Through the Skin of Reality

I hadn't touched a mirror in three days.

Not because I feared what I'd see—but because I feared what might stare back and decide I didn't belong anymore.

My apartment was no longer mine. The walls had absorbed too many whispers, the corners held their own gravity. Even the air smelled heavier, as if reality was curdling just beneath the surface.

Still, I stayed.

She hadn't spoken since the livestream, but she hadn't vanished either. Her presence now lingered like background radiation: invisible but inevitable.

At 2:44 a.m. on the fourth night, something changed.

My phone turned on by itself—not just the screen, but everything. Apps opened, camera engaged, the front lens aimed straight at me while I lay frozen in bed. No sound. No image. Just that slow, digital breath. Then the screen dimmed… and displayed a message.

Not a text.

A *location pin.*

Somewhere I hadn't been since childhood.

---

The map showed an abandoned colonial villa near Bukit Timah. My parents used to drive past it on the way to my grandmother's house. Overgrown. Shuttered. Forgotten.

Except now, someone—or something—wanted me there.

I took a cab before dawn. Said nothing to the driver. When I arrived, the villa loomed like a question the city forgot to answer. A crumbling façade choked by vines, rusted gates pried half-open by time.

I stepped inside.

The scent of mold and burnt incense hit me instantly. A strange combination. I recognized the incense. **Frangipani.**

The interior was hollow. Debris and dust blanketed the floor, yet there were footprints. Bare, small, as if a child had danced barefoot in a circle again and again. I followed them into the main hall, where I found a single object in the center of the room:

A mirror.

Round.

Framed in cracked gold.

But it wasn't reflecting me.

It was showing **the villa from the outside**, under moonlight.

Then the image shifted.

I saw myself… arriving.

Then again.

And again.

I blinked.

The mirror wasn't showing a reflection.

It was showing **loops**.

Realities where I kept coming back, always drawn to the same spot, always choosing to enter.

And in each one… I disappeared.

---

A voice called out from the corridor.

Not hers.

A man's.

Crisp. Dry. Singaporean accent laced with something older.

"You're not the first."

I turned. A figure stood in the doorway, not cloaked in mystery or shadow, just... *present.* His clothes were plain. His face pale. Eyes unreadable.

"You saw her," he said. "And she saw you."

I nodded slowly.

"She's not alone," he added. "None of them are. She's only the loudest."

He walked toward the mirror, placed a single finger on its surface. The glass rippled.

"You opened the temple," he said. "But temples aren't just buildings. They're stories."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"A witness," he replied. "Like you."

He reached into his jacket and handed me something.

A coin.

On one side: an eye.

On the other: a mouth stitched shut.

"Keep this with you," he said. "You'll need to choose."

"Choose what?"

But he was already gone.

---

I returned home just before sunrise. The apartment was cold. Not in temperature, but tone. Like walking into a memory you never had.

I placed the coin on the desk, sat in silence.

Then she returned.

No smell.

No flicker.

Just **presence.**

She didn't appear in the mirror this time.

She appeared **behind my eyes.**

And she whispered.

> "The others are waking. I was the beginning. But there are more."

> "Where?" I asked aloud.

> "Everywhere people forget."

I didn't sleep.

Instead, I opened my laptop.

There was a new file. Unnamed. Unopened.

I clicked.

Dozens of images filled the screen.

Old ruins.

Faces blurred by time.

Eyes scratched out in photographs.

Each image pulsed like a heartbeat.

Then the screen went black.

---

The next week became a blur.

I stopped working. My job became irrelevant. I stopped checking email. Stopped answering texts. People stopped knocking. I think I stopped existing for anyone except her.

Not because she erased me—but because she'd **redirected** me.

And then something else happened.

She showed me what she **used to be.**

---

The vision was unlike any dream. It was architectural. Geometric. A language made of space and light.

She stood at the center of a circle, surrounded by symbols I couldn't recognize but somehow *understood*. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. Her hands drew shapes in the air—blessing, binding, beckoning.

Then fire.

Then ropes.

Then burial.

But not death.

Suspension.

She hadn't died.

She had been **paused.**

And now… resumed.

---

I began seeing signs in other people.

A man on the MRT stared too long at his own reflection.

A woman at a hawker center whispered to an empty seat, then smiled like she'd been answered.

A boy, no older than seven, drew circles on a napkin and whispered a name I hadn't said aloud.

We were all syncing.

All seeing.

Not possession. **Permission.**

She had opened the door, but we were holding it.

And behind it?

Others.

---

I visited Pak Ketut in a dream.

He sat by a fire. Smoking. Eyes tired.

"You should have closed it," he said.

"I didn't know how," I replied.

"No one does. That's the point. That's why it worked."

He looked at me.

"There's one more place," he said. "One more truth."

"Where?"

He leaned forward.

"Inside her."

---

When I woke up, the coin was gone.

In its place: a small slip of paper with a time and coordinates.

I checked.

A temple ruin off the coast of Nusa Penida.

Abandoned. Flooded. Sealed to tourists for decades.

The next day, I booked a flight back.

---

The crossing to Nusa Penida felt longer than I remembered.

The water darkened midway, as if the ocean knew where I was headed.

I found a guide willing to take me halfway.

He dropped me near the jungle, pointed inland.

"I won't go further," he said. "Too many eyes."

I walked alone.

The jungle was quiet.

Too quiet.

Even the insects refused to speak.

I found the ruin by instinct. I didn't use the GPS. I didn't need to. The land pulled me.

And when I saw it, I knew.

Not because of the carvings.

Not because of the shrine.

But because **my name was etched into the gate.**

Not in Latin script.

But in a symbol I had drawn once, years ago, during a fever dream.

---

Inside the temple, time folded.

I can't explain it any other way.

There were no walls.

Only memories stacked as bricks.

I walked through visions like corridors.

Each step a lifetime.

I saw her.

As a child.

As a priestess.

As a prisoner.

As a story.

As me.

She didn't speak.

She didn't need to.

Because by then, I understood.

She was never asking to be remembered.

She was asking to be **continued**.

---

At the center of the temple was a basin.

Filled with water.

Still.

Unmoving.

I leaned in.

Saw my face.

Then hers.

Then ours.

And then I heard the breath again.

Not just hers.

**Mine.**

It matched.

One inhale.

One exhale.

One heartbeat.

One purpose.

---

When I left the temple, I left the name I was born with behind.

Not legally.

Not publicly.

But spiritually.

I had become what she needed.

A vessel, yes.

But not empty.

A keeper.

A *reminder.*

That forgotten doesn't mean gone.

That erased doesn't mean ended.

That silence doesn't mean surrender.

---

Now, when people ask why I write these stories, I don't say much.

I just tell them this:

"Some truths echo. Others demand to be spoken."

And when I hear the fra

ngipani on the wind, I know…

She's listening too.

---

✅ *If you want Chapter 27, leave a comment, follow this story, and save it to your collection. Her story isn't done. And neither is yours.