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Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 12 (v2.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan

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Playlist Track: Billie Eilish — “CHIHIRO”

The person who remembers things sends her a dramatic vampire edit because it made them think of her.

The comparison should feel ridiculous. The clothes are too elaborate, the rooms are almost entirely candlelight, and everybody looks as though wanting someone has already ruined several lives.

She tells herself she likes the costumes.

Then she lets it play again.

She wants someone to feel that much about her. Even when she is not there to keep them interested.

She smiles before deciding whether being recognized this way is sweet or worrying. She types, “you say that like it’s a good thing lol,” but leaves it unsent while the video starts over.

Near the end, one figure moves closer while everybody else in the room is backing away. The scene cuts before anything happens.

She drags the video back. This time, she pauses on the dark window behind them. Her own face reflects faintly in the screen until she changes the angle of the phone.

She takes a screenshot.

From the photo menu, she tries it as her lock screen. The preview covers the faces with widgets and notifications. She moves the image around, then crops until the faces are gone.

What remains is the window and part of the room.

It makes her phone look like it belongs to somebody who enters places like that instead of watching them from bed.

She saves it, locks the phone, and wakes it again.

For a moment, that room appears before hers does.

Once the image is actually waiting on her screen, it feels like something she might have to explain.

She leaves it there anyway.

When she returns to the message, the edit is playing from the beginning. Her reply is still unsent.

She watches it again.

She still has not asked which part reminded them of her.