Dark.
Again.
I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or shut.
There was only a pulse somewhere far away..slow, dragging, steady like a heartbeat that didn't belong to me.
Drip… drip… drip.
Not again.
The sound crawled closer, too soft to be real, too near to be imagined.
"Hello?"
My voice didn't echo. It slid out and vanished, swallowed by air that felt wet.
Something whispered back.
"Morana…"
It wasn't Ruan.
It wasn't her either.
It was lower..smooth and close, like someone talking through water.
My chest tightened. "Who are you?"
No answer.
Just that slow, dragging heartbeat and the faint scrape of nails against glass.
Then light.
Not sunlight..this was white, sterile, humming.
I blinked and the apartment returned around me, but everything looked… off.
The corners were bent, stretched like bad reflections. The clock on the wall ticked backward.
Ruan still slept on the couch.
Her head still rested on his chest.
But the color was wrong.
Too bright.
Too red.
I floated closer. "Wake up…"
Nothing.
She shifted before I reached her.
Her head turned halfway, and I swear her neck bent farther than it should have.
Eyes open.
Black again.
Her smile widened when she saw me.
"You came back," she whispered. "Good."
I froze.
She could see me?
Her voice wasn't mine anymore...it had an echo, a second tone layered beneath it.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
She tilted her head, curious, like a child watching a bug. "You gave up your place. Someone had to take care of what you left behind."
"I didn't give you anything."
"You died," she said simply. "That's permission enough."
Ruan stirred, mumbling.. my...her...name.
"Morana… don't go."
She looked down at him with something close to affection. "He's learning to dream properly now. You should be proud."
"Proud?" My voice cracked. "He killed me!"
She laughed softly, brushing his hair. "No. You killed yourself. I'm only keeping him warm."
The air around me trembled. Every word she said rippled through the room. The light bulb flickered; the picture frames shook.
"Get out of my body," I hissed.
Her gaze snapped to me, cold, sharp. "Don't shout. He'll wake."
"I don't care!"
"You should," she said.
The whisper of her tone crawled into my ears. "After all, you still love him, don't you?"
"I don't!"
But the denial tasted like rust.
She smiled wider. "Liar."
Then the room bent again.
Colors bled into black. The sound of dripping turned to knocking slow, measured, from somewhere behind me.
Knock… knock… knock.
I turned. The bathroom door was closed, though I hadn't seen it close.
Something dripped from the gap beneath it--thick, dark.
My blood.
I stepped closer. The handle twitched once, twice.
"Don't open it," she murmured behind me. "Not yet."
"Why?"
"That's where you left the rest of you."
A sharp smell hit..iron, rot, wet earth.
The knocking stopped.
I turned back toward the couch but they were gone.
No couch.
No Ruan.
No her.
Just the outline of where they'd been two dark shapes burned into the light like after-images.
The room pulsed.
I pressed my hands to my head.
"Wake up....Please just wake up..."
A cold touch brushed my shoulder.
Not her.
Something taller.
Something that didn't breathe.
When I turned, there was only shadow..humanoid, but hollow where a face should be. It leaned close, and its voice was hers and mine layered together.
"You shouldn't have watched."
I stumbled back, through the wall, through everything falling, weightless.
The city roared beneath me like an ocean.
Then...
Light.
Sound.
A gasp.
I was in the bathroom again.
My body on the floor, eyes open.
Except this time, the body smiled first.
And whispered, "Welcome back."
The smile moved. Breathing. Standing.
She rose, stretched, and walked toward the doorway.
From the living room came Ruan's sleepy voice. "You're up early."
She turned to him with my mouth, curving it into warmth. "Couldn't sleep."
He sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Come here."
She went. I followed..unable not to.
He drew her into his lap, his hands gentle this morning. He kissed her hair, the line of her temple.
No force, no anger..just the soft, domestic rhythm of a man trying to prove a nightmare never happened.
"Stay with me today," he murmured. "Forget work."
She smiled. "You have meetings, remember?"
"I'll cancel." He kissed her again, lips lingering near her jaw. She laughed..the sound light, practiced, lovely.
He didn't notice the way her eyes flicked black for half a heartbeat.
I hovered near the window, nausea twisting what was left of me. It looked romantic ,too romantic, the picture of forgiveness.
But the air around them was wrong.
It hummed.
Her hand slid up to his collar, fixing his tie. Her thumb traced the curve of his throat...intimate, almost reverent.
"You'll be late," she whispered.
He sighed, pressed his forehead to hers, lingered there. "You feel different lately."
She smiled against his lips. "Better?"
He nodded. "Better."
Their closeness dissolved into a hush—fingers at his collar, his arm around her waist. Then the moment softened, blurred, and the rest was only suggestion: breath, heat, a heartbeat where mine should've been.
Fade to quiet.
Fade to black.
When the world refocused, he was dressed again. She buttoned his cuffs, brushed imaginary lint from his jacket. Perfect wife. Perfect calm.
"Lunch at one," she reminded.
He kissed her forehead. "My angel."
The word stung like acid.
He left smiling.
She stood by the window until his car vanished, then her face emptied of expression.
She turned toward me. "You see? Easy...You make it so easy."
"Why are you doing this?" I whispered.
"Because someone has to live." She touched the window glass; frost bloomed under her fingers. "And you...don't."
She picked up his jacket, her keys, and walked out.
The door shut.
Silence.
I ran for the doorway and slammed into invisible air. The barrier held.
The apartment had become my cage.
---
I wandered its rooms.
The mirror in the bedroom rippled when I passed. My reflection lagged behind by a breath.
I leaned closer.
"Morana," it whispered.
I jerked back. "Who...?"
The reflection smiled. My smile, cleaner, crueler. "You'll forget how it felt soon."
"I won't forget anything."
"Memory fades when it has no body to hold it."
Cracks webbed across the glass. In each shard, a different scene: her cooking, her laughing, her answering his calls with my voice.
I pressed my hands to the frame. "Stop changing me."
"You changed yourself," it said, voice soft as a lullaby. "I'm only keeping the story straight."
From the hallway, the light flickered.
A photo frame fell from the wall.
In it, our old picture--Ruan and me, rooftop night.
Now it showed her instead.
I shook the frame, but the image held.
The apartment felt smaller, colder.
The mirror whispered again. "He won't remember you soon."
My pulse or whatever ghostly version of it remained...raced.
"I'll make him remember," I said.
The mirror laughed—a sound like water over glass. "You can try."
I tried the lamp. It blinked once, obedient.
Progress.
Tiny. Useless.
Evening came. Footsteps outside.
Keys at the door.
Ruan again.
He entered humming, face soft with end-of-day exhaustion.
"Morana?" he called.
"Here," she answered from the kitchen.
Apron. Smile. Domestic light.
He hugged her from behind, nose brushing her shoulder. "Smells good."
She laughed, a sound perfectly rehearsed.
They sat. Ate. Talked about deadlines.
Normal.
He reached across the table, took her hand. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
She looked up at him, eyes gentle. "You won't have to find out."
Something in her tone made the air change.
I felt it..the way her words carried a different weight, like an oath binding the world tighter.
He kissed her fingers.
I stared, invisible, through the mirror on the wall. The cracks in it shimmered. For a moment, I thought I saw his reflection fade, leaving only her and me..two versions of the same woman facing each other through glass.
The whisper came from everywhere at once.
"You shouldn't watch."
The lights flickered.
Blood...thin and bright...threaded down the mirror's edge, tracing the word MORANA before vanishing.
I reached out, but the world tilted.
The room swam in red.
The couch, the table, Ruan...everything stretched and blurred.
And from within the mirror, the reflection leaned forward, smiling wider.
"Welcome home," she said. "We're almost one now."
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Black.