The face in the mirror was mine. But it wasn't.
The hollows under my eyes were less pronounced, filled out by years I hadn't lived. A faint web of lines—not from stress, but from something else, something like sun or laughter—framed my eyes. My hair was shorter, neater, styled in a way I would never bother with. This was the face of a Rafael Sakda who had eaten regularly, slept through the night, and hadn't had his soul fractured by a god.
This was the face of a man who had a wife.
The thought was a cold stone in the warm, alien water of this body's gut. My gut. Our gut.
"Master?" Zephyra's voice, a melody of concerned air currents, came from the doorway. "The Lady is on her way. She was in the sun-gardens when she felt you stir."
Felt me stir. Not was told. Felt.
Panic, my oldest and most familiar friend, began to thaw the ice in my veins. This wasn't my body. This wasn't my life. This was a gilded cage made of polished wood and gentle breezes. I was a ghost wearing a skin that didn't fit, and the real owner's wife was coming to collect him.
I backed away from the mirror, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against ribs that felt too strong, too whole. The sensory overload was unbearable. I could taste the sweetness of the pollen drifting in from the open window, hear the hum of the very crystals in the walls. This body was a finely tuned instrument, and I was a fumbling child smashing my hands against its strings.
The door to the chamber whispered open, not on hinges, but on a sigh of wind.
And she was there.
She was tall, willowy, with hair the colour of twilight and eyes that held the deep, quiet gravity of a forest pool. She wore a simple gown of woven moss-green fabric that seemed to drink the light. She wasn't just beautiful; she was a part of this place, an extension of its serene and impossible peace. Her aura wasn't one of hope or silence or fear. It was... stability. A deep, rooted calm.
She raised a hand, brushing it against my cheek.
"Rafael,"
She whispered.
"How are you?
Do you feel a little bit better...?"
My eyes widened;
i backed away ever so slightly.
"W-who are you..."
I asked, my voice trembling.
Her perfect lips parted. She said a name. It should have been a word, a sound. But it wasn't. It hit my ears and my mind refused to hold it. It slipped away, distorted, like a radio signal through a storm of static. It was beautiful and meaningless all at once.
A flicker of something sharp and cold passed behind her eyes. Gone instantly, replaced by a deeper, more poignant worry. She cupped my face, forcing my panicked eyes to meet her serene ones.
"You've known me for a hundred years."
I stumbled back, the world tilting. "I… I need air."
"Of course you do,"
she soothed, her hand finding the small of my back, guiding me firmly. Her touch was not a suggestion.
"The gardens will calm your spirit. The sunlight here has a way of mending fractured memories."
She led me from the room, her presence an inescapable force. We walked down a hallway of living wood and singing crystal. Every step felt wrong in this healthy, powerful body. I could feel the cold serpent of my despair coiling tight in its new, unwelcome home, hissing at the warmth and light.
We reached an archway flowing with vines. Beyond it, a garden exploded in colors that had no name. Two suns hung in a lavender sky. The air smelled of impossible flowers.
I sat on a bench of warm, smooth stone, the deep perfume of the impossible flowers filling my lungs. The light from the twin suns was warm on my skin, a gentle, loving caress. The air hummed with a soft, magical energy that seeped into this borrowed body, relaxing muscles I didn't know were tense.
For the first time in my entire life, I felt... calm. The constant, aching emptiness in my chest was quiet, soothed by the overwhelming peace of this place. The memories of chains and monsters and the void felt like a bad dream, fading quickly in the brilliant, serene light.
I felt happy.
It was a foreign, terrifyingly pleasant sensation. A drug more potent than any draught.
I let out a breath I felt like I'd been holding for a century. Maybe this was it. Maybe deletion wasn't an end, but a reward. A chance to finally have the life I'd never had. To be whole.
She sat beside me, a silent, comforting presence. Gently, she rested her head on my shoulder. It was a gesture of such effortless intimacy that it shattered the last of my defenses. In the distance, birds sang a melody that seemed to harmonize with the very light itself.
And I started to cry.
Not sobs of panic or fear. Just a quiet, profound release. A single tear traced a path down this healthier cheek, followed by another.
It wasn't the garden's beauty or her touch that broke me. It was the crushing, undeniable truth that settled over me like a weight.
This was real. This peace. This wholeness. It was attainable.
But not for me.
I was the error. The flaw in the pattern. The one broken reflection in a hall of perfect mirrors. Every other version of Rafael Sakda in the multiverse had found their way here, to some version of this peace, this love.
And I was the only one who had gotten it wrong. My life was the only one that had broken. I was the sole, lonely occupant of my own personal hell, and my deletion had been a cosmic mercy.
The happiness I felt wasn't mine. It was his. This body's. This other Raf's.
And i just... couldn't help but feel alive, for the first time, ever.