Ira stood frozen, staring at her duplicate.

  Same face. Same coat. Same terrified eyes—but the smile was wrong. Too calm. Too knowing.

  The other Ira tilted her head, as if listening to something distant and low.

  “The Kala let me remember,” she said, softly.

  “I saw the old village. I saw what we were. What we did.”

  She took a step forward, her boots silent against the dead leaves.

  “You weren’t supposed to come back. You were supposed to fade like the rest.”

  The trees around them shivered—not from wind, but from movement beneath. A deep, shifting pressure, like something massive turning under the earth.

  “Why do you look like me?” Ira demanded, her voice cracking.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The other Ira chuckled.

  “You keep asking the wrong questions.”

  Then she held out the stone in her palm.

  It pulsed again—once—then shattered with a sharp crack, sending a fine black dust into the air.

  Ira gasped.

  The forest around her responded instantly.

  The ground quivered. The fog thickened, twisting in spirals.

  And then, from the spaces between the trees, figures began to appear.

  Not walking.

  Just... forming.

  As if they’d always been there, waiting to be noticed.

  Some were tall. Some were bent, broken-limbed. Their faces were incomplete—eyes but no mouths, mouths but no skin, old faces she’d seen in Ama’s photographs.

  They circled slowly, but didn’t approach.

  “Do you feel it?” the other Ira whispered.

  “The forgetting is wearing off.”

  Ira turned and ran—branches clawing at her sleeves—desperate for anything familiar.

  She didn’t notice the black veins beginning to spread beneath her skin.