The Gift She Left Behind

"You weren't just beautiful…"

His lips barely moved, but the words landed heavy, drawn from the deepest vault of longing. His jaw clenched harder. The reflection stared back unblinking.

"…you were the moment everything else disappeared."

The mirror felt alive. Not its surface, but what hid behind it. The version of himself inside—he wasn't breathing. He wasn't blinking. He was watching. As if waiting for permission to rise, or for time to fall apart.

Her scent returned first. Light. Familiar. The quiet pull of warmth left behind in a room only minutes after she left it. Then the sound of her walking. The whisper of her voice. The words she never got to say—and the ones he never dared to.

"You walked as if flowers bloomed to keep up. You spoke as if silence itself was listening."

His knees weakened.

The face in the mirror had changed. It was still him. But now—her eyes.

The shape of them. The impossible depth. The colors that never belonged to the human palette: gold bleeding into white, layered like stories—brownish gold ringed like a seal, and in the center, a darker, godlike flame. Not fire, but time. Compressed into an iris.

He reached for the mirror. His fingers touched glass—and then something else.

Not warmth. Not cold.

Contact.

He traced her lips—not her reflection. Her. The skin felt real. The chill that met his skin was not lifeless. It pulsed. It breathed. A beat—steady, strong—grazed his fingers like a kiss from the other side. The image blinked.

His body leaned in.

He should have pulled back. But he didn't. Couldn't. The mirror no longer separated—it welcomed. His skin tingled. His chest pressed close enough to feel a breath that wasn't his. Her breath.

His hand splayed wide, flat against the glass, fingers tracing the edges of her face as if trying to hold her together, keep her from slipping through him. But the glass rippled, not with heat or force, but memory. It wasn't a mirror anymore. It was a veil.

And then the voices came.

Not around him.

Within.

Whispers. Echoes of her—her laughter upstairs, her murmur beneath the sheets, the sound her feet made against old wood, the hush in her throat when she leaned in close enough to be real. She was everywhere in this house. Had always been. Long before her body was gone. Her presence never left—it had just sunk deeper.

It was unbearable.

And it was holy.

He leaned his forehead to the glass.

And the mirror blinked.

The air thickened, as if something moved behind it—an eye, a breath, the brush of fabric. Her hand? His? The memory? He couldn't tell anymore.

Then came the collapse.

Not of the mirror—but of him. Into it.

Not physically. Not yet.

But his soul gave way. As if the man on the other side had reached forward, taken the reins of his body, and whispered, "Let go."

He did.

The room lost shape. The weight of grief folded inwards. Tears didn't fall—they suspended. His body felt wrapped in something that was both water and smoke. He couldn't breathe—not because he was choking, but because the air had turned sacred. This wasn't memory. This was visitation.

Her eyes looked at him, steady and infinite, saying all the things they never said aloud. A presence bigger than desire. Bigger than love. Something older.

And she smiled.

Not sad. Not longing.

Knowing.

Then everything thinned—her lips, her warmth, the touch of her eyes.

Gone.

As if she had stepped back.

As if she'd shown him what she came to show… and left again.

He opened his eyes.

The mirror was just a mirror.

His reflection stared back.

The air had cooled. The room was silent again.

But something had changed.

Inside the reflection's gaze, something lingered. Not her. Not fully. But not entirely gone either. As if she had marked him.

A parting kiss made of time.

And just beneath the glass, in the faintest sheen left by breath or soul or memory, five words remained:

"I never really left you."

His breath fogged the mirror where his lips had once met hers.

Now, only the outline of his own mouth remained, smeared in mist and loss. Tear streaks traced silver lines down his cheeks and along his bare chest, as if drawn by invisible hands—delicate, familiar. A woman's touch. But she was gone. And yet, somehow, she wasn't.

The room stilled around him. The mirror, once just a surface, had become a portal—reflecting not just his face but a twin, deeper self. One that hadn't fully returned from where he'd gone. Her shadow clung to him, stitched into the fibers of his memory, fused to his soul like something ritualistic. Not even death could part them now.

"All will be well," he whispered, and the mirror whispered back—not in echo, but in agreement.

A ripple of warmth spread through the room as if his voice carried the weight of seasons—fire, storm, breath, and tide woven into a single promise. The air held its breath. The silence turned sacred.

He let the cloak fall, the belt loosen, the garments drop like layers of armor shed. Naked, raw, he stepped into the water.

But this was no ordinary bath.

The tub stretched like a cradle for the broken—a sanctuary shaped for those who carried grief in their marrow. The wood accepted his weight with a sigh, and water flowed in steady, reverent streams from all four corners. It rose to meet him, warm and heavy, until his body floated—a temple submerged.

He reached for the red stone.

It pulsed faintly in the glass bowl, warm to the touch, slippery and reluctant as if resisting contact. But he pressed it to his chest, and something deep beneath the surface stirred. The water thickened, bubbled, darkened. Foam crowned the tub in crimson froth, and for a moment, it looked like blood blooming in ritual.

"Drip. Drip. Drip."

Later, he rose from the red-stained water, his skin glistening, slick with something ancient. The wooden floor shone beneath his feet, puddled with water that gleamed like oil beneath the flickering bulb. With each step, he left a trail—like some newly-forged thing stepping into the world for the first time.

He collapsed onto the bed without drying himself. No blanket. No cloth. Just flesh against cool linen. His limbs sprawled, lifeless. His chest moved—but barely. The room buzzed faintly with electricity and memory. And still, the door stood open.

He lay there, staring upward until his vision blurred. The bulb's glow fractured into streaks of grey and violet. Shapes melted. Time folded.

Then—

"Hun. I've got a gift for you."