Ela had just turned nineteen, an age where she felt suspended between girlhood and adulthood. Her world was small but warm—shared laughter with her younger sibling Zius, quiet evenings studying, and the familiar rhythm of a home where nothing unexpected ever seemed to happen.
That changed the day the maid arrived.
Her name was Mira. She appeared on their doorstep with a polite smile, claiming to be nineteen, just like Ela. But there was something odd in the way she said it, something too practiced. Her eyes seemed older—sharp, calculating—though her face wore a softness that made the lie believable to everyone else.
Within days, Mira had woven herself into every corner of the household. She spoke sweetly to Ela's parents, praised their cooking, and insisted on taking over every task Ela used to do. Slowly, almost invisibly, she slid into Ela's place—cleaning her room, setting her table, even choosing what music played in the house.
And whenever their parents weren't watching, her smile vanished.
Mira carried herself like royalty trapped in a servant's job, always lifting her chin just slightly higher than necessary, as if the air she breathed was finer than everyone else's. She whispered cruel things—about Ela's clothes, her grades, her dreams—so quietly that if Ela told anyone, it would sound like a childish overreaction.
But the worst was how she treated Zius.
Sometimes, when the hallway was empty and the house quiet, Mira's voice turned sharp as a knife. Ela once heard the crack of leather from behind the storage room door and Zius's muffled yelp. When she burst in, Mira froze, a leather belt in her hand, her expression smooth and unbothered.