The memories crashed into Mira like a wave—her aunt's screams, the weight of the water, the silence that followed. She had buried it deep, her young mind unable to hold the truth. But the lake had remembered.
The ghost stepped closer, water rising around her.
Jin pulled Mira behind him. "Stay back," he said. He held up a mirror—small, cracked. "You said she's memory. Let her see what she is."
The ghost froze.
Her face twisted, not in anger… but pain.
In the glass, she saw herself—eyes hollow, skin pale, no longer the loving aunt who once laughed by the lake.
The ghost let out a soft sound. Not a scream, not a threat. A sigh. Sad and soft. A soul too long forgotten.
"Mira," she whispered again. "Live."
And then she turned… and walked into the water.
Gone.
The wind fell still. The lake calmed.
Mira collapsed to her knees, heart racing, lungs shaking. The weight that had clung to her for years—grief unspoken, memories buried—lifted like fog.
"She didn't want revenge," Mira whispered. "She wanted to be remembered."
Jin nodded. "Most of them do."
They stood in silence as the moon drifted across the lake's surface.
That night, Mira dreamed not of drowning, but of floating… held by water, but no longer afraid.
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