…I didn't sleep.
The eye of earth drawn on my door had dried by sunrise, but it left a mark in the wood. A hollow.
As if the house had begun to breathe through it.
I didn't touch it.
I lit the fire, boiled coffee, tried to pretend life went on.
But the name on my mug was smudged.
The label on the salt jar… gone.
And when I opened my notebook, I saw the first pages were blank.
Not torn.
Not scratched out.
Erased.
My handwriting was no longer mine.
Then I understood:
Something was unraveling me.
I left the house. Wandered without direction, but my feet led me to the cemetery. As always.
Everything looked the same.
But it wasn't.
The headstones had no names.
No dates. No crosses. No flowers.
Just smooth marble.
Cold.
Anonymous.
And in the middle of the graveyard…
a hunched figure, crouched low, licking the stone of a tomb.
Yes. Licking.
I hid behind a mausoleum and watched.
Its tongue was long, gray, almost translucent. Wherever it passed, the letters vanished.
Not scratched away. Not carved off.
Devoured.
The Devourer of Names.
It had no face.
Only a mask made from scraps of other faces: misaligned eyes, sealed mouths, skin stretched and damp.
And when it rose, it turned slowly toward me.
It didn't walk.
It dragged itself with steps that never touched the ground.
It found me without looking.
And it spoke.
Not with words, but with something deeper—something that burned inside my bones:
"Your name was spoken in a place where it should not have been."
I felt something detach from my chest.
A letter.
A syllable.
I touched my chest and—
I couldn't remember my name.
My name.
It was… broken.
The Devourer extended its tongue toward me, as if it meant to lick the bones from my skin.
But then a bell rang.
Just one.
Faint.
Far away.
And the Devourer stopped.
It turned its patchwork face and vanished into the earth.
Not walking.
Sinking, as though the ground had swallowed it whole.
I stayed there, on my knees.
No voice.
No name.
Then the faceless girl appeared.
She carried a bowl filled with letters.
"Keep yours," she said, "before he comes back."
"Who is he?" I asked.
"The one who erases what's already been spoken."
She offered me the bowl.
Inside… were the letters of my name.
Not the full name.
Just fragments.
Enough to remember myself.
I took them.
Hid them in my shawl.
And she whispered:
"This time he left.
But next time… he won't knock.
He'll come for what you say out loud.
He'll come for your stories."