The first thing I remember is drowning in someone else's face.
The second is the scream — sharp, high, echoing through tile and steam.
The third is my own breath.
Too calm. Too practiced. Like I'd done this before.
I sat up, coughing red. The water was warm, tinted with blood. Not mine — I think. A woman's face stared back at me from the bathwater, pale and empty-eyed.
It wasn't mine either.
I lurched back, hit the porcelain hard. The mirror above the sink flashed. I looked up—and froze.
A stranger stared at me through the glass.
Blonde. Freckles. A faint scar on her lower lip. Eyes like cracked sea glass.
I didn't know her name. But I knew I was wearing her.
My hands trembled as I touched my face. Soft. Still wet. Still human. I blinked once, twice—then saw it. A burn mark on my wrist, deep and black, like a brand:
"FIND THE ORIGINAL."
I stumbled out of the tub, soaked and shivering, trying not to look at the body floating behind me.
My mind was a patchwork of broken glass. No memories. No anchor. No self.
Just this skin.
Just this face.
There was a phone on the counter. Locked. Face ID.
I held it up. It unlocked instantly. A message blinked at the top:
"12 missed calls from ASH. Where the hell are you?"
Who the hell was Ash?
I opened the texts.
ASH: Don't stay in the body too long.
ASH: 3 days max, or it becomes you.
ASH: You need to run. The Echo Hunters are in the city. They know you're active.
I backed away.
My foot slipped on the tile. I landed hard. The body bumped against the side of the tub. The dead woman's eyes opened.
They stared right at me.
And then…
They moved.
Not all the way. Just enough. Like something inside the skin twitched — or tried to get out.
I screamed.
And the face in the mirror screamed back.
I didn't stay long.
I took her phone, her keys, a long black coat that still smelled like her.
I didn't look back at the tub.
The hallway outside was dark, lined with cheap wallpaper curling at the edges. No one saw me leave. Or if they did, they didn't stop me. Just another woman in a coat with shadows under her eyes.
Only I wasn't her.
I was inside her.
And that terrified me more than the body I'd left behind.
The streets were soaked.
Midnight rain smeared the city like an oil painting left out in the storm. Every light blurred, every shadow looked human. I didn't know where I was going. I just walked. Fast. Eyes down. One hand clenched around the phone, the other gripping the coat like armor.
The phone buzzed again.
ASH: I'm coming to find you.
ASH: If you're still in that body, I swear to God—
ASH: Meet me. Southbridge Station. 30 minutes.
I paused under a flickering streetlamp.
Southbridge Station. I didn't know where it was. I didn't know if I should know. But I tapped the name into Maps, and the dot blinked back at me like it already expected I'd be coming.
It was three stops away on the Red Line.
I slipped into the subway. Nobody looked at me. Maybe that was normal. Or maybe people could tell—the way animals know when something in the woods isn't right.
I kept catching glimpses of myself in the windows. Her face.
The dead woman's face.
I didn't even know her name.
The train screeched into Southbridge Station.
When the doors opened, I almost didn't get off. A man was standing on the platform, staring straight at me.
Tall. Pale. Jaw set like stone.
He wore a black coat just like mine.
And he was holding a photo.
My photo. The face I was wearing.
I froze. He looked up.
And smiled.
Not friendly. Not warm. A hunter's smile.
I turned and ran.
People shouted. I pushed past them, took the stairs two at a time. My chest burned. I burst onto the street above just as a black car peeled around the corner—slamming to a stop in front of me.
The passenger door flew open.
"Get in!" a voice shouted.
I didn't think. I jumped in and slammed the door.
The car screeched away. Rain pelted the windshield. Wipers swiped violently across the glass. And then I looked at the driver.
Young. Shaggy dark hair. A thin scar across his temple.
He didn't look surprised to see me.
"Still alive," he muttered. "Didn't expect that."
I stared at him. "You're Ash?"
"No," he said flatly. "You're Ash."
The silence in the car was deafening.
Rain pounded the roof like a warning. Streetlights blurred past in streaks of gold and grey. My hands shook in my lap.
"You called me Ash," I said finally.
He didn't look at me. Just kept his eyes on the road.
"I said what I meant."
"But I don't remember—"
"Of course you don't." He turned the wheel sharply, sliding through an alley. "That's the price of the Shift."
"Shift?"
He hit the brakes.
The car stopped in front of an abandoned building — tall, windowless, bleeding rust. He killed the engine, then looked at me like he was staring through me.
"You're not just wearing her face," he said. "You're inside her echo. The remnants of who she was, still clinging to her skin."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. My brain throbbed like it was trying to scream.
"There's… someone else in here?"
"Not someone," he said. "Everyone. Every skin you've worn. Every life you've stolen. They never go away. Not really."
I staggered out of the car.
The world spun. The building loomed. I gripped the side mirror like it was the only solid thing left.
"Why me?" I whispered. "Why don't I remember?"
Ash stepped around the car. He moved with the kind of quiet that meant danger. Controlled. Watchful. Like he expected me to break.
"You've been running too long," he said. "Hiding in too many bodies. You forgot the first one."
"What was it?"
He paused.
Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a photograph.
It was old. Cracked at the corners. A child stared up at me — maybe seven or eight. No freckles. No scar. Black hair. A sharp, eerie look in their eyes. Not quite a boy. Not quite a girl.
But the face…
It felt like it knew me.
"That was your original," he said. "Before the first Shift. Before everything else."
I stared.
"I don't remember this child," I whispered.
"You're not supposed to," he said. "Because they're trying to come back. And if they do, you—everything you are now—will be erased.
Inside the building was a maze of corridors, all humming faintly, like something alive was breathing beneath the walls. Ash led the way. My legs moved on instinct. Something about this place felt wrongly familiar.
At the end of the hallway was a steel door.
He pressed his hand against a scanner. It buzzed. The door groaned open.
The room inside was cold. Metal. Fluorescent lights above. And in the center—was a long glass capsule.
Inside it, someone floated.
Pale. Unmoving. Wires attached to their skull.
They looked… exactly like the child in the photo.
Except older.
And breathing.
I backed away. "What the hell is that?"
Ash didn't answer right away. He just looked at me — something soft and haunted creeping into his expression.
"That's you," he said. "The real you. We kept your body alive. Locked your original away. You've been out here wearing other people ever since."
"Why?"
"Because the world tried to erase you."
He met my eyes. "Because you're not just a Shifter."
He stepped closer.
"You're the first."
t you've worn hundreds before that. Every time you Shift, part of you gets left behind. Echoes. Voices. Ghosts."
I gripped the wall for balance. My brain felt like it was splitting in half.
"Why keep the original alive?" I asked.
"Because your body is the key," he said. "To memory. To control. To ending this war."
"What war?"
Ash's jaw tightened.
"The one you started."
He turned, yanked open a side drawer. Pulled out a metal case. Threw it on the table. It slid open to reveal dozens of ID cards. Driver's licenses. Student IDs. Medical bracelets.
Every photo… was a different face.
All mine.
Some old. Some young. Male. Female. Dead.
"You've lived as assassins, spies, socialites. You've vanished into governments, toppled corporations, stolen lives like clothes," Ash said, voice rising. "And somewhere along the way… you forgot who you were."
I stared at the photos.
One of the IDs was charred and cracked — barely legible. But the name on it made something lurch in my chest:
Name: SAI DREVIN
"I know this name," I whispered.
Ash nodded. "That's what you called yourself before the first Shift. You were ten. You touched a dying man in a crowd. Minutes later, he was dead and you were wearing his skin. No one taught you. You just did it."
Something buzzed in my head. Static and blood and whispers.
"Your mind couldn't handle it. You started Splitting. Each new skin left cracks. Eventually, Sai vanished beneath the noise."
Suddenly, alarms screamed.
Ash spun. Lights turned red.
"What the hell—"
A screen blinked to life on the wall. A distorted voice crackled through:
"We found her. She's still wearing Mara."
Ash cursed. "The Echo Hunters. They tracked you here."
"How?"
"They always do. You leave psychic residue in every skin. If you stay too long, they sniff it out."
He grabbed my arm. "We have to move."
The floor vibrated. Doors slammed shut in the distance.
"Where are we going?" I asked, breath catching in my throat.
"To finish what we started," he growled. "To find the rest of you—before they do."
"The rest?"
"There are pieces of your mind scattered in every skin you've ever worn. We have to find them. Or you'll fracture completely."
The tank behind us hissed.
A message blinked on the screen above the original body:
CONSCIOUSNESS STIRRING. VITALS SPIKING.
Ash's eyes widened. "No… no, not yet—"
The lights exploded. The room went dark.
And a voice whispered from the tank.
A voice that sounded like me.
"Get out of my body."