ASHES OF YOU

The Boy Who Wasn’t Rei

Her breath caught the moment their fingers met.

It should’ve felt like coming home.

But it didn’t.

It felt like drowning.

Rin jerked her hand back. Rei didn’t flinch. He just stared at her, head tilting slightly, like he was studying something inside her, not just the surface. His smile didn’t fade — it widened.

Too smooth. Too slow.

Not him.

“You’re not Rei,” she whispered.

The smile froze.

Akira stepped forward now, shoulders tight. “That thing wears his face. But it isn’t him.”

The fake-Rei blinked, once.

And when his eyes opened again, they weren’t brown.

They were pure black — endless, hollow, echoing with things no human soul should carry.

“You miss him,” the voice came, but it was layered — like ten voices speaking at once. One of them was Rei’s. The others were not.

“I am him,” the voice purred. “The part you wanted. The part you dream about. I can bring him back to you. Just say my name.”

Rin backed away, but her spine hit a desk.

She was trapped.

“Say it,” the thing hissed, its skin rippling like liquid shadows.

“No,” she said.

The fake-Rei leaned in.

“He screamed for you,” it whispered. “When they took him. Cried like a child. Begged. Bled. All for you. And you? You forgot him.”

Rin’s nails dug into her palms. Her heart pounded so loud it hurt. Her memories blurred at the edges, things she'd tried to bury scratching at the surface.

But something inside her flared up then — a spark not of fear, but of fury.

“I never forgot,” she said. “I never let go.”

She stepped toward him now, eyes locked on the thing’s hollow face.

“I don’t know what you are. But you’re not Rei. You don’t get to use his voice.”

The creature hissed, and its skin cracked.

Not like breaking glass — more like peeling away a mask.

Behind the face, something else stared back. No features. No shape. Just darkness.

And in that moment, Rin remembered.

Not everything.

Just one flash.

Rei — his real self — holding her hand on the rooftop, before the storm came.

“You promised,” he had said.

Rin’s voice trembled, but not with fear.

“I’m coming for you,” she said. “And I won’t stop until I tear this entire nightmare apart.”

The darkness screamed, the sound curdling the air. The walls of the classroom bled ink. Desks flew. The windows shattered.

Akira grabbed Rin’s shoulder. “It’s destabilizing. Hold on to me!”

She closed her eyes just as the world cracked open—

And then they were falling.

No wind. No sky.

Just silence.

And when Rin opened her eyes, she was somewhere else.

A white room.

Empty.

Except for one chair.

And in it—

Herself.

Not the reflection.

Not the broken girl.

Just… her.

Older. Eyes dull. Expression empty. Rainbow eyes faded to gray.

“You made it,” the other her said.

And Rin finally asked:

“Who am I?”