"What are you?"
"Who are you?"
The questions hung in the stagnant air of the maze, vibrating against the glass surfaces.
The way they spoke, the way they carried their weight in the narrow corridor—it was almost palpable, a physical pressure pushing against the mirrors.
In that synchronized moment, the distinction between the two of them blurred.
You couldn't tell who had asked which question, or which mystery was more urgent.
For all we know, Margaret was demanding to know the nature of the entity standing before her, questioning WHAT Zackier truly was beneath the skin.
Meanwhile, Zackier was questioning the identity of the girl who dared to stand in his way, wondering WHO Margaret was to interfere with a design centuries in the making.
They both knew nothing of one another, yet they were both starved for the truth.
The first to break the heavy silence was Margaret.
"Everything about you is wrong," she stated, her voice as flat and sharp as a scalpel. "As I said before, you aren't from around here. You aren't even from this side of our world."
"And neither are you," Zackier responded, his playful smirk vanishing instantly, leaving his face cold and alien. "In fact, I highly doubt you were even supposed to be here in the first place. Ever. You're a footnote that somehow turned into a paragraph."
He began to approach her, his tall frame looming over her like a shadow cast by a dying sun.
He moved until he was inches away, using his height to look down on her as if he were a god preparing to crush a particularly stubborn insect.
But Margaret didn't shrink.
She stood there, tilted her head up to meet his fuchsia gaze with a look of cold, simmering vengeance.
"What are you saying?" she asked, her voice a low warning.
"I'm saying that you are some kind of... let's say… an anomaly." Zackier said, his voice dripping with a dark fascination.
He began to circle her slowly, his boots clicking rhythmically on the floor.
His gaze never left hers, even as he moved behind her, like a predator sizing up the exact spot to deliver a killing bite.
"I have never heard of you. I have never seen a trace of you in the records. I never even knew you existed until you stepped into my light."
He paused directly behind her, staring at the back of her head with a chilling intensity.
"You are an entire mystery, Margaret. A special one, at that," he whispered, leaning in toward her shoulder until his lips were inches from her ear. "...Perhaps you've noticed it yourself too. The strange glitches in the air. The way the environment is beginning to rot at the edges."
Margaret stood like a pillar of salt, unfazed by his proximity. She didn't flinch at the heat of his breath or the malice in his tone.
"Move," she commanded, her voice cutting through his theatrics. "Your breath is foul enough to kill a pig if it were to catch the scent."
A beat of silence followed, and then Zackier recoiled, bursting into a fit of jagged, sharp laughter that seemed to make the mirrors vibrate in their frames.
"Haha! Quite humorous, aren't we?" he shouted, his voice crackling with genuine amusement. "You really do have a way of being a comedian, Margaret. You're full of surprises."
Suddenly, his laughter cut off as if a switch had been flipped. His face turned stony once more.
"But... I am impressed," he admitted.
Margaret didn't turn around fully; she simply tilted her head over her shoulder, her dark hair falling across her face as she waited for him to continue.
"You are quite the intellectual. An observant little creature, at that. You knew exactly that something was off with this world, and you were the only one smart enough to come after me immediately—"
"Cut the crap," Margaret interrupted.
Silence reclaimed the room the moment she cut him off.
The amusement in Zackier's face died in an instant, replaced by a dangerous, predatory stillness.
He watched her as she slowly turned to face him fully.
The long bangs of her hair obscured half of her eyes, giving her the haunting silhouette of the legendary ghost she was often compared to.
She looked like a vengeful spirit trapped in a hall of mirrors.
Without taking her eyes off him, she reached for the zipper of her bag.
"Here is the point," Margaret said, her voice steady and devoid of fear. "You are dangerous. The fact that you believe you can walk among us, pretending to be a normal human while holding the friend I love most accountable for your games... you have no shame."
At first, Zackier kept his posture relaxed, treating her words as the desperate ramblings of a girl out of her depth.
But then, he saw a metallic glint inside her bag. His eyes widened, his pupils constricting into sharp points.
He looked at her face.
Her expression was one of pure, absolute seriousness.
It was the face of someone who had already made a life-altering decision and had no intention of turning back.
She pulled it out.
Something bright and lethal flashed in her hand. She gripped the handle with a white-knuckled intensity.
As she moved her arm, the polished steel of the blade caught the light, reflecting a hundred shimmering daggers across the glass walls.
The sharpness was undeniable. It was a tool designed for one purpose.
Zackier took a reflexive step back, finally feeling the true weight of the situation.
The girl before him had finally lived up to the title she had been mockingly given by her peers.
The killer ghost. The Sadako.
Because Margaret was confronting him with a kitchen knife.
"We have only seen each other a few times," she said, the tip of the blade pointing at his heart. "And yet, I can already tell. You have something to do with feelings and emotions.
Zackier froze, a cold shock paralyzing his limbs.
"She found that out too... already?!" he thought, his mind racing. Who knew that a person like her could be such a persistent nuisance?
"You forced Trizha to fall for you," Margaret continued, her voice rising with a rare, burning passion. "You made her open her heart just so you could sink your claws in. If it were up to me, you would never be her fiancé. You would be nothing. I know what you did to her was on purpose. You plan to use her, and I am not going to let that slide up. I won't stand by and watch you destroy her."
Zackier scoffed, though he continued to put distance between them. "Calm down now, Miss Margaret. There is no need for such primitive violence. Let's be civilized."
"I don't need to be civilized," she countered, her eyes devoid of mercy or remorse. "Maybe… Maybe this is the only language a thing like you understands. Maybe... this is the only way to protect her."
She held the knife proudly, her arm as steady as a mountain.
"Stay away from her. You are trying to harm the only person... who saved me."
At that moment, she remembered the hill. She remembered the screaming, the wind, and the feeling of the earth falling away from her feet.
She remembered the hand that had reached out to pull her back from the edge.
A cold, nervous, yet strangely excited sweat broke out on Zackier's face. He was caught between amusement and a growing sense of dread at this... Representation.
Is this why? he thought frantically.
Is this the reason her path was written to end in suicide? To stop her from becoming this?
Before he could even process the thought, Margaret lunged.
She didn't hesitate.
There was no flicker of doubt in her eyes, no second-guessing of her mission.
She kept running, her feet pounding against the floor of the maze.
She had no intention of halting until the blade found its mark.
This was her mission: to excise the cancer from Trizha Frantzes' life.
She thrust the knife forward, the reflections of her attack multiplying into an infinite army of steel.
And once more, she screamed at the top of her lungs.
One.
Last.
Time.