Dark Mirror and Twisted Truth

Akiya

SELENE

A year later, my father brought another woman into our new home— along with her daughter, Akiya Atasha. They called her Aphrodite And it fit her far too well.

Her brown eyes shimmered like they held secrets of the sea, drawing people in without effort. Her nose was delicately sculpted, her lips soft and tinted in a natural rose that never seemed to fade. She didn’t just look beautiful—she looked untouchable. Like something not meant to exist in the same world as the rest of us.

She was flawless. And my father treated her like she was.

He gave her everything—his laughter, his attention, his warmth. Gifts wrapped in ribbons, time spent in gentle conversations, the kind of affection I barely remembered receiving. The house, once filled with quiet memories of my mother, now revolved around her.

And me? I was just there.

“I thought you were going to clean the house,” I said one afternoon, my voice tighter than I intended. I gestured at the untouched mess—the dust gathering on shelves, the cleaning tools abandoned on the floor like forgotten promises. “You even sent the maid away.”

She turned to me slowly, a smirk curling on her lips like she’d been waiting for this moment.

“Oh, poor Selene,” she said, her tone dripping with mock sympathy. “Are you so blinded by my beauty that you forgot something?” She stepped closer, her voice lowering into something sharp, something poisonous. “Angels like me don’t touch dust.”

The way she said it made my chest tighten. This wasn’t the voice she used around my father. This wasn’t the girl he adored.

Before I could respond, heavy footsteps echoed through the hall.

“Don’t you dare ask your sister to clean the house!” my father’s voice thundered.

Sister. The word twisted painfully inside me.

“She’s not—” I started, but he cut me off.

“You look more like a maid than she ever could!” The words hit harder than I expected. I froze, suddenly aware of everything about myself—my long, unruly curls, my thick eyebrows, my dark lips. Features my mother once told me were beautiful. Features that now felt like proof that I would never compare.

Then he said it.

“If only your mother survived, and you died—”

Something inside me shattered.

I didn’t stay to hear the rest. I couldn’t. My feet moved before I could think, carrying me out of the house, away from the suffocating walls, away from him.

I ran.

Into the dark, mist-covered woods where the trees whispered, and the night swallowed everything whole. The cold air bit against my skin, my thin white sleepwear doing nothing to shield me, but I didn’t care. The darkness felt kinder than home. It didn’t judge me. It didn’t compare to me. It matched the emptiness growing inside my chest.

I finally stopped, breathless, my legs trembling beneath me. Above, the sky stretched endlessly, scattered with stars that felt impossibly distant.

“If only you were here, Mom…” My voice broke as I whispered into the silence.

The wind answered instead.

I looked up at the night sky as if it could hear me, as if it could understand the ache clawing its way through my chest. As if somewhere beyond those stars, she was still watching. Still listening, and still loving me.

But the silence that followed felt heavier than anything.

Eight years have passed since that day.

Eight years.

And yet the memory still clings to me like a shadow I can’t outrun—dragging me under, over and over again… like I’m drowning in the same moment, gasping for something that will never come back.

And each time, I sink a little deeper.