21. VI.
VI.
MATTEO
“This ends here, Morena. It is only you and me .”
The mirror groaned as I tore it from the wall.
The glass fogged as though it breathed on its own.
I set it on the floor. I pulled her by her chains, and when I shoved her forward, she fell.
Her limbs flailed in silence as she fell into the darkness.
I waited for the echo, but what came was just one sharp, sickening thud.
Then her face pressed against the other side. Skin sagged and peeled away in soft strips. Her eyes, white and hollow now, sank deeper into their caves. A mouth full of gray gums split open and sang:
“Oh, Death… say my name three times.”
She lost her beauty. She was just a story now.
I turned away.
That is the trick, is it not? Do not feed the thing. Do not give it attention. Bury the story in silence, and the silence swallows it whole. I wrapped the mirror in the folds of my robe and carried it outside, and dropped it to the muddy ground. The glass sank beneath the mud, disappearing.
And still, I knew. One day, she would crawl back out. They always do.
But Death had already loosened its grip on me. What I saw then was worse. I saw life unfolding, endless futures pressing forward, visions too wide to bear. A thousand tomorrows pulsed inside my skull, each one with an end more tragic than the last.
When you believe in ghosts, you begin to believe in everything else.
Morena’s story spread like an infection.
Lips twisted it and tongues bruised it. Every story cut her into new shapes until she was no longer herself.
A girl murdered by her own blood. A heart cracked before it could love.
And those who die empty don’t rest. They return, not as memories but as rage, haunting.
She had a gift once. I believed I could shape it, bend it, make it mine. Instead, I made a nightmare, and the nightmare learned how to walk.
So I hid. I learned how to live again. I walked among the living with the same name and a borrowed heartbeat.
Not as Death.
As Matteo De La Cruz.