The next few days passed quietly, but the quiet wasn't peaceful anymore.
Every mirror in the Sangrak house seemed to hum whenever Khem walked past. The thin crack on the one in his room had grown wider, like a vein crawling through glass.
Mae Chan noticed.
"Don't stare too long," she warned. "Spirits look back when you do."
Khem tried to laugh it off, yet that night he woke at 2 a.m. to the sound of soft tapping.
Tap... Tap... Tap...(2×)
He turned on the lamp. The mirror trembled.
For a moment, he saw his own reflection,then another face behind it, a woman's, pale and smiling.
Nira:"Your birthday draws near," she whispered.And he has spoken your name
Nira:khem....khemm..(whispered)
The glass shattered.
Mae Chan burst into the room and pulled Khem close. Her hands were shaking.
"It's starting," she murmured. "The spirit knows you again."
At school, Phan noticed the cut on Khem's hand.
Phan:"You're hurt."
Khem:"It's nothing."
Phan:"It doesn't look like nothing."
He offered to clean it in the faculty room. The air between them felt fragile but warm, like the hush after thunder.
When Phan brushed antiseptic over the wound, Khem flinched,not from pain, but from how gentle it felt.
"You don't have to fix me, sir," Khem said quietly.
"I'm not fixing you," Phan replied. "I'm making sure you don't fade."
That night, Khem played his guitar again, trying to drown out the echoes in his head. But the melody that came out wasn't his own.
It was older,sad, circular, like something carried by generations.
When he finished, the mirror on his wall was whole again. But this time, his reflection was smiling before he did.
To be continued...