The silence tightens around me.
She stands in my place. My body, my face, my breath.
Steady, sharp. Certain.
She looks at me with eyes that do not tremble.
I can feel the compass flutter in my palm, weak, desperate, fragile against the weight of her presence.
She tilts her head, and my neck twitches, trying to follow the motion. Her mouth curls into a smile that seems to know something. Something I certainly do not.
When she speaks, it is my voice, but stripped of doubt. Honed to cruelty.
"I am what you are not. I am everything you should have been."
Her eyes glint, unblinking as the smile deepens. She leans in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper that scrapes along my skin
"Everything she kept from you."
The words land like teeth closing around me.
And then his voice follows, softer, lower, savoring the moment.
"She is the truth, that woman's silence denied you. And you, my dear, are only the shadow left behind."
The corridor beyond the frame waits.
The compass flickers again, faint heat pressed into my skin, and for a heartbeat I want to believe in it. But the reflection smiles wider, patient as stone, and every part of me knows this is only the beginning.
Behind her, the frame of the mirror gapes hollow and dark. No glass remains, only a ragged outline cut into the air.
She turns toward it first. I feel the pull in my bones before I move, as though her step drags mine with it. Together we cross the threshold, shoulder to shoulder, and the corridor collapses behind us like a lung exhaling its last breath.
The air shifts.
The walls rise higher.
The light bends dimmer.
Shadows nestle into the stone,
Until every corner is swollen with silence.
Candles hang in black iron sconces, their flames smothered down to thin reluctant threads. Each one gives just enough glow to survive, no more.
The floor slopes forward, slick beneath my boots. My soles scrape stone damp with condensation, and though the sound should echo, it doesn't. Each step vanishes as though swallowed whole, consumed by the void before it can return to me.
The silence thickens with every breath I take. My lungs ache from the effort of pulling it in, but I cannot stop. Breathing feels like trespassing.
A hall unfolds. Vast. Cold. Its ceiling drowned in smoke and shadow. At its far end, an altar waits.
Black-veined marble. Its surface grooved with runes, edges sharp enough to bleed you. The stone gleams wet. It looks as though the altar itself weeps, with dark veins leaking through its body.
And she is there.
My mother.
Head bowed. Shoulders bent forward as though the stone is all that holds her upright. Her hands grip the edge, knuckles pale. Her lips move, shaping words I cannot hear.
The silence swallows everything. Even the sound of my own pulse falters. Even the whisper of my breath feels stolen.
The reflection drifts at my side. Her steps do not echo but her presence brushes against me, faint but unmistakable, like a current beneath the skin.
She circles me with the patience of a predator.
Her voice grazes my ear, soft, indulgent, unmistakable mine.
"She was the priestess."
My chest lurches.
The words settle like a weight against my throat.
The reflection's smile widens. Her voice slides softer, as though confessing something meant only for me.
"She prayed for you…. not to save you but to spend you."
The compass stirs faintly, trembling in my palm. Its pulse feels brittle, as though it could break under the weight of my grip.
And then his voice uncoils, rich and low, silk drawn across a blade.
"Ah… listen. How beautifully it consumes you. Silence was her gift, and it suits you, darling. See how it clings to you, wraps you tight. Tighter with every breath. You wear it so well."
The reflection leans closer until her cheek nearly brushes mine. My own voice spills from her mouth, hushed and merciless.
"She kept you blind, so you would never see the knife when it came. Every secret, every silence," she pauses, savoring "meant for this."
On the altar, my mother's lips move faster. Her mouth shaping words I will never hear. I know my name is among them, but it is emptied of sound.
Her eyes lift once, desperate, shimmering. They catch the thin light. For a moment , I almost believe she sees me standing here. But then her gaze drops again as though even this vision cannot bear the sight of me.
The compass flickers weakly, trembling in my hand. A moth's wingbeat against the dark.
And his voice folds over the moment, indulgent, intimate.
"Ignorance looks so beautiful on you, little one. You wear it like a veil. Fragile. Perfect. Ready to be torn away."
The altar shudders. Veins split across its surface. The stone fractures at its edges, groaning as though breaking beneath the weight of what she refuses to say.
My mother's form scatters into ash. Her lips still form my name in silence even as she disintegrates, words unfinished, always unfinished.
The vision darkens. Ash settles into the cracks of the floor, into my lungs, scratching at my throat. I stagger, choking on what she never said.
And when the last of her is gone, the hall folds in on itself, the silence collapsing like walls pressing in, squeezing breath and space away. Every unspoken word seems to echo louder in the absence.
The reflection waits for me there. Her smile sharper than before, eyes gleaming with a certainty I cannot match.
I clutch the compass until the rim dogs deep into my palm, sharp enough to draw blood, but it feels small, useless.
My mother's silence clings to me like dust,coating my skin.
As though it will never wash off. It settles in the folds of my clothes, fills the cracks of my throat.
I cannot cough it out.
I cannot breathe it free.
Her silence just lingers even after the hall collapses.
The darkness bends again.