> The name is spoken.
The altar becomes body.
And the church becomes you.
---
I don't remember saying it.
But I must have.
The name—Lioratheia—was no longer a sound.
It was a key.
And somewhere, a lock turned.
Because when I opened my eyes that morning, the walls were bleeding wax.
---
My mother was gone.
No sign of struggle.
No blood.
Just her rosary, floating in the sink—each bead melted to the next, forming one solid spine of prayer.
The hallway mirrors were gone.
No glass.
Only flesh.
Pulsing, warm, stretched across the walls like they were veined with memory.
And inside each surface—
I saw her.
Me.
The new Leora.
The church's chosen tongue.
---
I stumbled outside.
But the world didn't look like it used to.
Every house on the block was still.
No lights.
No movement.
Only windows reflecting my face, even when I wasn't near them.
And from below the concrete…
Chanting.
Low.
Constant.
Like blood praying to itself.
---
I ran.
Back to the chapel.
But it wasn't burned anymore.
It was reborn.
Walls reconstructed from bones and tongues.
Stained glass replaced with mirrored skin, showing every version of myself I had ever denied.
At the altar stood the doll.
Full now.
Complete.
Alive.
Seven mouths chanting.
The eighth smiling.
She turned to me and spoke in my voice:
> "Thank you for remembering.
Thank you for carrying the sin."
I fell to my knees.
> "I didn't mean to—"
> "You didn't.
She did.
But you were made from her tongue.
You are the final vessel."
---
And then the ceiling cracked open.
But not to the sky.
To something older.
A void of whispers.
A cathedral of memory.
Where every confession ever buried crawled back into form.
The doll—no longer doll—held out her hand.
Inside it:
The needle.
Threaded now with my voice.
---
> "Sew it shut," she said.
"Or let it finish."
But I couldn't move.
Because I finally understood.
I had never been the final stitch.
I was the thread.
The voice she needed to finish herself.
The altar wasn't wood.
It was my body.
The chant wasn't a prayer.
It was my breath.
---
So I let go.
I stepped forward.
And the final mouth—the one across my chest—opened.
Wide.
Smiling.
Filled with tongues not my own.
And I said it.
> "Ecclesia.
Fiat.
Vox."
(Let the church. Be. Voice.)
---
The chapel exploded.
Not with fire.
But light.
And when the light faded—
The world was quiet.
---
They say the old chapel is still standing.
But no one dares go inside.
Because the mirrors inside don't show your face.
They show hers.
The woman with seven mouths and eight eyes—
Whispering the name you've forgotten you were born with.
And if you stay too long…
You start to remember the prayer.
The one she sings inside your bones.
---
✝️ Epilogue – The Doll Sleeps with Her Eyes Open
> She is no longer porcelain.
No longer buried.
She walks.
And when you hear her song—
Know this:
It's in your tongue now.