Serena Blackwood's First Night

Alena stood frozen after Kaevan left the room. The man's final words still echoed in her head.

"Serena Blackwood. My wife. She's the person indirectly killed by Tristan."

The clinic's sterile air seemed to press against her lungs. Alena tried to feel her own body—arms still connected to an IV, legs stiff, chest rising and falling with labored breaths. Everything was still there, but it felt foreign. And the face beneath these bandages—no longer hers.

Alena tried to lift her hand to touch the bandages covering her face. But her joints were still stiff. Hard to move. She gave up and closed her eyes.

Who am I now?

The question hung unanswered.

The door opened slowly. A young nurse entered carrying a tray with a bowl of warm porridge and a glass of water. Her face was friendly, but her eyes avoided Alena's gaze.

"Miss Serena, you need to eat," the nurse said gently. "You need your strength to begin therapy tomorrow."

Alena didn't answer immediately. She stared at the spoon placed beside the bowl—so simple, yet her hand trembled just thinking about lifting it.

"Please... call me Alena," she whispered faintly, her voice barely audible.

The nurse stopped. Her expression turned awkward. "I'm sorry, Miss. Instructions from Mr. Aldrich and Dr. Helena are very clear. Your name now is Serena Blackwood. We... aren't allowed to use any other name."

Another name. As if Alena Kensington had never existed. As if thirty years of her life—memories, struggles, dreams—were all just illusions that could be erased with an order.

The nurse sat beside the bed, picking up the bowl of porridge. "Let me help you eat, Miss Serena."

Alena wanted to protest. Wanted to scream that she wasn't Serena. But her throat was too dry, and her body too exhausted.

She let the nurse feed her—spoonful after spoonful of bland, tasteless warm porridge, like her life now.

After finishing, the nurse cleared the tray and left with a professional smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Alena was alone again. In suffocating silence.

She stared at the room's white ceiling—too clean, too sterile, too... empty.

'I'm still alive,' Alena thought. 'But for what?'

'For revenge,' answered a voice in her head—a voice that sounded like Kaevan. Cold. Firm. Merciless.

Alena closed her eyes, trying to sleep. But sleep didn't come. What came instead were visions of Tristan smiling while injecting poison, visions of Sienna laughing on her bed, visions of flames consuming her body alive.

Several days passed like fog.

Alena went through strange new routines: physical therapy in the morning, burn wound examinations in the afternoon, short walking practice in silent corridors in the evening. Each time she looked in a mirror—even just seeing the bandages covering her face—she reminded herself that her old life was gone.

And this new identity wasn't her choice.

"Excellent, Miss Serena," said a physical therapist named Marcus with an encouraging smile. "You managed to stand for thirty seconds today. Next week we'll try walking."

Walking. Something once so easy, now an extraordinary achievement.

Alena smiled bitterly behind the oxygen mask she still occasionally wore. "Thank you, Marcus."

Marcus wrote progress notes on his clipboard. "Your muscle recovery is faster than expected, Miss. But please be patient. Mental recovery often takes longer than physical."

Be patient. That word.

As if patience was enough to erase all the loss, all the trauma, all the accumulated scars—not just on the body, but also on the soul.

Alena only nodded, too tired to respond.

That evening, as usual, Kaevan came.

The man always wore a perfect black suit—never wrinkled, never loose, like armor protecting him from the outside world. His steps were calm, commanding, carrying a cold aura that made anyone around him feel small.

But somehow, Kaevan's presence didn't frighten Alena. Instead... it was slightly comforting. Because he was the only person who didn't lie to her.

"How are your wounds today?" Kaevan asked without preamble, pulling a chair and sitting beside the bed.

"Painful," Alena answered honestly, holding back bitterness. "Everything hurts."

Kaevan didn't respond. He just looked at Alena with dark eyes that were hard to read—not sympathy there, but not indifference either.

"Is this part of your revenge strategy, Kaevan?" Alena asked quietly, her voice weary. "Making me live with a dead woman's face and go through recovery alone?"

Kaevan was silent for a moment. Then he spoke in a softer tone than usual—though still cold.

"If you want to stop, I won't force you. You're free to leave anytime."

Alena looked at him in surprise.

"But remember," Kaevan continued, his gaze sharp, "the people who took your life—Tristan and Sienna—haven't received even the slightest payback. They're still living in luxury. Still laughing. Still happy. And your mother... still suffering because of crimes she never committed."

Those words stabbed deeper than any knife.

Alena remembered her mother—Diana Vale who now lived in poverty, working as a house cleaner, having lost everything because of Tristan's crimes.

Tears fell from Alena's eyes.

"I won't stop," she whispered in a trembling but determined voice. "As long as they're still laughing over others' suffering, I'll endure. I'll become whatever I need to be."

Kaevan looked at Alena for a long moment. Something flickered in his eyes—something that almost looked like... respect.

"Tomorrow, Ethan Cross will come," Kaevan said. "He's my assistant. He'll train you—how to speak, walk, behave as Serena Blackwood. The world will see you again soon... and not a single person, especially Tristan, will guess you're Alena Kensington."

Alena took a deep breath. Bitter determination grew in her chest—like a thorny plant that was painful but strong.

"Yes, I need to train," Alena said quietly but firmly. "So they'll know... I can be stronger than anything they imagined."

Kaevan stood, putting his hands in his pockets. "You'll become the perfect Serena Blackwood. And when the time comes, you'll destroy them—slowly, painfully, without mercy."

He turned to leave but stopped at the doorway.

"Good night, Serena."

The name sounded foreign. But this time, Alena didn't object.

The door closed. Alena was alone again.

She gazed at the room's window—New York City lights twinkling in the distance, like falling stars. The world out there kept moving, uncaring that Alena Kensington was dead.

But from those ashes, something new was rising.

Serena Blackwood.

A name that would bring destruction to those who thought they'd already won.

Alena—or Serena now—smiled thinly behind the bandages.

Just wait, Tristan. Just wait, Sienna.

I'm coming back. And you'll regret ever betraying me.