By the time I stumbled back to the village, the sun was rising—but the air was colder than it should've been.
Dead leaves lay in perfect spirals across the ground.
The birds had stopped singing.
And every dog in the village sat facing the shrine.
Staring.
Mouths closed. Ears flat.
Silent.
Like they were waiting for something.
Or someone.
---
I went straight to Nok's hut.
But the hanging cloth at the door had been ripped down.
The charms were broken.
Scattered across the floor like someone had torn through them.
Inside… she was gone.
No blood.
No sign of struggle.
Just silence.
And mirrors.
---
Seven of them.
Tall, narrow, crooked.
Each leaned against the bamboo walls, reflecting different angles of the room.
Except they didn't show me.
Not fully.
In each mirror, my reflection was off.
Wrong clothes.
Different hair.
Eyes too wide, or too dull, or completely missing.
Each one… a different version of me.
---
I stepped forward.
Touched the glass.
Cold.
Solid.
But in the mirror, my reflection smiled.
Even though I didn't.
Then she whispered:
> "One must forget to be forgiven."
> "One must bleed to be reborn."
---
I stumbled back.
The mirror didn't follow.
But another one did.
The one across the room blinked.
My reflection moved before I did.
Like it was remembering something I hadn't done yet.
Or like it had already lived through this moment before.
---
> "Nok?" I called out. "Are you here?"
> "Please—something's happening. I need your help!"
---
No answer.
But behind the largest mirror, I found a wall scratched full of names.
Fingernail-deep. Carved in panic.
Some were full names. Others were fragments.
All of them… female.
All of them slowly fading—the lower they were on the wall, the more eroded they looked.
Except one, at the top.
Fresh.
Red.
My name.
> "ANYA."
Carved just hours ago.
---
My knees gave out. I sat in the middle of the hut, surrounded by these strange, watching versions of myself, and for the first time in years—I wept.
I wept like a child.
Not because I was scared.
But because I felt unreal.
Unanchored.
Like my memories were draining out through my fingertips and something else was replacing them.
---
And then I heard it again.
The whispering.
But this time… it came from the glass.
All of them.
All seven mirrors began to ripple.
Like water.
Like mouths whispering in reverse.
Until they all hissed in unison:
> "Your name is borrowed."
> "Return it."
> "Or we will take what it replaced."
---
Suddenly, I saw flashes.
Images I'd never seen before—but felt as though I should have:
A child floating in a bowl of black water.
A fire in the temple that no one remembered.
My mother, cutting a red thread with her teeth.
The girl beneath the banyan, screaming without sound.
---
I screamed and covered my ears.
The room tilted.
The mirrors began to crack—not shatter—just fracture along fault lines that made the reflections even more monstrous.
One version of me had no mouth.
Another had a third eye that bled.
Another had hands made entirely of tongues.
---
Then a voice louder than the rest cut through the noise:
> "THE GOD WANTS A NAME."
> "THE SHRINE IS HUNGRY."
> "GIVE BACK WHAT WAS NEVER YOURS."
---
I ran.
Out of the hut.
Down the path.
Through the jungle until my lungs felt like they'd burst.
But I didn't go home.
I went to the temple.
To the one person left who might understand.
Luang Pho Niran.
---
He was still there.
Still cross-legged in the center of the prayer hall, surrounded by candles.
Only now… he was crying.
Thick, black tears that left streaks on his orange robe.
His tongue was still gone.
But he reached into his robes and pulled out a bundle.
A small wooden effigy.
It looked like a child.
Wrapped in red cloth.
No face. Just a name carved along the side:
> "Kamala."
---
I stared at it.
> "My mother."
> "She was the first, wasn't she?"
> "She made the pact."
> "And now it's breaking."
---
He nodded.
Then handed me a second bundle.
Smaller.
Still warm.
Inside, wrapped in silk, was a needle.
Old.
Bone-carved.
Still stained with blood.
At the bottom of the silk, written in the same looping script from the journal:
> "To seal the name, pierce the breath."
---
I looked up at him.
> "You want me to sew my mouth shut?"
> "To stop the name from escaping?"
---
He nodded again.
This time with a deep sadness in his eyes.
As if he wasn't asking.
As if he was pleading.
---
And then he held up his hand.
Five fingers.
Then slowly, one by one, he bent them down.
Until only one was left.
One soul.
One name.
One girl.
Me.
---
> "I don't want to disappear," I whispered.
> "I didn't ask for this."
> "I didn't steal her voice."
---
He placed a hand on my shoulder.
Trembling.
Weak.
But filled with a warmth that pulsed like memory.
Then, slowly, he reached into a satchel beside him… and handed me a mirror.
Cracked.
Clouded.
But mine.
My face.
And beneath it—written in red thread across the glass:
> "Not stolen. Shared."