Some lies don't stay buried~ especially if the dead can still hear them.
"Can you still see her?"
The question caught in the air like a knife balanced on its edge.
For a moment, I couldn't tell who had spoken. The sound didn't seem to belong to anyone in the room. Then my colleague ,Dr. Ames, shifted in his chair, pen poised over a notepad, eyes studying me with that sterile, professional calm psychologists use when they're waiting for someone else to crack.
I blinked twice, pretending to think.
"No," I said. My voice came out rougher than I meant.
A flicker behind my right eye made me wince. My hand went up to rub the twitch away.
Ames nodded slowly, wrote something down. "Good," he said. "Good to hear."
But his tone didn't sound convinced.
I didn't blame him.
Neither was I.
The silence that followed stretched too long, heavy with things neither of us wanted to touch. I could hear the tick of the clock above the door; steady, indifferent, like a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
Outside the window, autumn was thinning the light. The campus looked almost skeletal this time of year, bare trees clawing at a grey sky, students moving like ghosts under umbrellas. The sound of rain softened everything beyond the glass, as if the world itself were wrapped in gauze.
Ames cleared his throat. "How's your sleep been?"
I forced a smile. "Fine. Getting better."
Another lie.
He looked up from his notes. "Nightmares still there?"
"Not as vivid."
That one was only half a lie.
They weren't vivid anymore. They were real, so seamless that I only realized I was dreaming when I woke up and the air in my bedroom still smelled like smoke.
He gave me a long, searching look. The kind that felt like it could peel you open. "You know, Ethan, it's okay if you're still seeing things. Grief and trauma, especially mixed with guilt, can manifest in visual distortions. That doesn't mean you're losing touch with reality."
He said it kindly, but the word guilt landed with surgical precision.
He didn't need to name her.
He never did.
I stood, cutting him off with the motion, tugged my coat over my shoulders. "I appreciate it, Ames. Really. But I'm fine. I'm ready to get back to work."
He hesitated, then nodded. "If you're sure."
"I'm sure."
I wasn't.
The corridors outside the office were almost empty. My footsteps echoed off the polished floor, hollow and uneven. Somewhere far off, a door slammed, and I flinched. Too loud. Too sudden. Too much like that night.
I forced the thought away before it could finish forming.
The smell of disinfectant clung to everything; too clean, too sharp. It reminded me of the hospital ward where I'd signed the report six months ago. Cause of death: self-inflicted trauma. I could still see the way the words looked on paper. The shaky signature at the bottom was mine.
Clara Vale.
Twenty-six years old.
Brilliant, fragile, obsessed with mirrors.
I hadn't said her name out loud since the funeral.
By the time I reached my office, dusk had settled in. The key resisted the lock, as if even the door didn't want me back. When it finally turned, the faint smell of dust and old coffee drifted out; a stale ghost of the life I'd paused and never resumed.
Everything was exactly as I'd left it.
Desk. Shelves. The chair where she used to sit.
I froze in the doorway.
The chair.
It wasn't quite facing the desk.
It was turned slightly to the side, angled toward the wall where the mirror hung.
I didn't remember leaving it that way.
My pulse tapped against my throat.
It's nothing, I told myself. The janitor must've moved it when they cleaned.
Except they hadn't cleaned. Six months of dust said no one had touched anything.
I closed the door behind me and stood for a while in the dimness, letting my eyes adjust. The light outside was dying fast. The fluorescent overhead hummed faintly, but I didn't switch it on. The gloom felt… safer. Like if I stayed quiet enough, the memories wouldn't notice me.
My desk lamp flickered when I reached for it. The bulb buzzed, then steadied, throwing a small circle of gold over my notes and patient files. The faint hum of the heater kicked in, warm air stirring a few old sticky notes into motion.
On the top one, written in my handwriting, were three words:
Remember the mirror.
My chest tightened.
I didn't remember writing that.
The mirror itself was an old one,framed in dark wood, glass slightly warped with age. Clara used to sit facing it during our sessions, claiming she could see "what's underneath the skin" when she looked long enough. She said it wasn't about beauty or vanity. It was truth.
I'd dismissed it as metaphor.
Now I wasn't so sure.
I sat down, letting the chair creak under my weight. The silence in the office was thick, almost alive. I could hear the faint scratch of rain against the window, the faraway hum of traffic below.
Then,something else.
A whisper.
At first, I thought it was the heater, or maybe the wind catching the frame. But the sound was too soft, too deliberate. It came from near the mirror,like breath against glass.
I froze.
"…Liar…"
It was barely audible. A rasp more than a word.
But I heard it.
The room seemed to contract around me. My heart slammed once, hard enough to hurt.
I stared at the mirror. My reflection stared back,same posture, same frightened eyes. Nothing moved.
I must've imagined it.
Of course I did.
Ames had just said it,grief, trauma, distortion. My brain filling silence with ghosts.
That was all.
I exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over my face.
I hadn't slept more than four hours a night since the accident. The meds didn't help,they just dulled the edges until I couldn't tell where exhaustion ended and hallucination began.
Still, I found myself speaking into the empty air.
"Clara?" I whispered before I could stop myself.
No answer.
Just the low buzz of the light, the hiss of the heater.
I stood and crossed to the mirror. My reflection followed, slightly lagged by half a heartbeat or maybe my eyes were just tired. The glass was cold beneath my fingertips.
"It's not real," I murmured. "It's not..."
The whisper came again. Closer this time.
"…Liar…"
I stumbled back, knocking over a stack of papers. My heel caught the edge of the rug, and I almost fell. The sound of my own ragged breathing filled the room.
Silence followed. Long and total.
I stared at the mirror for what felt like minutes. Nothing. No voice. No movement.
Finally, I laughed,sharp, humorless. "Lack of sleep," I told the empty office. "Classic auditory projection."
But even as I said it, something inside me,the part that still dreamed in smoke and screams,knew better.
Because the whisper hadn't sounded like Clara.
It had sounded like me.