The city changed when it rained.
Not in ways people noticed. Traffic still moved. Shops still opened. Conversations still overlapped in familiar noise. But something loosened, like a knot slowly giving way. Reflections grew deeper. Shadows lingered longer than they should.
I walked without an umbrella, letting the rain soak into my coat. Each drop felt deliberate, as if the sky itself was counting me.
I remembered EG's warning.
Make mistakes. Be seen.
So I did something reckless.
I stopped.
Right in the middle of the sidewalk.
People flowed around me in mild irritation, brushing past shoulders, muttering under their breath. One man bumped into me hard enough to curse aloud. I didn't apologize. I didn't move.
The friction was real. Jarring. Human.
My heart steadied.
Good.
At the end of the street, a small café glowed warmly through fogged windows. I went inside, dripping rain onto the tiled floor, earning disapproving looks from the barista. Again—good.
I ordered something I didn't want, sat where the light was too bright, and let myself be uncomfortable.
The mirror inside me resisted.
Halfway through my untouched drink, I felt it.
That pause.
Not opening—pressing.
I clenched my jaw, grounding myself in the bitterness of the coffee, the scrape of the chair against the floor, the hum of conversation. The pressure receded, irritated.
Then the bell above the café door rang.
The sound cut too cleanly through the noise.
I looked up.
The woman who entered wore a dark coat, rain sliding off it without soaking through. Her hair was tied back loosely, strands clinging to her cheek. Nothing about her stood out at first glance—until her eyes met mine.
Recognition flared.
Sharp. Unwanted.
She froze.
Just for a fraction of a second. Long enough to break the illusion of coincidence.
Slowly, deliberately, she walked over and took the seat across from me.
"You shouldn't be here," she said.
My fingers tightened around the cup. "I was about to say the same thing."
Her gaze flicked to my reflection in the café window, then back to me. "You're slipping again."
"I'm standing still," I replied.
"That's worse."
We studied each other in silence. The café noise blurred around us, as if the space between our table and the rest of the room had thickened.
"Who are you?" I asked.
She hesitated.
That alone was an answer.
"You don't get to ask that," she said finally. "Not after you forgot."
A pulse from the pearl made me wince. Images stirred—rain streaking down glass, a voice calling my name from behind, a hand gripping my wrist before I could turn.
"I didn't choose to forget," I said.
"No," she agreed softly. "You chose to survive."
The words cut deeper than accusation.
"You left me," she continued. "At the mirror. You crossed, and the city smoothed over the rest."
My mouth felt dry. "I don't remember you."
"I know."
Her reflection in the window moved before she did—just slightly, leaning closer, eyes too intent.
That confirmed it.
"You're marked too," I said.
She smiled without humor. "By proximity. By mistake."
The barista called out an order, voice distorted, stretched. I realized with a jolt that no one else in the café was moving normally anymore. Motions looped. Laughter repeated half a second late.
The pause was widening.
"Say my name," she said suddenly. "Out loud."
"I don't know it."
"Yes, you do. You buried it."
The pearl burned hot.
The pressure built behind my eyes, threatening to pull me inward, to open that dangerous space. I shook my head, breathing hard. "If I say it—"
"—then I exist again," she finished. "Fully. And so does what you ran from."
Thunder cracked outside, loud and close.
Her eyes never left mine. "Say it," she whispered. "Or walk away and let the city erase me properly this time."
My heart hammered. EG's voice echoed in my memory.
Be seen.
I swallowed.
The name rose to my lips, heavy with rain and guilt and something that felt too much like grief.
I spoke it.
The café lights shattered.
Not the glass—light itself, splintering into harsh angles. Sound slammed back into place. People gasped, startled, confused, suddenly present again.
The woman exhaled sharply, like someone surfacing after nearly drowning.
She laughed—shaky, real.
"There," she said. "You still remember."
My hands trembled. "What did I just do?"
"You broke a smoothing," she replied. "A small one. But they'll notice."
"Who's they?"
Her smile faded. "The ones who make sure names disappear."
Rain hammered the windows now, furious and loud.
She stood. "We don't have much time."
"Wait," I said. "If you know so much—if you were there before—tell me what I was supposed to become."
She leaned closer, voice barely audible.
"You were never meant to stabilize the seam," she said. "You were meant to close it."
The bell above the café door rang again as she left.
This time, the sound echoed long after the door shut.
I sat there, surrounded by ordinary people drinking coffee, while the rain outside erased the street in sheets of gray.
Close the seam.
My reflection in the window watched me carefully.
For the first time, it looked… afraid.