It happened quietly.Not with screams or shattering mirrors this time, just an awful, exquisite stillness.
I woke up at my desk again, the same place I'd fallen asleep countless times before. The laptop was open, screen dim, the blinking cursor waiting like a heartbeat. But for once, my hands weren't trembling. I felt… aligned.
There were no more whispers in the walls. No shadows pacing at the edges of my vision. No echo of Kane's voice telling me what to write. Because now, I didn't need to hear him.
He was already inside.
When I touched the keys, they moved as if guided by both of us. My thoughts flowed through them, but the words, oh, the words, were his. Sharper. Colder. True.Every letter formed effortlessly, like the story had always existed, waiting for my veins to become his ink.
"I told you," He murmured from somewhere within me, a vibration beneath my ribs. "We finish this together."
And I didn't resist.Not anymore.
I typed, and the story unfolded perfectly, memories I'd forgotten, emotions I'd buried, scenes from nights I swore I'd never relive. My reflection on the dark laptop screen moved in time with me, but her eyes were not mine. They were his.
The truth of it hit like revelation:Kane wasn't haunting me.He was becoming me.
The drafts stopped appearing on their own because I no longer needed them to. The distance between author and ghost, between creation and creator, was gone. I was no longer writing about him, I was writing as him.
When I typed my name at the end of the manuscript, my fingers didn't hesitate.A.K. — K.O.It looked right. Balanced. Whole.
For the first time in months, I didn't feel afraid.I felt complete.
Because maybe this was the point all along, that the story wasn't meant to end when he died.It was meant to continue through me.
And now it will.
Forever.