This day felt much longer than Kôra had hoped it would be. He spent his first class in the medical office, nursing a throbbing head and too drained to focus on studying. The thought of skipping classes altogether had crossed his mind more than once, but he dismissed it as an act of poor discipline. After all, he was still physically capable of attending, and he needed to boost those falling grades.

Around lunchtime, Naldo returned with his lunch box. Not only it was cleaned, but also refilled with homemade pigeon rice. Naldo claimed that he eyeballed it from an online recipe. He also ensure that Kôra ate, and lingered in a well-meaning yet futile attempt to lift his spirits. Such a kind person, Kôra thought. But that unnecessary kindness only deepened the weight in his chest. How could he ever repay someone like Naldo?

The food was delectable, yet Kôra found himself unable to eat much. He offered to share it with Tal and Delven, an offer the former brazenly accepted. Before long, the two noticed Kôra’s injury and his unusually somber demeanor. Concerned, they began asking questions. Kôra tried his best to deflect and downplay their worries, only to spur Delven’s persistent intervensions, which later fueled Talst’s jealousy.

Kôra arrived home alone with a frown. Even as he swiped the keycard and stepped into Keane's house, the ache in his head still refused to subside. The house was empty, just as Keane had mentioned earlier in his schedule. It gave a small relief for Kôra; he could take time to conceal his bruises and wipe the lethargy off his face.

After setting his backpack down near the stairs, he headed straight to the kitchen to grab a drink. While the ointment from the nurse had soothed his injury, the remaining exhaustion still weighing him down. He started to think that this might be a prelude to an illness he unknownly contracted, as never had he felt this worn down before, even after a session of hard physical labor. Yet, the unpleasant feeling only kept getting amplified.

Who is that?! 

The boy froze, alarmed by the dark shadow cast in the unlit dining room. Its outline resembled that of a human figure.With his heart pounding, Kôra cautiously looked for a vantage point, hoping to catch a clearer glimpse of the intruder. But as he drew closer, the truth revealed itself. It was something far more insidious than he could have imagined.

It was something that looked just like him.

Kôra's blood felt frozen. That was the reflection; his reflection, his imitation, his falsehood. The thing was sitting on the dining room chair while humming some strange melody. This time, the voice was different; it was deeper than his and has an otherworldly ring to it. Kôra ignored him according to what Keane said; he tells lies to manipulate and everything coming from its mouth should be ignored altogether. The thing was just a mere reflection, a piece of illusion; nothing else.

“Do not pretend not seeing me,” the thing called him out. Those words pierce Kôra and shattered his detachment. He reluctantly turned his head, facing the thing which wore the mask of his smiling face. "I made hard effort to be you, appreciate me."

“What do you want?” the teen confronted him with a shaking voice.

“I means no harm,” he spoke in broken English with a peculiar accent. The accent somewhat evoked an unpleasant air; it somehow struck him like a déjà vu. "Cooperation is I want."

“You are a liar." Kôra’s heart beat faster, his right chest was pounding. "If you are not you will not disturb me."

"I am inside a trapped place."

Unsure of what he meant, Kôra asked, "What do you mean?"

"I was asked to carry disturbance, so I play as evil." The thing pointed at himself, looking right and left, before saying: "No telling reason, I am under eyes." Receiving Kôra's confused frown, he continued, “By fate, you look like person I knew. So, I here thinking of a friend. Wishing to make you free and tell truth stories."

"That is a horrible lie," Kôra responded. Nothing made sense to him. "True, I should ignore you."

“You believe them more than own people?” he deprecated.

“If you want me to believe, can you please stop doing this? Stop harming and haunting people!” Kôra implored.

“I said all, I just do what need, I need being evil!" the reflection said. Hints of frustration started showing on his face. “To you, truth, I am bad! But heed this warning: they poison to your mind; you are not them, you with me. I not care about other than our people. And sad, they are dead!"

“There must be another way if you really meant good."

"But." After a pause of silence, the reflection grinned wide ear-to-ear, his eyes peered through. Kôra never thought the sight of his own face could be this eerie. "Now you are here and listen, it is an incomplete work! Tomorrow you will listen more."

“Please stop,” Kôra begged, he clenched his fist tight. "I do not understand what are you talking about, but if you stop and talk in a human language, I may listen."

"Cannot."

A throbbing pain came and squeezed Kôra's head with that answer. "Do you need someone to stop you first?!  On top of all, you disturbed my uncle! How long until you hurt and disturb other people?!"

“Try hurt me? You hurt yourself,” the thing taunted, looking at Kôra's clenched fist and hardened posture. He stood up from the place he was sitting and approached Kôra, but still keeping a distance. “I surrender, we cannot talk; but I am disappointed by mind poison you absorbed. Consider my word above thinking of my evil and lies. If you not change, you will have no one!"

“I can change but not as you wish."

"So listen, my time limited, I have eyes on me, and I have role to play as bad," the being continued to speak. "I am in bad position, you same; I can help only if you help yourself."

“You tell lies."

“That again?! Then do! At small, listen!” he raised his voice in exasperation. Yet he did not cease to persuade. “Do you remember past time? We existed, they killed us, they forgot. We need to deliver form of our grudge to the living; we are the Ae—"

"I cannot trust people who hurt me."

"I said my action was playing! My actions, no heart is behind! I just playing, I need to save you from danger lurk," he argued. "But evil danger's eyes on me, so I play bad so danger believe lies."

The difficult exchange worsened Kôra's headache. His patience was running thin; all he wanted was to rest. "Stop."

"No."

“No, no, no? NO!!! Enough of this!" Kôra screamed, pulling his hair as he stomped on the ground, his body rocking back and forth in agony outrage. "You are EVIL! The danger, it was you! YOU! You lied to make me allow your bad and not be blamed! You make me feel guilty! If you have good intentions you would not do it this way!”

"Again?" His voice started to harden, getting impatient while standing up. "The earthquake is not enough to open your eyes?! It is not truth your knowledge have. You are sure you honor them you lost by this? Your mother?"

Through the tiredness and ache, Kôra's troubled mind overworked to connect the scantly scattered dots. His thoughts drew a line and composed a shape with it: a possibility. His anguish over his unwelcome existence, his guilt over the chaos he had caused; it all forcibly coalesced into a single, inescapable conclusion. As if struck by an inspiration, the boy's lilac eyes glistened.

He knows everything about me. . . Even my mother! The earthquake. . . Could it be . . .

"H. . . How much do you know about the earthquake?" Kôra asked, sounding docile and defeated. "Please, do you know the truth? I want to know."

"As much as you want to know," the being replied; a slight relief grew on his tense face.

"Why was it happened?"

"The evil took price."

"Are you lying?" Kôra responded to the perplexing answer.

"I saw everything," he added a point to convince.

Kôra ruminated for a second before asking: "What my mother did before leaving in the morning? The last time I saw her. . ." "Clothed hands." The reflection gestured putting on a glove. Such an answer rendered Kôra speechless. He knelt down, trembling, his hands pressed against his head in a futile attempt to steady himself. Repeatedly, he tried to form a word, only to always fail uttering one.

Meanwhile, the being stood silent, waiting with anticipation.

"Ah. . .  So. . . It's. . . You," Kôra finally said with a heavy breath, his words grated slowly like a growl. "You are really involved, correct?!"

"I was only be there—"

"I know it! I know!!! You killed them, right?! You caused the earthquake so you can reach me!"

The being raised his eyebrows to Kôra's confounding reaction. It escalated in a way one did not ever expect. "I not—"

"Of course it was you! It was you!" Kôra shouted from the top of his lungs.

Kôra snatched the largest kitchen knife from its rack, then lunged without a second thought to the creature. He tried to hit the chest but missed. That being was swift and surprisingly adept keeping himself out of reach.

“Do you realize the horrible you did ?! My mother, Tasei, Nyilmâ, Amûn, Yûzan. . . Yûzan!” the raging Kôra mentioned the names of those declared dead and missing because of the earthquake, while relentlessly seeking an opening for a blow. "You took them from me!"

The being froze for a second, he had heard one of the names before.

There was no time to think as Kôra charged forward in a blind rage. Unable to deal damage by his knife; he grabbed whatever he could find and hurled them at his opponent. From glasswares, porcelains, and cutleries; some strikes managed to hit their mark but the damage was minimal. The enemy was nimble, adeptly evading most of Kôra's attacks. That was until he grabbed the dining chair and struck the being down.

“Later you’ll get everyone else!" Kôra screamed wildly while jumping, pinned the clone down. Flashing in his mind was his uncle; then Naldo, Delven, even the unpleasant Talst and Keane. "You need to be stopped!”

That reflection smiled a mocking, belittling smile. Not a single expression of pain or fright was observable; adding more the ire to the infuriated teen. It was as if he was celebrating Kôra’s fruitless attempts, toying with his resolve.

Kôra looked down at that face of him, how could a being look so vile? He wanted to maim its ugly face, his ugly own disgusting face. “What do you want?! Why you do this?! Why they have to die?! Why I have to become like you?! We are not the same! You pest! Pest! Die!”

This surge of unconditional wrath, the flow of loathing disappointment; it was hard to rationalize this sensation. Kôra could not help but blindly stabbing that thing to express these feelings out. He stabbed the shoulders, grazed the chest, and nicked the clavicle. Those stabs were shallow, it felt like a knife went through fowl meat and pulled. Kôra trembled in infuriation, he wanted the thing to perish. He hated that it could not be done in a blink, he hated his weakness.

That reflection reacted with nothing, but an unfading, goading smile.

“Do you think you will never be punished for this!!!” Kôra yelled; the fiery anger engulfed him whole. His pressure heightened with the compressed sentiments, it nearly explodes. “Fuck you! Shit pest! I will end you in the name of God! Sinner! God will incinerate you in hell!” he swung the final blow of the knife to the chest.

The final stab landed in the lower abdomen; not exactly where the boy had intended or with the depth he desired. Before anything, his clone had already seized Kôra’s hand, freezing his motion just in time to prevent the knife from plunging deeper. A second later, the being’s face began to crack and splinter, like a shattered porcelain doll. Kôra recoiled, instinctively putting distance between them. The deafening sounds of creaking and breaking filled the air. As the smoke from the shattered shell dissipated, a figure of a young man was revealed. He was lying motionless on the ground before he turned his face toward the petrified Kôra with a chilling smile.

Kôra recognized him from the drawing his uncle made; he was the hanged man. Like a discarded mannequin, he lay motionless, completely naked. He was surprisingly tall, with a well-toned physique and skin of similar warm brown hue with Kôra’s. His face was elongated and diamond-shaped, with a prominent nose and an sparse eyebrows. His narrow eyes were especially unsettling, their gaze pierced straight into Kôra’s very soul.

A distant chime of bell rang in the depths of Kôra’s memory, buried deep within the tangled web of neurons. Face to face, he felt that there was an undeniable familiarity; a strange, haunting sensation that Kôra had seen this man before. It was as if a ghost from an unknown past had surfaced, clawing its way into the present.

Kôra shook his head, trying to chase it away, clinging to denial.

"Still alive?! Go die, pest!" Kôra looked around for the knife hoping to finish the being off, but it disappeared among the shards. "Even if we really same being, you must be a horrible pest, so I forsake!"

"You really look like that person. Sad, I cannot remember," the reflection reminisced while smiling. "Real you not Kôra, I know—but who was you? Were you good or evil?"

"Stop talking and die, long face!" Kôra slapped the thing's mouth. Before he could deliver a punch to the face, the being already caught his hand in the air.

“I must end,” that man closed in a disappointed tone. He closed his eyes. "May you learn from this stupid doing and say sorry."

Kôra gritted his teeth; pulling, kicking, and striking; trying to break free from the unnaturally strong grasp that held him.

"We can meet again," he called with a nostalgic ring befor releasing Kôra's hand.

The single sentence ended their interaction. With one bang that pierced the eardrums, the hanged man's body exploded. The debri faded into thin air and disappeared. Nothing of him left to be seen.

Not even a particle.

Vanished.

Finished.

“I did it! I defeated him!” Kôra shouted triumphantly. He rushed to the sound of gate unlocking, shouting his happy achievement. "Everyone is safe!"

It was a bit difficult to smile wide; it was even more difficult to walk straight. The boy's body felt light, and the strength of his steps ceased in blight. Red blood started seeping, wetting and dyeing his shirt. Yet, the rush of adrenaline powered his recklessness; the burst of ecstasy numbed him senseless.   A bloodied and battered boy greeted Keane and Diana at the door, with an intact knife protruding from his lower abdomen. Despite his injuries, Kôra beamed with a wide relief. All of his injuries felt negligible, as if his victory cured all the weight of the battle. However, it did not last. His breath grew ragged, his body trembled, and the crushing weight of reality struck once more.

Pain.

A sinking realization occured to Kôra, that everything was merely being reflected back at him.