The night after the Eater vanished, I expected peace.
Instead, I got scratching.
It started behind the bedroom wall—soft at first, like mice. Then louder. Sharper. As if claws were testing the drywall.
Echo froze when he heard it.
"No. Not now," he whispered.
"It waited until you were whole again."
"It can't feed on broken souls. But now you're valid. You're real."
"And that means you're edible."
I pressed my ear to the wall.
A low breathing sound came through.
But it wasn't just breath—it was words, buried in wheezing rhythm:
"Let me out.""He promised.""You have my name."
I jumped back.
"What the hell is in there?" I asked.
Echo didn't answer at first.
Then:
"You know how this building trades in identity?"
"Someone once made a deal... and got buried in the structure."
"Not dead. Just... erased into the walls."
"It calls itself 'Chapter Zero.'"
"Because it was the first tenant. Before the contract even had rules."
My skin crawled.
"Why is it talking to me?"
"Because you triggered its name."
"You reclaimed yours. That shook something loose."
"Chapter Zero was a man who tried to steal his soul back from the lease—but unlike you, he failed."
"He got absorbed. Became part of the architecture."
"Now he whispers to anyone bold enough to fight the system."
The scratching continued all night.
By 3 a.m., cracks formed on the bedroom wall.
Not just ordinary cracks—script.
Faint black writing crawled across the surface like veins:
I REMEMBER WHO I WAS.AND NOW I REMEMBER YOU.
I backed away.
"I never knew this guy. Why is he saying that?"
Echo checked the wall with a blacklight.
Symbols glowed—mirrored versions of my name.
"Because you took a name that once belonged to him."
The realization hit me like a brick.
My name—Elias Marr—wasn't just mine.
It had layers.
The lease didn't create that name.
It recycled it.
"The contract uses expired identities," Echo explained.
"When a soul is devoured or lost, its name is archived and re-issued."
"You reclaimed what was once his."
"Then what does he want now?"
"To come back."
"To live again. Through you."
"And if you're not careful, he will."
The scratching evolved into tapping.
Precise.
Rhythmic.
Morse code again.
I translated it:
TRADE.ONE MEMORY FOR ONE BODY.I TAKE. YOU SLEEP.
I stepped away from the wall.
"Nope. Not doing that."
But the air shifted.
A smell of mildew and rust spread through the apartment.
The lights dimmed.
And then—he spoke aloud.
A voice came from inside the wall.
Croaking. Glitching. Familiar.
"You don't deserve the name."
"You don't even use it right."
"You wear it like a mask, not a self."
I shouted, "It's mine now!"
The wall replied:
"Then prove it."
"Let me out."
"Or I'll crawl into your dreams and peel it off from the inside."
That night, I didn't sleep.
Echo placed mirrors facing every corner of the room, surrounding the walls like guardians.
He explained:
"Chapter Zero needs darkness and silence to push through."
"Mirrors reflect intent. He can't enter a room that sees itself."
"But the minute you forget who you are, the barrier thins."
At 4:23 a.m., the wall bulged outward.
A human-shaped swelling pressed from behind the drywall.
Five fingers. A nose. Teeth.
Grinning through plaster.
"Trade," it whispered.
"One memory. Let me borrow something. Just an hour."
"Let me wear your favorite childhood moment."
"Let me feel the wind again."
I almost said yes.
Just out of exhaustion.
But Echo screamed:
"IF YOU FORGET EVEN A SINGLE THING—HE SLIPS THROUGH!"
"HE'LL UNZIP YOUR MIND!"
I clenched my fists and recited everything I could:
My name.
My first pet.
My worst heartbreak.
The smell of my father's aftershave.
The song I played on repeat after moving here.
The bulge twitched, recoiled.
The wall screamed.
Then went flat.
Silence.
No more tapping.
No more scratching.
Just silence.
Echo approached the wall with a tuning fork and tapped it once.
A pure ring.
"He's dormant again," he said.
"You passed the first test."
"But he'll keep testing."
"Because you're using his name like a torch."
"And shadows always chase the light."
I sat on the bed, shaken.
This wasn't over.
I'd won the battle.
But Chapter Zero was still watching.
Still waiting.
Still whispering through the seams of my life.
I looked at the crack in the corner where the writing had been.
It was clean now.
Except for one word, etched deep and permanent:
"THIEF."