The world had changed.
Or maybe it was just me.
Because now, mirrors didn't see me.
Glass ignored me.
Cameras glitched when I passed.
Motion sensors didn't react.
Elevator doors refused to open unless someone else was inside.
It was like I had become… a gap.
A shadow with no source.
At first, it was disorienting.
I stood in front of my bathroom mirror for ten full minutes, staring at nothing. Not even fog when I breathed. Not even a silhouette.
I waved my hand.
Nothing.
I screamed.
The walls absorbed the sound.
It wasn't that I was invisible.
It was that I didn't exist where I used to.
I left the apartment and walked down the hallway.
Mrs. Khouri, the old woman who always glared at me from her doorframe, passed by—and didn't flinch.
Didn't even blink.
She looked right through me.
Not like I was invisible.
Like I was air.
Outside, the world continued.
Traffic lights blinked.
Birds chirped.
The same people walked their dogs.
But no one noticed me.
Even when I shouted at them.
Even when I threw a rock at a wall.
No one turned.
Not even a dog barked.
But then I saw him.
The boy in the red hoodie.
He was sitting alone on a bench near the complex entrance.
Skin pale. Eyes hollow. Staring at nothing.
Until I walked past him.
Then his head turned.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
And he smiled.
"You traded your reflection."
"But not your shadow."
I stopped in my tracks.
"You can see me?"
He nodded.
"You're not the first."
"But most lose their minds before day three."
I sat beside him.
He didn't look more than twelve.
But his voice sounded older.
Tired.
Like he'd watched centuries pass without blinking.
"Who are you?"
"Name's not mine anymore. But you can call me Echo."
"That's what's left after the voice fades."
I asked him how he could still see me.
He pulled up his sleeve.
Showed me his arm.
It was covered in mirror cuts—thin scars that shimmered like silver.
"I broke every reflection I had."
"Now I see what others can't."
"But it comes at a price."
He tapped the side of his head.
"I don't dream anymore."
"I don't remember what I looked like."
"Sometimes I'm scared I never really existed."
I looked down at my hands.
They were still solid.
Still real.
But the sun didn't cast a shadow behind me anymore.
Echo noticed.
"That's not normal," he muttered.
"Even people like us cast shadows."
He leaned closer.
Sniffed the air.
"You burned something ancient."
"Did you go to the Archive?"
I nodded.
He leaned back fast.
Eyes wide.
"You're one of the marked. That means they'll come."
"Who?"
"The Nameless. The ones who lost their contracts but not their hunger."
"They sniff out people like us."
"Because we're… tetherless."
"No reflection. No record. No name on file."
"We're ghosts in flesh."
I asked how to fight them.
He shook his head.
"You don't."
"You bargain. Or you run."
"Or you become something worse."
That night, I returned to the apartment.
The walls pulsed faintly.
The mirrors were silent.
But on my ceiling, a shape had formed.
A handprint.
Not mine.
Not human.
Elongated fingers. Sharp claws. Pressed from the inside.
I blinked—and it was gone.
I checked every mirror I could find.
All blank.
Even the reflective water in the sink showed nothing.
But one shard from the old broken mirror in the living room had changed.
It showed someone else.
A woman.
Pale.
Hair tangled.
Eyes bleeding black tears.
She was in my kitchen.
Standing perfectly still.
Staring at the shard.
At me.
I turned around—
No one there.
I turned back.
She was closer in the reflection.
Only visible through the shard.
Whispering:
"You left me nameless."
"Now I wear your outline."
I dropped the shard.
It shattered again.
This time into powder.
I called out into the silence:
"Echo! I need help!"
Nothing answered.
But the room shivered.
And outside my apartment door…
Three knocks.
Soft.
Measured.
Again.
Just like before.
But this time, I knew better.
I didn't open it.
Instead, I went to the mirror frame, carved out a corner, and etched Echo's name into it with the last shard of silver.
E C H O
Then I whispered:
"Trade. Witness. Anchor."
"Let one who remembers answer."
The frame glowed.
For a moment.
Then turned dark.
A heartbeat later, Echo appeared beside me.
Not physically.
Just in the mirror.
But he looked terrified.
"You used a Name Anchor? Are you insane?!"
"That only works once, and it invites everything that's heard your name!"
"I didn't know what else to do."
He looked past me.
"She's already inside."
The lights went out.
The mirror cracked.
Echo's image flickered.
"If she's wearing your outline, she's trying to take form."
"You need to reclaim your name."
"Say it out loud."
I hesitated.
"I already gave it up."
"Then steal it back."
"From her."
I turned toward the kitchen.
She stood there now.
Fully visible.
Wearing my clothes.
Wearing my face.
But wrong.
Too tall.
Too still.
Eyes black pits.
She smiled.
And said:
"My name is Elias Marr."