The first sound she made was barely a whisper, cracked and dry.
"…hello?"
The voice startled her. It came from her own throat, yet it felt borrowed—like a coat that fit perfectly but still smelled of someone else. She pressed her fingers to her lips, testing. Warm. Alive. Hers.
And not hers.
She sat up slowly. Every muscle screamed, bruises blooming under skin she didn't recognise. The body obeyed her, yes—arms lifted when she told them to, legs unfolded without hesitation—but the signals felt… delayed. Like driving a car whose steering wheel has half a second of lag. Familiar, yet wrong.
She stared at her hands.
Small scar across the left knuckle. Dirt under the nails. A faint white line on the inside of the wrist she had no story for. These were her fingers. She knew how to curl them, how hard to grip. And yet she had no idea whose memories had taught them.
(Who am I?)
The question floated in her head, calm and terrible. No name rose to answer it. No childhood street, no favourite song, no face she missed. Just a blank, polished surface where a life should have been.
She pushed the brown tangle of hair from her face and stood. The motion was smooth—her body knew balance, knew how to distribute weight—but the knowledge felt implanted, like dance steps learned in a dream.
She found the broken mirror shard in the hallway and faced it.
The reflection copied her perfectly. Bruises around the throat. Dried blood at the temple. And those eyes—bright amethyst, glowing like someone had set jewels into the sockets.
She raised a hand. The girl in the glass raised hers.
She tilted her head. The reflection tilted.
Same body. Same movements.
But the person inside was missing.
"…Who are you?" she asked the glass, voice soft, almost curious.
The stranger in the mirror mouthed the words back, violet eyes wide and empty.
A shiver crawled down her spine—hers, apparently.
She touched her cheek. The skin was warm, soft, real. She knew how to breathe with these lungs, how to blink these impossible eyes. The body remembered everything she didn't.
"I live here," she said aloud, testing the sentence. "In this skin. I must."
The words sounded true and false at the same time.
She turned away from the mirror before the hollowness swallowed her.
Weapon first. The broken chair leg felt good in her palm—weight, balance, threat. Her fingers closed around it like they'd held weapons before. Muscle memory again. Another gift from the ghost who used to own this body.
She spoke to the empty house as she scavenged, because silence was worse than talking to no one.
"Two bags… good. Clothes—too big, but warm. Knives. Always take the knives."
Every item she touched sparked a flicker of recognition without context. She knew how to test a blade's edge, how to pack a bag so nothing rattled, how to lace boots tight enough to run in.
But she didn't know why she knew.
She found a small silver ring in a drawer, plain, worn smooth. When she slipped it onto her right ring finger it fit perfectly. Her chest ached with something that should have been memory but wasn't.
She left it on anyway.
When everything useful was packed, she stood on the crooked porch and looked back at the ruined house.
"This was yours once," she told the empty rooms, voice low. "Maybe. I'm borrowing it now. The body. The skills. The life you left behind."
She adjusted the backpack, shifted the chef's knife on her belt, and tightened her grip on the chair leg.
"I don't know who I'm supposed to be," she said to the fading daylight. "But I'm not staying here to let them finish whatever they started."
She stepped onto the cracked street, amethyst eyes scanning every shadow, every broken window.
The body walked like it had places to go.
The mind inside it had no idea where to start.
But it was moving anyway.