”

“Yes. A mix of narcissism and twisted erotism portrayed as dominance,” Adeline insisted. “Miss Rogers used the mirror to build a loop of narcissism designed to drown out the past. Imagine genuine love and attraction for women stored in a narcissistic mind.”

To help him visualize it, Adeline stood and stepped closer. “Suppose you had a desire for me, or that you loved me. You would fantasize about me, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s possible.”

“You would imagine all the forbidden and explicit things you could do to me in bed. You would also anticipate my reaction,” Adeline continued, her voice dropping to a sensory whisper as she moved closer to the professor, “the sound of my breath, the shape of my nudity, my gaze, the scent of my skin. And that is perfectly normal.”

The professor adjusted uncomfortably. “And so?”

“That desire would be stored in your brain.” Adeline reached out and placed her hand on his head. “If I created a labyrinth in your head, it would be buried there, wouldn’t it?”

“Of course.”

“If Niran Williams had feelings for Esther Dara, they would also be compartmentalized in her head, in a sealed room. And if Dr. Niran Williams opened that last sealed door, imagine what would come out.”

Sensing the atmosphere shift, the professor abruptly grabbed Adeline’s hand. “And your hand? What is that for?”

“Oh, sorry.” She stepped back. “Evelyn’s touch was the key.”

“Her touch?”

“Yes. Touch bypasses cognition. It accesses memory networks stored somatically. Hazel’s presence activated implicit emotional memory, not a narrative of the past, but a bodily memory. That is why the Doctor allowed her close.”

“Wow.”

“I think that is why the Doctor unconsciously hates being touched by others. But with Hazel, she opened the door. She experienced her.”

“When you speak of experience, you mean they…”

“In her mind? Yes. And that happened multiple times.” Adeline smiled triumphantly.

The professor looked at his protégée in total disbelief. “You love your theories.” He exhaled slowly. “So, she slept with Evelyn in her mind over and over, trying to colonize a territory that already belonged to her past self. Because she opened the forbidden door, and instead of finding the lost memory, she found a fire.”

To him, it sounded excessive.

According to Adeline’s analysis, the day Evelyn spoke of loving women had forced her to reconsider why Evelyn’s touch did not disgust her, but weakened her. Ultimately, she questioned her own sexuality, something she had never done before, as she had only ever cared about the desire others directed toward her. In doing so, she unleashed a latent eroticism while simultaneously seeking only to control it.

Erotism: an energy fiercer than any strategy.

Adeline tried to push her theories further, but Professor Vane’s reaction finally disrupted her and forced her back to the initial conclusion. He succeeded in convincing her to limit excessive conspiratorial elaboration and return to Miss Rogers’s framework. Williams could not be kept indefinitely as a laboratory specimen.

Now the stakes were clear.

“If we save the person, we lose the genius,” Vane emphasized. “And if we save the Doctor, we must definitely murder the girl who loved Esther Dara.”

The brilliant psychiatric genius had finally hit the wall of human cost. Between an obsessive, cold doctor and a human being full of rage and raw emotion, the safest choice was the Doctor. By destroying the old Williams, they would eliminate the murderous rage and the malicious impulses. She would be the brilliant surgeon again, loveless but stable.

Even if Adeline wanted to honor her promises toward Miss Kai, she had to think of the lives at stake.

From that, she learned a painful lesson: Death is not always physical. Sometimes, it is the quiet execution of the soul.

“If only I could speak with Esther,” Adeline thought, looking at the door. “Just one conversation, and perhaps I could find an alternative.”

The professor checked his watch. The time for theory was over.

“You should discuss this with her mother, then let me know.”

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