#been procrastinating on posting about this for so loooong but here it is. ghostielore

[szilverer]

Call to yourself the nightmare of being discovered and the dread of consequence. Recognise the sound of its footstep and the shape of its profile:

you have seen your reflection before in Parabola.

Reisz puts their cosmogone glasses on... (eyestrain cw)

...and for the briefest of moments before disappearing again, they see something.

When it notices you noticing it, it turns away, smirking, and walks into the jungle. Its tracks give you direction.

...

You've suspected it for a while now– to think you'd been so naive before, thoroughly convinced your mirrors became empty after becoming a Silverer. Well, it was a logical observation to make at the time. A logical conclusion which allowed you to stop your train of thought right there. No second-guessing, no what-ifs.

No "I don't have a reflection because I don't have a past". Nothing.

Experience kills naivety. You've been a Silverer for more than half your entire conscious life now. Of course you had a reflection somewhere.

It just doesn't like you.

Your mirrors were empty not only because your reflection was invisible, and/or immaterial, a shadow uncast. They were empty because it was always walking away from you. They were empty because it was trying to stay as far away from you as possible.

You don't want to think about it.

...

Lately, something changed. You aren't sure what yet. Old reccurrent dreams that your brain used to fill up with a blurry image of the last time you'd seen yourself now show nothing. But you know. You know it's there. It's starting to come closer and closer and you're... not sure why. You don't see it but sometimes you can hear it– the dragging footsteps of something burdened with a weight much heavier than yours. Ragged breathing, not only one but several distinct instances of it, on and off, multiple silent gasps alongside the noiseless popping and cracking of bones reverberating in the air.

None of it disturbs you.

What's starting to bother you, however, enough that you have to make an active effort not to think about it,

is the tension in the air,

like a thread

straining more and more in each encounter.

Every single instinct of yours knows this: someday, that thing is going to snap.

(You recognise the feeling very well, after all this time. After all you've been through.)

That thing wants you dead.