It was the first time Kôra sees the inside of Haren’s room after months living with him. His polite mind wiring made him knock on the opened door, asking for permission even when Haren was inside. He did not dare to look around because it is improper, but this small cramped room is impressive in its own way. Full of seals, spell papers, and drawings; which Haren himself was working on one.

“Before you go, I want to give you these,” he showed a small cardboard box with a few envelopes beside it. The particular box piqued Kôra’s interest.

It was a box of a newly bought smartphone. The brand was an economic one that is commonly used. The model itself was nothing newer; it has been out for months. Kôra’s face beamed nevertheless when he saw it. He could not believe he finally had one himself, like his classmates. All this long he was using his Uncle’s only spare phone to communicate.

“Uncle. . . This. . .Thank you! Thank you very much!” he excitedly thanked for the black phone he opened on the spot. “You are a very kind uncle! May God reply your kindness.”

“I have bought a data plan and set it up for you, I will try to call you often,” Haren ignored Kôra’s gratitude. “Learn to use it, ask me or Keane if unsure.”

“Y... Yes Uncle...” Kôra was still in disbelief by this unexpected gift, turning it on. “Thank you!” his word was as loud as the phone’s tacky startup tune that ensued later.

“Hey, kid. . .”

Kora did not hear, busy checking all the pre-installed applications with a big smile. 

“Kid, forget the phone for a while as this is more important,” he calmed the ecstatic boy down, getting his instant attention. “These are potent spell papers; put these in every corner of your room, and on every piece of a mirror.”

“Yes uncle, I will.”

“There are also maintaining potions; it’s a low dose potion mixed with vitamins,” Haren explained the content of a small box containing ten sachets he handed out. “Drink one every three days.”

“Yes Uncle.” Kôra eyed his phone.

“This is the most important so pay attention. It’s a sealing potion sent by your father seven years ago, ” Haren called to Kôra diminishing attention span. The man gave a clear blue vial of potion with a dropper cap. The round-shaped bottle with accents looked fancy and expensive. “ Use it when your left eye seal is broken and it's turn green, you only need one drop. It’s very potent and hard to replicate, so try to keep your eye seal intact."

Kôra stood flabbergasted. “S. . . So my left eye is really green?”

“Yes, and you better not going around looking like it.”

“W. . . Why uncle?”

“I don’t know, your parents said so for your safety.”

“But. . . But Xhichai people have different colored eyes and they can walk around free like that?” Kôra inquired. He daily saw some schoolmates belong to said people, and many more in the city although they are a minority. One example was the man accompanying the woman he helped in Thierna about one week ago.

“Xhichaites aren’t human, you aren’t one of them. You are different.”

“Then, what is the reason? What am I? I am still a human, right?” Kôra asked with a disconcerted tone. He itched to repeat the last sentence.

“I don’t know, don’t ask me!” Haren raised his voice. “Maybe Keane knows, ask him later!”

“Sorry, Uncle.”

“Forgive me, I don’t know exactly what to answer. I hid things from you because I don’t know what to explain,” Haren apologized. “I have no idea where Polat and Meara got you from, or what exactly the organization is doing; I’m just dragged into this.”

“Understood, Uncle.”

“That’s all, you can go,” he closed abruptly, preventing himself from saying anything more. “Be sure to pack all your stuff.”

“Yes, Uncle. . ." the teen stacked his gift and supplies to carry back with a dry smile, yet he noticed something alarming.

“Uncle. . . ?” Kôra called Haren with a faint voice. “If I can ask. . . Who is he? Have I seen him before?”

“Who?”

Kôra pointed at a drawing Haren was working on; a mixed media drawing of a young man with tousled wavy long hair. It was hard to dechiper his age, yet the person could be less older than late twenties. He has dark hair and based on the shading of charcoal, his skin is maybe brown near the shade of Kôra’s.

This would be a normal portrait if it was not for the disturbing position he is in. A noose hugged his neck tight, which was seemingly broken by the force of a long drop hanging. He has both eyes opened in a rather strange way, alongside with his outward tongue; an unnerving face of death. The eyes were the only colored part of the drawing; left purple, right yellow. Those pierced deep. Whether Haren did well with emotion, or it was the subject himself; the eyes perforated and infiltrated his mind with indescribable impressions.

“Do you see him? Do you see him too?!” Haren’s composure shattered into sharp pieces of dread. He was always pallid, yet now he looked like a reanimated corpse. “Sometimes I see your father, sometimes I see him.”

“What is wrong, Uncle?”

“It’s a recurring nightmare. I always see you or your father from behind; under a tree. But, when I approached him he disappeared.” Haren trembled.

Kôra listened with thumping heartbeats.

“Then instead, this guy showed up. Hanging from the tree with this face,” he continued. “It never ends well, even when I’m awake I still can see him haunting my mind. Your father, then him, and you.”

“Please calm and not worry, Uncle. I never seen such thing, except dreams about death and earthquakes,” Kôra tried to soothe his uncle with facts. The man was always described as a sensitive and anxious person by his father, yet not this extreme. “Only weird thing is the reflection in the mirror who looks like me but never me, it even has different moving.”

“That’s it! Don’t let it get to you! Don’t be influenced with it,” Haren looked even more distraught, he starkly raised his voice. “This is one of the reasons I put spell paper and potions all over, I thought it’s just my delusion, but he’s real.”

“The spirits, they can’t accept that they are among the dead,” he elaborated, mentioning a thing the boy had been aware of. “The dead always have a way to torment the living,” the rather cliched proverb from his people that he has heard over and over, echoed hard in Kôra’s ear like never before.

“Uncle what can I do—”

“He is probably tethered to you. I’m glad that you agreed to stay with Keane,” Haren stated in unease, his voice rippled like troubled water. “I can’t manage this. I thought this was unreal. I thought I’m losing my mind.”

Kôra shuddered, he could not look up by the weight of guilt creeping down his spine. The gifts in his hand felt like burning shackles instead of joy, he does not deserve those after all. Uncle was indeed under great pressure all these times, he suffered just the way Kôra did. He could not sleep well or eat peacefully, he only put up with this for the sake of his nephew.

“I am sorry, Uncle. . ."

The boy glanced at orange containers containing prescription pills near Haren’s desk, there are three. A stack of over-the-counter sleeping pills sitting at the corner of Haren’s desk, scattered near the family photo of his childhood. There were a few beer cans placed near the trash can as he looked closely. Kôra was ashamed of how not even once he was aware that Haren needed to consume any of those.

Suddenly the dead stare of the drawing’s eyes became realer. It captivated his mind; the familiar face which he cannot look away from. In such discretion, Kôra set his phone camera shutter to silent and pointed it to the drawing.

»»-------------¤-------------««

Kôra put his school uniform into a brown suitcase he borrowed from Uncle. He was supposed to move at early Sunday so it will not interfere with school schedule; to give him time to rest and adapt. From the information he got, the room was fully furnished; he only needs to bring clothes and other belongings. Uncle said Keane’s house was located in the sparse suburb of Grahein, which twenty minutes walk is needed to reach the nearest bus station. That boy wondered what kind of house the man is living in, perhaps a dark mansion with vast gardens as he read in fiction books.

There was still more newly ironed underwear and socks in the wardrobe, he would not want to forget those essentials. The boy reached the wardrobe door to open; the movement caused the newspaper sheets which cover the door mirror fall. That exact troublesome mirror which always disturbs him, it was like insisting to refuse being covered. Ineluctably, Kôra glimpsed his own reflection.

It was him.

It was just like him.

It was just like the drawing which Uncle made.

But him.

Himself, hanged with a noose.

Kôra sat petrified in front of the mirror, by this macabre view of himself. This time he could not resist this sudden feeling to set his eyes fixed, abandoning pleas of what his uncle said. Like a puppet on a string, his hands involuntarily moved to his neck. His fingers pressed deep, placing the two hands around. Rough and tight like a rope, dead and dark of a stare.

He reminded of the hanged man drawing.

Rough and tight like a rope.

“Finally know who me is?” that faint voice said in broken English. The voice which was just like him.

Dead and dark of a stare.

Kôra’s head whirled in shortness of breath as his vision blurs. His grip loosened just like how his nervous system forced him; no one can choke oneself to death by their own hands. He gasped and coughed profusely until a drip of tears ran down his cheeks, filling the air to the lung’s content. The boy touched his pained neck, which showed a shallow redness mark in the shape of a rope ligature.

 “What happen to our people beautiful eyes of you?” he asked.

Kôra gasped. To the boy’s surprise, his mirror image was present in his side. Was it his mere unease, or the thing radiates an icy air around him. The coldness of dread; it was the likes of that forbidding feeling when passing a graveyard in the dead of night. Closer and closer, stronger and stronger;his mere existence petrified Kôra. Just like that midnight awakening.

You. . . You stabbed my eye! Kôra answered inside his mind. No matter how he pushed it, his tongue paralyzed.

The thing tucked his hair behind his ears, revealing his green left eye.

“Poor my people mistreated by insects,” said the reflection. Kôra shuddered by his tone; it sounded warm, almost came across as empathetic. “You look like someone I remember, I cannot help but sticking to you.”

Who? You are mistaken! You are the one who tries to look like me. You attacked me, and my uncle too! My uncle is not an insect! You are vile!

“But. . I can not talk. . . Long and clear, can not be nice, because a situation. . . I apology.”

For the intrusive to the destructive acts he has done, those words sounded compassionate. Kôra noticed his intermittent dragged pronunciation. Out of breath. It struck the teen, that reflection sounded exhausted. Yet by what?

“Brainwashed and not able to speak our glorious language,” pitied him. “Let us work together; regain our selves as fellow people together.”

You are mistaken! You are probably bad person. Let us not!

“Let. . . us. . . reach the truth of what happened.”

His hand moved to reach Kôra. Wavering.

But what if he is not mistaken? What if he says the truth.

Kôra stared at him unblinking with his purple eyes.

“Want to know about yourself?”

Is it actually about myself?