I didn't go back inside that night.
I sat on the stairs until dawn, watching the hallway lights buzz and flicker like dying stars. Each minute stretched longer than the last. The world felt thin—like a film of glass between me and whatever had replaced it.
When the first sunlight hit the windows, I stood. My legs were numb. My chest hollow. My key still sat in my hand, teeth glinting like a useless relic.
I tried one more time.
Turned it.
The door didn't move.
But for a split second—barely a breath—I heard something on the other side.
Breathing.
My breathing.
Perfectly matched.
---
I left the building.
Not because I wanted to, but because every instinct told me I shouldn't be there when the lights went out again.
The streets looked wrong. The city—my city—was unfamiliar. Stores had different names. Buildings had new colors. There was a park where a grocery store used to be. I thought maybe I was losing it. Maybe sleep deprivation had finally split my brain open.
But the air was different too.
Thicker.
Quieter.
Like the world had inhaled and refused to exhale.
I walked for hours. No destination. Just movement. I passed a bus stop, and there—on the glass shelter—was an ad.
**"J. MURROW REALTY — Making Space for You."**
His face smiled up at me from the poster.
Same hoodie. Same eyes. Same everything.
Me.
---
People passed me on the sidewalk.
None of them looked.
None of them saw.
I tried—God, I tried—to ask for help.
"Excuse me," I said to a woman in a gray coat. Nothing.
I stepped in front of her. She sidestepped, eyes unfocused, like her brain edited me out mid-thought.
A man on his phone walked straight through my shadow. Didn't even shiver.
I shouted once—"HELLO?!"—and the sound came out wrong. Muffled. Like the world swallowed it before it could reach their ears.
No one turned.
No one heard.
It's worse than being invisible. It's being *unimportant*.
---
The whisper between was silent.
No wind. No flickering lights. No signs. Just the hum of something deep beneath the city, a pulse that wasn't mine.
I found a payphone. Old, rusted, probably useless—but I needed to *try*.
I dialed Jamie's number again.
Static.
Then—faintly—something beneath it. A voice, low and warped, like it had been buried under miles of water.
"…Rhysho?"
I froze. "Jamie? Jamie, is that you?"
The static swallowed half the sound, but her voice came again—broken, terrified.
"You're not supposed to remember."
"What do you mean?"
"*They're writing over you.*"
Then—click. Silence.
The phone went dead.
---
I didn't move for a while. The city kept going around me, cars passing, people talking, but none of it touched me.
Writing over me.
The words repeated in my head like an echo I couldn't shut off.
Writing over me.
Replacing.
Rewriting.
Like reality was a story being edited mid-sentence, and I was the typo.
That night, I didn't sleep. I found an old motel by the edge of the highway, paid in cash, and locked the door twice. The clerk didn't look at me when I handed him the money. His eyes slid past, like I was just air that spoke.
The mirror in the room was cracked down the middle—one reflection split into two.
I sat across from it, staring.
And then, just as the clock hit midnight, the lights flickered.
One hum. Two.
Then darkness.
But not full darkness.
Because in the mirror—between the two broken halves—
I saw something move.
A shape, long and thin.
A suit, black and perfect.
A hand reaching through the crack.
Not at me.
At the reflection of me.
And when it touched the glass—my reflection smiled.
I didn't.