I lost the strength to struggle.
At the exact moment his final word fell, the Professor slowly opened the file in his hand. He held up the photocopy of the ID that had once belonged to me, turning it toward my face.
My breath hitched. The portrait on the paper had changed—it was now Luna. Wearing my clothes and using my name, she peered through the thin sheet of paper, casting a twisted, triumphant smile directly at me.
The call disconnected. The phone screen went heartlessly black in the Professor's hand.
Without a trace of emotion, the Professor tucked the phone away and turned his back. He didn't grant me a single glance as he walked away from the altar, taking with him the last physical index of my existence. The guards exerted their force once more, and I let them drag me backward like a piece of discarded scenery. The guests stepped aside to avoid me, the music played on, and the lights remained steady.
I stared fixatedly at the folder in the Professor's hand. In the split second before the heavy doors slammed shut, I saw the ink on the photocopy begin to bleed and blur rapidly. The letters dissolved into meaningless grey stains, while the imposter's smile grew even sharper, as if it were devouring the very fibers of the paper.
Thud.
The doors thundered shut, sealing away all the warmth into another world. The cold air hit my face as I was thrown onto the stone steps outside. Through the heavy wood, I heard Luna's frail, magnanimous voice:
"Don't pursue her anymore. She was just jealous... I didn't lose anything."
Then came a echoing sneer from someone else: "You're far too kind. From this moment on, she is absolutely nothing to this world."
The voices faded, eventually swallowed by the roar of the street. I stood under the sickly white glow of the streetlights. Pedestrians hurried past; someone slammed into my shoulder but didn't even turn their head, as if they had merely bumped into a pocket of empty air. I reached out, trying to stop a passerby, but their gaze passed straight through my body, settling on the distant neon.
No one was looking at me. No one could see me.
The traffic, the crowds, the lights—everything continued to function, perhaps even more perfectly than when I was a part of it. The world had completed its rejection of me. I was like a typo that had been erased, with even the faint indentation smoothed over by reality.
The world no longer had a place for me.