“I don’t think I was ever supposed to be here,” Elliot whispered, his voice faint against the oppressive silence. The room around him didn’t seem to shrink—no, it felt as though it was redefining itself. Objects flickered between the familiar and the unrecognizable, as though reality itself had forgotten how to arrange its pieces.
The Strangeness Begins
It had started weeks ago, with whispers buried in the static of his phone calls. He had glimpsed himself in reflections where he shouldn’t have been. A twisted image stared back at him, like a figure out of place in a world that was losing its coherence.
Then came the notebook.
Elliot had been sorting through old junk when something caught his eye: a small, burnt book half-buried beneath discarded papers. Its cover was charred, and the edges curled as though it had endured years of neglect. But the most unsettling part was the name on the cover—his name.
Elliot.
It wasn’t his handwriting. The jagged, desperate strokes told a story of urgency that unsettled him. As he read through the fragmented pages, he discovered instructions, warnings, and cryptic messages that seemed to be written just for him.
“You Are the Last Echo”
There was one line that kept reappearing:
“You are the last echo.”
It was as if the phrase had been waiting for him, echoing in his mind like a song he couldn’t escape. What did it mean? Why did it feel as though he had heard it before?
Each new page contained more fragments of memories—memories he couldn’t place but knew were his. He had never written them, yet they felt true.
Reality Starts to Unravel
Things grew stranger by the day. People started forgetting him mid-conversation. His phone would refuse to acknowledge his existence, and his reflection in mirrors no longer seemed to match his movements. Elliot felt himself slipping further from reality with each passing hour.
The feeling of dissolution deepened, and soon, the walls themselves seemed to fade, darkening as if unseen flames were erasing them in reverse.
The air grew heavy, thick with a presence that felt ancient and wrong. His hands began to tremble. Then, he saw it—his hands were turning to ash.
He wasn’t disappearing. He wasn’t being erased.
No, Elliot realized with a jolt, the truth was far worse. He wasn’t the original. He was merely an echo.
The Figure in the Doorway
Suddenly, a sound like cracking glass filled the air, and Elliot spun around. A figure stood in the doorway—not a person, not even a shadow, but something like a smear, a burnt-out impression of a thing that once existed.
He took a hesitant step back, his breath catching in his throat.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice shaking.
The figure tilted its head and then spoke—its voice Elliot’s voice:
“I am what’s left of you.”
The Final Truth Revealed
As the figure’s words echoed in his mind, the world around him seemed to crumble. The notebook slipped from his fingers, falling to the floor. When it hit, the pages rewrote themselves, the name on the cover changing before his very eyes.
Elliot’s heart raced as he realized: the cycle wasn’t over. It had only just begun.
A New Beginning
Somewhere, someone else woke up, feeling as though they had lived this before. Just like Elliot, they would find a burnt notebook, read the words “You are the last echo,” and begin the same journey. It was an endless loop.
The cycle was far from finished.
The last echo was always waiting for the next to arrive.
