Introduction

I was Chloe, a frontwoman of "Nightingale & Guitarist," a life I'd painstakingly built with Liam, the struggling musician I'd saved.

For five years, I was his muse, his partner, his wife, having chosen him over my original, shattered reality.

Then, Liam began his affair with Kendra, our ambitious tour assistant.

For three unbearable years, I lived a grotesque parody of a marriage, enduring his blatant betrayals, his gaslighting, and Kendra's open triumph, as if I had somehow deserved this calculated heartbreak.

The final, crushing blow came on my birthday, backstage, when Kendra callously announced her pregnancy, a child she claimed was Liam's, right after he'd publicly blamed me for her distress.

How could I have given up everything, every piece of my true self, Elara the cellist, only to be reduced to this, a discarded note in their discordant symphony?

Why did I allow myself to be consumed by such a bitter, endless performance?

But a lifeline appeared: The mysterious Dreamweaver system, which had first sent me to Liam, offered a way to finally go back.

To my real life.

To myself.

For ten days, I methodically dismantled every trace of "Chloe," liquidating all the assets, severing every tie, until my final, quiet disappearance at midnight, as gracefully as a fading echo.

Yet, even in my true world, peace was fleeting; Dreamweaver demanded I return, one last time, to quell Liam's destructive grief, which threatened to unravel the very fabric of his reality.

I had to finish what I started, to play the final, unburdened note.