THE ONES WHO WAITED.

" welcome back home " , the voice echoed soft yet ancient , like wind brushing through forgotten ruins. It's wasn't just quite but it was the kind of silence that pressed against her lungs , like something didn't want her to breathe.

The air was thick with the scent of damp stone and burnt roses. Shadows bled from the walls , curling around her feet as if greeting an old friend. She stood in the corridor that looked like her school but faded and papered with peeling memories and whispering echoes.

The mirror boy stood beside her , watching her with eyes that glowed faintly like moonlight in a well.

"They remember you ", he said but with a low voice. " Even if you don't ".

Somewhere ahead , a door creaked open on its own . Inside more voices stirred. "She is back " , they whispered . "After all this time she returned".

The place seemed familiar but wrong . She felt as if she was once here before. The hallway all of a sudden turns when she looks away . She then witnessed something strange on the walls , her name was curved into the walls over and over again.

She continued walking , hoping eventually she could see more but as she walked past a desk ..... her name was scratched into the wood in a child's handwriting , again and again and again.

She passed a crowed of spirits. They stopped her inoder to welcome her but others retreat in fear when she stepped forward to thank them . She then hears her own voice echoing before she even spoke. Suddenly one of them took her hands in hers. She then whispered " You left us hear ... why did you leave us here??? . Her voice was pleading in agony.

She looked back at the " mirror boy " who followed her in silence as if he signed up for bodyguard role before she could agree to transpass into this world. He couldn't even dare to look into her eyes. She decided to move closer to him and touched his hands whispering " can you please explain to me what is going on here ? "

The strange thing is that he flinched when she touched him and distance himself

Away from her. He is afraid of what she might remember. " You shouldn't remember yet ," he muttered in a low voice. " lt's not safe when you remember " .

She decided to ignore what happened and continued with what she was doing. She then passed a room that was completely dark but she felt as if something inside it was breathing. Another room suddenly played a lullaby , the song felt familiar to her but she couldn't remember where and when she heard it from .

She then saw a door having a teeth instead of a hinges on it . She decided to go near it so that she could be able to observe it more clearly but the door trembled as she neared it , it wasn't from the wind but from something alive behind it. She decided not to enter inside it as it might awakened the sleeping spirit.

She then saw an old painting on the frame which was sticked onto the wall and somehow it resembling her , but it was aged , regal and broken . All of a sudden she saw a figure stepped through the mist , it was taller and sharper wrapped in shadows that clung to him like armor. His presence made the air to grow still , even the spirit around them seemed to retreat.

His eyes looked into her . Cold . Familiar. Hungry. "Enough of the view ", he said , the voice was low but commanding. " You don't belong here, not with him" . The mirror boy stepped forward protectively, arms stretched slightly infront of her . "She is not ready , don't take her there".

But the second boy didn't stopped. He turned his head towards the gathering spirit, voice cutting towards the fog like blade."Why didn't any of you tell me ", he growled " that my wife has returned?". The word wife slammed into her like a thunderclap. Her breath caught.

Wife ?

She stared at him frozen while her heart pounding like it was trying to wake her from a dream . "No ...." the mirror boy whispered, eyes wide . "She doesn't remember ". But it was too late . With a flash of cold light , the second boy struck. The mirror boy dropped to one knee , his glow flickering violently.

A cold hand wrapped around her wrist. "come ," he said . "I will take you were you truly belong ". And without a word, he pulled her into the heart of the spirit world, deeper than she could ever imagined.