The page was different this time.
Not torn. Not planted. Just... there, in his notebook—between pages he'd written himself. Same ink. Same spacing. But one paragraph didn't feel like his.
He read it once.
Then again.
Then he read what came *before* it, and what came *after*.
It didn't fit.
The paragraph said:
> Mira will come to him at lunch. She'll ask about the voice. He'll lie. She'll smile anyway, and say, "It's okay. I hear it too." And when she leaves, she won't take her shadow with her.
Rion looked up.
Lunch was twenty minutes away.
His hand trembled, but only slightly. He circled the paragraph, hard. Then wrote under it:
**If this happens, I'm done pretending.**
The bell rang.
He waited.
Cafeteria noise swelled around him—trays, chairs, voices folding over each other like static.
Then Mira sat across from him.
"I heard it," she said, before he could speak.
He stared at her.
She waited.
He opened his mouth to lie, like the paragraph said.
But he didn't.
He told her everything.
She smiled anyway.
"It's okay," she whispered. "I hear it too."
Then she stood.
And as she walked away, the floor behind her stayed dark.
Like her shadow had stayed behind.