she wore my name like a stolen coat.
"My name is Elias Marr," the thing in the kitchen said—my face stretched too wide, my voice echoing with static and wet gravel.
But it wasn't mine anymore.
It was hers.
She had taken it from the void I left behind.
I stepped forward, my heart a hammer in my throat."You're not me."
She tilted her head, mockingly.
"Aren't I? You gave up your reflection. You abandoned your name. You hollowed out your soul. I just… moved in."
She raised her arms. Her skin shimmered—not flesh, but a waxy, mirror-like surface.As if I were staring into a corrupted reflection.
"Everything you forget, I remember. Every shame, every silence, every buried scream. I am the you that stayed behind."
The lights flickered again—this time slower, like a countdown.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the mirror frame still glowing faintly.Echo's voice drifted from it, weak, frayed:
"If she's holding your name, she's using it to reshape the contract."
"You need to speak it back—but it has to hurt."
"Memory. Blood. Pain."
"Names aren't taken gently. You have to rip it from her."
I stepped toward the kitchen table.There, beside the saltshaker, sat a rusted letter opener—long, thin, and sharp enough.
She didn't move. Just watched.
"Why aren't you stopping me?"
Her voice dripped venom and sugar.
"Because every choice you make still feeds me."
"You never left the contract, Elias. You just became its custodian."
"The only way out… is through me."
I gripped the letter opener tight and held it to my forearm.
Took a deep breath.
Then carved a line down the skin—not to harm, but to remember.
Blood bloomed.
And with it, memories.
My first night in the apartment.
The whisper in the hallway.
Verelith's sigils.
The Archive.
The mirror that didn't blink.
"My name," I whispered, "is Elias Marr."
"And you only wear the corpse of it."
She screeched.
The windows shattered.
Her body rippled like heat haze.
Parts of her began to crumble—hair falling in clumps, fingernails dripping into liquid mirror.
"You gave me that name!" she shrieked."You abandoned it! You left it to rot!"
I stepped forward, pressing the bloodied letter opener to her chest.
"No. I buried it."
"And now I'm digging it back up."
The room warped.
The apartment trembled.
For a split second, I wasn't standing in my kitchen anymore.
I was back in the Archive.
Surrounded by shelves of screaming names.
Floating contracts written in languages that stung the eyes.
And she was there—kneeling at an altar of broken mirrors, cradling a single candle.
My name, etched into the wax, flickered.
I reached for it.
Her body—ghostly now—leapt between us.
We collided in a rush of static, pain, and memory.
Scenes flashed across my vision:
My childhood.
My parents arguing.
The first time I felt invisible.
The moment I signed my lease and thought, Maybe I can start over.
She whispered in my ear, voice softer now.
"You don't want this name back."
"It's full of grief. Of failure. Of rot."
"Let it go. Stay hollow. Stay forgettable."
I shoved her back.
"No."
"I've made mistakes. I've hurt people. I've run away from everything I am."
"But I'd rather live as a flawed self than a perfect nothing."
I grabbed the candle.
Whispered my name three times.
"Elias Marr. Elias Marr. Elias Marr."
The flame flared blue—
And she screamed.
Her form split apart.
Fragments of false identity burned away.
Each scream peeled a lie from the world.
Until only I remained.
I collapsed to my knees.
Back in the apartment.
Mirror shards still on the ground.
But now, in their reflections—I appeared again.
Pale. Bloodied. Shaking.
But whole.
The door creaked.
Echo stood there, physically now, holding a bag of salt and a shard of obsidian.
"Well," he said, "either you won, or I'm hallucinating your ghost."
I looked at my hands.
They cast shadows.
My reflection blinked when I blinked.
I smiled.
"Pretty sure I'm me again."
Echo nodded.
"Then you better reinforce that."
He stepped inside, scattered salt around the perimeter, and placed the obsidian on the table.
"Anchors. Salt for memory. Stone for weight."
"You're still not safe, but you're at least you again."
I collapsed into a chair.
"What now?"
Echo looked toward the broken mirror.
"Now comes the worst part."
"You have to write your name back into the world."
"Every time you speak it, sign it, remember it—you're building a fortress."
"But forget it again, even once… and something else might crawl back inside."
I stared at the wall, exhausted.
"Why did the contract let me do this?"
Echo shook his head.
"It didn't."
"You just cheated it."
"Which means… something bigger is going to notice."