In a forgotten underground city, the last healer treats a patient who is slowly unraveling from a disease that whispers his own name—each time they speak, his voice becomes more distorted until it no longer recognizes the human inside him.

The tunnels of Vorthas’ Core were carved into the bones of the earth itself, a labyrinth of jagged stone and flickering gas lanterns. The air smelled of damp earth and something older—something like rot, though no decay could touch what dwelt here.

Elara adjusted the damp cloth wrapped around her patient’s wrists, watching the veins beneath his skin pulse like broken strings. The sickness had come in the dark, not in the way of plague—no fever, no spreading, no one else sick—just the way the voice inside him *twisted* itself.

‘It’s my name,’ the man whispered. His voice was already thin, the edges frayed like a shirt left out in rain. ‘It’s *my name*—and now it’s just… echoes.’

Elara didn’t look away. She’d heard this before—once in the archives of the old healers, once in the desperate prayers of a dying man in the surface city. But she’d never seen it before.

‘You’re not just losing your voice,’ she said, her fingers brushing his palm. ‘You’re losing the man beneath it.’

The patient’s lips curled back. ‘It’s not the voice,’ he gasped. ‘It’s… the silence.’ The words came faster, jerky, like a machine unraveling. ‘I can still see you. But the world’s gone quiet. And it’s laughing.’

Elara exhaled sharply through her nose. ‘You’re not alone.’

The man’s eyes fluttered open. They were bright now, too wide, too *wrong*, like glass prisms split by light. ‘Where is it?’ he said, and the words slithered out in a string of static. ‘I know where it is.’

‘Where?’ she prompted, her voice steady despite the creeping dread. ‘You’re losing yourself.’

The man’s mouth worked. Then: ‘The mirror.’ His voice was nothing but a crackle. ‘It’s always been in the mirror.’

Elara’s breath hitched. ‘You think it’s… something?’

‘It’s not yours,’ he said, and the words dissolved into a whimper. His skin paled to chalk. ‘It’s always been *them*.’ His head lolled, and his body went slack.

Elara caught him before his weight crushed her. The last thing she heard was his voice—a final whisper, half human, half… something else. ‘Please…’

Outside, the sound of footsteps echoed down the tunnel. She didn’t turn. She didn’t have to. She knew the weight of her hands—damp with his sweat, his blood, his last secrets.

Elara had spent a decade caring for the sick of Vorthas. She knew the limits of her skill. But tonight, she understood the truth she’d feared since the first whispers started.

The sickness wasn’t just in the body. It was in the mind.

And the whispers weren’t for the dying.

They were for her.

She pressed his wrist to her chest and pressed her ear to his skin. The mirror wasn’t in the walls. It was in the dark. And it had already begun to laugh.

Later, she’d tell the others this story as a warning. But the night was long, and the tunnels stretched forever. And in the quiet of the dark, the echoes answered.

‘Welcome home,’ they’d say.