Page 70 of The Flesh Remembers
I cannot stop thinking about him.
James. The clinic. The garden that should not exist but does.
Each morning, I swear I will not return.
And each night, I feel him pulling me back.
He is behind me. Always behind me. A shadow at the edges of my sight, a presence I cannot shake. I feel him watching.
Waiting.
I know he wants me to return. His voice is silent, but it threads into my bones. He calls to me without words, and my body listens.
I want to go.
I want to give in.
I want to let it take me.
But I fear what waits beyond that threshold, what I will become if I step forward.
I do not want to lose all of myself.
But perhaps I already have.
Beg for Mercy
It began little by little. She felt something different, but Eleanor initially tried to ignore it. She tried to continue with the pretence of normalcy, but with each passing day, it grew harder and harder to ignore what was happening.
Her hand would pick up her hairbrush just a second before she decided to brush her hair. Her lips would say a word in a language she did not know, but somehow, she could understand it. And then there was the mirror.
She hadn’t looked in a mirror since she left the clinic. Not properly.
But here she was, staring at herself in the full-length mirror in the corner. She usually draped one of her shawls over it toavoid seeing her reflection, but the shawl was nowhere to be seen tonight.
Her body moved, and her voice still came when called, but everything felt distant, like her limbs belonged to someone else, like she was a passenger in a skin that still remembered how to behave.
Now, standing in the dim quiet of her quarters, she felt the urge crawl up her spine.
Look.
Just look.
She turned toward the mirror. The room behind her was bathed in candlelight. But the mirror, something about it, seemed darker, duller, as if it didn’t reflect light the same way anymore.
She took one hesitant step. The floorboards didn’t creak. Her reflection waited. Still. Patient.
Eleanor stopped three paces away. Her breath was shallow and sharp in her chest. A drop of sweat slid down her temple. She balled her fists, clutching them close to her heart to stop them from violently shaking.
And in the mirror, her reflection… didn’t.
She blinked. It did not. Only a second later, as if remembering it should. Her stomach dropped.
The candles to her left flickered, twisting toward her like they’d caught a draft, but there was no wind. She took another step closer.
The mirror offered her back. Same face, same body, same burn mark beneath the collarbone. But something about theeyes wastoo still, too aware, like something inside them had stopped pretending to be her.
She whispered, “I’m still me.” The reflection blinked, on time, this time, but the corner of its mouth twitched. A smile. Subtle. Almost indulgent.
