They always say trauma fades when you leave the place it happened.
That's a lie.
I had left Bali. Again.
I had returned to Singapore. Again.
But she never left me.
She just became quieter. Smarter. More selective in how she appeared.
---
It started subtly.
The water in my apartment turned murky—not brown, not black, but cloudy, like smoke trapped in glass. I called building maintenance. They said it was "pipe corrosion," and I almost believed them until the fog inside the water formed the vague shape of a face.
My face.
Staring back with no eyes.
---
Then the photos began changing.
Old pictures on my phone—sunsets, dinners, selfies with friends—started to shift. Just slightly. One day I noticed a background statue that hadn't been there before. Then a reflection in a window behind me, even though I'd been alone.
In one photo, taken at a birthday dinner weeks ago, she was sitting at the empty chair beside me.
White dress. Hair draped forward.
Not looking at me.
Looking at the camera.
---
My apartment lights flickered at exactly 2:44 a.m. every night.
No storm. No short-circuit. Always the same time.
I started setting alarms earlier to wake up and see it myself.
Every time: the lights dimmed, the frangipani scent swelled, and my phone glitched.
One night I caught it recording on its own.
Another night, it was live-streaming to an unknown Instagram account.
---
My dreams bled into the day.
One morning, as I left my apartment, the doorman looked at me oddly. "You're... you're staying alone, right?" he asked, pointing toward the elevator where I'd just exited.
I nodded.
He hesitated. "I swore I saw someone else standing behind you just now."
My blood turned to ice.
---
The most terrifying moment happened in broad daylight.
I was in a meeting—remote, of course. My webcam was off. My mic was muted. I was barely listening. Just staring at my own reflection in the black square where my video feed would've been.
And then it turned on.
I didn't click anything.
The webcam activated on its own.
And for exactly three seconds, the entire team saw a woman in white standing behind me.
No one said anything during the call.
But after, my manager messaged:
> "You okay? That woman... was she part of a joke or something?"
---
I knew I couldn't run anymore.
I had brought her with me. Not by mistake.
But by *invitation*.
Somewhere deep in me, I had wanted to know. To see. To understand the thing that others were too afraid to face.
And now, she was showing me.
---
I went to a digital artist friend—someone who worked with facial recognition and AR systems.
We ran an experiment.
I gave her access to my webcam feed for a week, told her not to tell me what she found until the end.
After five days, she called me, terrified.
> "Raka... who is the woman that keeps showing up in your eye reflection?"
"What do you mean?"
> "In the frames... your pupils. There's a shape reflected in them. Like someone's standing in front of you. Even when you're alone."
She sent the screenshots.
They showed a silhouette.
Thin. Tall. Hair falling down over a blank face.
And then I noticed something worse.
In one frame, the silhouette wasn't *in front* of me.
It was *inside* my reflection.
---
I lost sleep.
Not because I was afraid of seeing her.
But because I was starting to forget which part of the day was the dream.
I'd wake up with dirt on my floor, frangipani petals on my kitchen counter.
Once, I found rice scattered in a perfect circle around my mattress.
Another time, I found a fresh offering—banana leaf, flower, slice of lime—on my **bathroom mirror**.
No one had come in. I had checked the cameras. There was no footage of entry.
Only static.
For exactly three minutes.
At 2:44 a.m.
---
And then came **the whisper**.
Not in my head. Not in the walls.
But through my phone.
I was listening to a podcast on my commute when it happened.
A soft voice broke through the audio, layered under the speaker's voice.
At first it sounded like distortion.
But then I heard it clearly.
**"Show me your eyes."**
---
I dropped the phone.
It slid under the MRT bench. A kid sitting next to me picked it up and laughed nervously.
He said, "Your wallpaper is creepy."
I took the phone.
My lock screen had changed.
It was a photo of me sleeping.
Taken from the ceiling.
---
I knew then.
This wasn't haunting.
This was merging.
She wasn't just a spirit anymore.
She was becoming code.
Pattern.
Sound.
Shadow in light.
A glitch in the mirror.
---
The last night before everything changed, I saw her again.
Not in a dream.
Not in the water.
Not in the screen.
But in the mirror across my bedroom.
She stepped forward.
I didn't move.
She reached up, slowly, to her face.
And pulled back her hair.
And I saw—
Not horror.
Not rot.
Not death.
But **me**.
My face.
Crying.
Mouth stitched shut.
Eyes wide open.
---
I fell to my knees.
And I whispered:
**"Take it."**
---
I don't remember sleeping.
But when I woke up, the mirror was gone.
Broken.
The apartment was filled with light.
The frangipani scent was fading.
And inside me—was silence.
People ask if I'm okay now.
I smile. I laugh. I show up on time.
But I've stopped using mirrors.
I've stopped taking photos.
And sometimes, when someone passes me in the office hallway and catches their reflection beside mine in the window\...
They flinch.
Because in the reflection...
I'm always alone.