"Some goodbyes don't close the door. They open the way."
—-------
The air in Clara's apartment felt… wrong.
Still. Too still.
Like the room was waiting to exhale.
She pushed open the door slowly, Gustav behind her.
Moonlight poured through the windows, silvering everything. The floorboards didn't creak the way they usually did. Even the hum of the old refrigerator was gone.
"Naomi?" Clara called softly.
No answer.
But something was… different.
The mirror in the hallway—the one that always distorted her reflection just a little—was blank. Not broken. Not covered.
Just... empty.
Like it refused to remember her anymore.
Gustav stepped in beside her. "Do you feel that?"
Clara nodded. "It's too quiet."
Then she saw it.
On the living room window:
A breath mark.
Not fog. Not condensation.
A perfect oval of warm breath on cold glass—delicately human, impossibly still.
And inside that breath mark, drawn with the faintest finger swipe: a symbol.
A spiral.
But this one was different. At its center: 3:13.
The time.
Clara froze. "She was here."
Gustav approached the window. The air was freezing, but the breath print hadn't faded.
That's when they saw it — along the rest of the glass.
More drawings.
Barely visible until they moved closer.
Lines etched by breath and fingertip. Fragile. Already beginning to fade.
A map.
A spiral staircase, a black stone archway. A doorway with no hinges.
At the bottom: a phrase.
"She's waiting where mirrors don't speak."
Clara's breath hitched.
Naomi was beginning to fade, the outline of her body trembling like a candle's edge just before it gives out. But her eyes — they burned.
"Naomi… what are you?" Clara asked. "Why do I feel like you've always been a step ahead of me?"
Naomi tilted her head, a wistful smile crossing her lips.
"Because I was meant to be you," she said softly. "But the mirror refused."
Clara blinked. "What…?"
Naomi's voice turned thinner, but not weaker — like glass cutting light.
"I was the eighth Clara. The one who chose not to feel. Not to fall in love. Not to remember. I asked the mirror to let me live without the ache."
"But mirrors only reflect pain when it comes with longing. I had none. So the mirror left me out."
Clara staggered backward. "You're saying… you're me?"
Naomi nodded once. "A version that never loved Gustav. Not because I didn't meet him. I did. But I turned away. I walked past him. I refused the tether before it formed."
Her voice broke, but not with sorrow. With clarity.
"So I never hurt. I never bled. I never shattered."
"And the mirror — it didn't know what to do with me. A Clara who didn't burn."
Her hand trembled, barely light anymore.
"So it placed me between lives. Between glass. Not in them. Not out of them. Just… adrift."
Clara's chest tightened. "That's why you're fading."
Naomi smiled again — sad and peaceful.
"No mirror remembers me fully. No timeline welcomes me. I existed as a warning. A breath left on glass."
"To show you what happens if you choose silence instead of sorrow. Distance instead of devotion."
Clara swallowed. "Then why help me?"
Naomi looked at her with something that felt like love — not romantic, not familial, but deeply familiar. Like someone watching a younger version of herself finally make the right turn.
"Because you're the one who dared to try again."
"You chose to love, even knowing it might kill you. You chose to remember Gustav even when it hurt."
"You're the one the mirror is listening to."
Clara's eyes welled up. "But I don't understand. If I'm the seventh… why is there an eighth?"
Naomi shook her head slowly.
"The seventh is the last who still believes she's the original."
"I'm what happens when a Clara tries to forget everything — not just the man, but the mirror, the curse, herself."
"You woke me up by bleeding on truth. But I can't follow where you're going, Clara. I don't belong in this loop."
Clara reached for her, instinctive, desperate. But her hand went through her like mist.
"Please. Stay. Help me."
Naomi smiled through a shimmer of light, already fading into the edges of glass.
"I did help."
She leaned in, pressing her final breath against the window, drawing the 3:13 symbol with her last exhale. The fog lingered only a second — then vanished.
"She's waiting where mirrors don't speak," Naomi repeated.
Then, almost inaudibly, her final words:
"Remember for both of us, Clara."
And she was gone.
No sound. No light. No trace.
Only the number on the window remained.
And Clara, crying in a silence too sharp to be empty.
Clara's voice broke. "Naomi…"
Gustav turned to her, but Clara had already crossed the room to the small corner couch.
There—
A glass of water sat untouched.
Floating in it: a single drop of red ink.
And beneath the glass… a piece of paper.
Torn, barely holding together. Ink smudged, as if written in haste — or desperation.
Clara unfolded it with trembling hands.
It wasn't a warning.
It wasn't a farewell.
It was a truth.
"I remember too much. So you can forget enough to survive.
If I don't return, don't come looking.
If you find her, tell her I was sorry I ever doubted the mirror.
But I was never meant to walk through it again."
Signed: N.
Clara sat down hard. Her lungs didn't want to work.
For a second, she forgot how to breathe.
Gustav crouched beside her.
"She gave you the path," he said quietly.
"She gave up everything," Clara whispered. "Again."
The breath symbols on the window began to fade.
The time: 3:13 — the only part that remained sharp. Almost burning.
"It's a countdown," Gustav realized. "The moment we can reach Irene… is 3:13. Not a minute before. Not a second after."
Clara wiped her face, her tears leaving trails on her cheeks.
Clara turned her head slowly, taking in the silence—not just around her, but inside her.
Naomi had always filled rooms. With her messy energy, her sideways questions, her laughter that cracked open the quiet.
And now?
The quiet stayed shut.
She walked across the apartment, fingers trailing along the wall like she was tracing Naomi's absence.
The air was different here. Heavy, like a memory that refused to settle.
In the bathroom, the mirror was fogged. No one had turned on the water.
A single phrase was written there, over the blurred surface:
"You'll know you've found the real her when the mirror says nothing."
Clara pressed her fingers to the words. They smudged instantly—already vanishing.
"Gustav," she called softly.
He joined her. "More?"
She nodded, eyes scanning the space. "She left pieces everywhere. Like she didn't trust just one message to get through."
Gustav glanced toward the bedroom. "Check there. If she's guiding us to Irene… she wouldn't risk half-clues."
Clara stepped into the room Naomi had claimed as hers.
The bed was still unmade. Her favorite scarf hung from the bedpost. Books half-read spilled across the floor.
On the mirror above the dresser, Naomi had drawn something new:
A compass. But the directions weren't N-S-E-W.
They were:
Before-Between-Beyond-Buried
At the center, instead of "North," a spiral. Again.
Same symbol. Same heartbeat.
Taped beside it: a tiny note, scribbled like a last-minute thought.
"When your reflection forgets you, keep going."
Clara sat on the bed.
She could feel the spiral pulsing under her ribs.
It wasn't metaphorical anymore.
It was literal.
Her blood moved to it. Matched its rhythm.
Clara…
She heard it again.
Naomi's voice. Not from outside — from somewhere inside memory.
But not just Naomi's voice.
Other Claras.
Layered. Echoed.
One angry. One grieving. One terrified. One hopeful.
All whispering the same thing:
"Don't stop at the first truth. That's where Bathory waits."
Clara stood suddenly, heart pounding.
"I think she did more than give us directions."
Gustav, standing in the doorway, raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
Clara picked up the scarf from the bedpost.
It shimmered. Just slightly.
The faintest spiral woven into its pattern—only visible now, under this moonlight.
She wrapped it around her hand, covering the spiral burn still on her skin.
"She marked me with something," Clara said. "Not protection. A path."
"Or a key," Gustav murmured.
Clara met his eyes. "I think… she knew she wouldn't come with us. So she made sure part of her would."
The scarf suddenly felt heavier.
She looked down.
Under the folded edge — a tiny tag, hand-stitched in crimson thread.
One word:
"Echo."
And then Clara understood.
"She's not gone."
Gustav tilted his head.
"She became the echo that guides us. Not Naomi the person. Naomi the memory — the Clara who watched too much and carried it too long."
Clara pressed the scarf to her chest. It burned.
A light blinked once in the mirror above the dresser.
This time, no fog.
But no reflection either.
Only the window from the other room — glowing faintly with the fading breath-mark map.
Like the mirror had decided: Enough with reflection. Time to point the way.
Clara stood tall, breath steady.
"She gave us the only thing the mirror couldn't control," she whispered. "A goodbye that opened a door."
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