The mirror no longer reflected Mia properly.
Each time she passed it, the figure that looked back seemed a little less like her. The edges of her face were starting to blur, her eyes dimmer, her outline softer, like she was fading from her own life.
It wasn't just in the mirror. When she walked past strangers on the street, they would glance at her with a flicker of unease, as if they could see something clinging to her. Shadows that didn't belong. Whispers that followed her steps.
And the mark on her chest burned.
Day and night.
She tried to hide it. She layered shirts, covered it with bandages, but it pulsed beneath everything, as if the house—the debt—was still alive inside her.
One morning, Leah called.
"Mia," she said in a trembling voice, "I think… I think I forgot Elliot again."
Mia gripped the phone tighter. "What do you mean?"
"I remember the house. I remember us being trapped. But when I try to picture Elliot's face, it's gone. Blurry. Like I'm forgetting him in pieces."
Mia closed her eyes, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. "It's the debt. It's still moving. Shifting. It took Dad, it took Elliot, and now it's trying to… erase again."
"Mia," Leah whispered. "I'm scared."
Mia swallowed hard. "I won't let you forget."
But how could she stop it?
The letters came more frequently now.
They arrived without stamps, without names, just sealed envelopes slipped under her door or left on her pillow.
Each one was a warning.
"You are the collector."
"The debt must move."
"Three must forget. One must collect."
Some letters came with addresses.
Some with names.
Mia ignored the first few.
She thought if she didn't go, if she didn't follow, the chain would break.
But the burning on her chest worsened each time she resisted, searing her skin until she collapsed on her bathroom floor, gasping through tears, clawing at her own flesh.
The debt wouldn't be ignored.
It demanded balance.
The first name was a woman who had outlived her child.
Mia drove to her house, unsure of what she was doing, unsure if she would go inside. But when she parked outside, she saw the woman standing in the window, staring at her as if she'd been expecting her.
The woman smiled faintly.
Mia felt the mark on her chest cool for the first time in days.
When she got out of the car, she felt a strange pull, not from the house, but from the woman herself—as if grief had created a tether between them.
"You came," the woman said simply when Mia approached the door.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Mia confessed.
The woman stepped aside. "Then come in. Let's figure it out together."
Inside, the house smelled of lavender and old wood. The woman's hands trembled as she poured them tea.
"You're not the first," she said. "Collectors come and go. You carry the weight for a while. Until someone else remembers. Until someone else chooses."
Mia stared at her, stunned. "You knew about this?"
"My mother was a collector," the woman said softly. "It's not a curse. It's… a passage. A cycle that keeps memories alive."
"Then what happens to the debt?"
The woman smiled, tired and knowing. "It lives with us. Until someone chooses to carry it next."
Mia felt something loosen inside her.
The weight wasn't gone, but it was no longer suffocating.
The woman took Mia's hand. "You don't have to collect names. You just have to collect stories. Remind people of what they tried to forget. Help them remember."
Mia left the house hours later, the mark on her chest no longer burning, but warm.
She finally understood.
She wasn't a reaper.
She was a keeper.
The debt wasn't about death.
It was about memory.
And now, it was her turn to remember for those who couldn't.
As she walked away, she heard the faintest whisper, carried on the wind.
"Thank you."
The collector never left.
It simply changed faces.
Mia kept walking.
And she would keep walking.
Because some debts… should never be forgotten.