Chapter 3

I don't remember how I make it home.

My legs move on instinct, carrying me through streets that blur and bend. Every reflection I pass— shop windows, parked cars, puddles on the road— I avoid. I can feel her watching anyway.

By the time I reach the house, my chest hurts from holding my breath.

The door creaks open.

The house welcomes me with silence.

Too quiet.

I lock the door. Check it twice. Then a third time. My hands won't stop shaking. I press my back against the wood and slide down until I'm sitting on the cold floor.

Hana: It wasn't me. (I tell myself.) It couldn't have been.

But the image won't leave— his eyes widening, the sound his body made when it folded, the blood.

I stagger to the bathroom and retch until my throat burns. Nothing comes up. Just air and bile and fear.

When I lift my head, I see it.

The mirror above the sink.

For a moment, it shows only me— pale, trembling, human.

Reflect flickers.

Then my reflection blinks.

I don't.

She tilts her head, studying me with something like curiosity.

"You ran."

She says softly.

Her voice doesn't echo. It doesn't need to. It lives inside my skull.

I step back.

Hana: You're not real. (I whisper.)

She smiles.

Not wide this time.

Gentle.

Almost kind.

"You asked."

She says.

"I answered."

My knees threaten to give out again.

Hana: No. (I shake my head.) I didn't— I just thought—

"Thoughts are door."

She interrupts.

"You opened yours so easily."

The bathroom light flickers. Her eyes darken.

"Do you know how long I waited?"

Images flash behind my eyes— a child crying in the dark, the floor slick with blood, a voice begging to be quiet.

I clutch my head, gasping.

Hana: Stop— please—

She presses her palm against the glass. I feel it— cold, right between my eyes.

"I protected you."

She whispers.

"I punished him."

Her smile fades.

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

I don't answer.

Because somewhere deep inside, beneath the terror and the nausea and the guilt—

Something nods.

The mirror cracks.

Just a hairline fracture, crawling outward like a vein.

I scream and stumble back, slamming into the wall.

When I look again—

I'm alone.

No voice. No smile. No crack.

Just my reflection, breathing as hard as I am.

I don't sleep that night.

Every time I close my eyes, I see blood.

Morning comes anyway.

Classes. Noise. Normality.

Nari is waiting for me at the gate.

She smiles when she sees me, bright and open, as if yesterday never reached her. As if whatever tried to bruise her only washed over her and passed. There is something achingly innocent about her— like the world after a storm, cleaner, greener, pretending nothing was ever broken.

Nari: You look tired. (She says.) Bad dreams again?

I pause.

Then I smile back.

Hana: Yeah. (I say.) Just nightmares.

A boy laughs behind her— too loud, too sudden. The sound scrapes against my skin, wrong in a way I can't explain. For a moment, it feels like a crack in the air, like something ugly trying to slip through.

My fingers curl without my permission.

I don't look at him. I don't need to. All I can think is how easily brightness gets noticed. How easily it gets touched. How easily it gets ruined.

The thought fades as quickly as it comes. I tell myself it means nothing.

And in the dark surface of a nearby window—

My reflection smiles first.

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