The Echo That Wears My Voice

The Echo That Wears My Voice


The first step backward came without my permission. The ropes trembled under my grip, slick with damp, as if the bridge itself had been sweating.

The breathing rose—slow, deliberate—until I could feel each inhale scraping along the inside of my ribs. It wasn’t a sound anymore. It was an intrusion.

The man’s lantern shuddered in his hand, casting long, restless shadows over the boards. He didn’t look down. He looked at me.

“Whatever’s coming,” he said, “it’s not it anymore.”

I frowned. “Then what—”

“It’s you.”

The words landed like a stone in my gut.

The next breath from below rattled the planks, but there was no exhale. Instead, the sound fractured—split into a thin, rasping whisper that carried upward until it curled in my ear.

Reese.

The rope burned my palm as I tightened my grip. “You heard that?”

He shook his head. “No. That’s meant for you alone.”

The darkness below seemed to pulse, like something was pressing against an unseen surface, forcing it to stretch. The shape that rose through it was not faceless anymore.

It had my mouth.

The lips moved in time with the whisper, soundless between breaths: Let me in.

Every instinct told me to run, but the bridge had no end in sight, only shadow. My pulse beat against my throat, too fast, too loud. The ink might have been gone from my skin, but the memory of it was alive, raw, pulling toward that thing like it was answering a call.

I took another step back, and the man matched it, his eyes never leaving the dark.

“It’s not coming for the ink,” he said. “It’s coming for what’s left of you after it’s gone.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes all the sense in the world.” His voice was flat. “When you strip yourself bare, there’s always something left that shouldn’t have been seen.”

The breathing stopped.

The silence was worse.

In that absence, I could hear my own heartbeat, my own blood moving. Then, slowly, the sound returned—but this time, the inhale was perfectly matched to mine.

I drew in air. So did it.

I held my breath. So did it.

“Don’t let it match you,” he warned.

“How?”

“Breathe wrong. Stagger it. Make it lose your rhythm.”

The thing’s head rose higher, its hair spilling into the dark like ink unraveling in water. Its eyes caught the lantern light—my eyes, but stripped of their humanity, glassy and fixed.

It smiled.

The planks beneath us trembled as it took its first step upward. No climbing, no struggle—just an impossible upward glide that brought it closer without touching anything.

I tried to change my breathing, forcing it into uneven bursts, but my chest tightened. My lungs fought me, wanted the same easy inhale the thing offered.

Reese.

This time the whisper came from behind me. I turned. Nothing. Just the swaying ropes, the endless stretch of bridge.

The man moved closer, lantern held high. “It’s going to try to be where you aren’t. Don’t follow it with your eyes.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I muttered, but I kept my gaze fixed forward.

The shape stopped just below the boards, only its face visible now, rising from the dark like a reflection breaking the surface of water.

It opened its mouth.

A wet, ragged sound poured out—my voice, but not my words.

“You left me there.”

The hairs on my arms stood on end. I didn’t speak.

“You left me,” it repeated, more insistent. “When you took the ink, you left me.”

The man’s hand brushed my arm, a brief, grounding pressure. “It wants you to answer. Don’t.”

But the pull in my chest was magnetic, visceral. My throat tightened, aching to speak, to close the gap between us.

The thing began to push upward through the planks—not breaking them, but phasing through as if the wood wasn’t there at all. My double emerged to the waist now, pale and dripping with black threads that writhed like worms.

Its fingers curled around the ropes. My fingers curled in perfect mirror.

“I’m not leaving you again,” it said.

The man stepped in front of me, blocking my view. “It’s not you.”

“It is me,” I said, my voice trembling.

“That’s the lie.”

The bridge jolted sharply, sending both of us stumbling. The lantern swung wildly, spilling light across the ropes. For a moment, the thing vanished—then reappeared behind me, breath hot at my ear.

I know where the rest of you is.

My body stiffened. “Where?”

The man’s voice cut like a blade: “Don’t ask it questions.”

But it was too late.

The thing’s hand brushed my shoulder. The skin there burned, not with heat but with recognition. My vision blurred, and in that flicker, I saw something—another place. A hallway lined with mirrors, each one holding pieces of me I didn’t remember losing.

I stumbled forward, reaching—

The man’s grip clamped around my wrist. “That’s how it pulls you in.”

The ropes strained under sudden weight. The thing had both hands on me now, one digging into my shoulder, the other curling around my waist. Its touch was too familiar.

“You can’t hold on forever,” it whispered. “You can’t keep pretending I’m not here.”

The bridge swayed violently, and one of the side ropes snapped. A section of planks tilted downward toward the abyss. The man shoved me back from the gap, but my double only smiled, tilting its head.

“You’ll come down eventually.”

Then it let go.

The thing dropped into the dark, swallowed instantly, as though the abyss had been waiting for it. The breath returned, deep and rhythmic again—but now there was a faint echo, half a beat behind, like someone trying to learn my breathing all over again.

The man let go of my wrist.

“You’re not done with it,” he said.

I nodded, though my chest still ached. “I know.”

We started forward, the bridge groaning with each step. Behind us, the breathing stayed.

Waiting.

Learning.

And the further we walked, the more I could hear it adjusting, matching me again.