Zayn's hands gripped the door handle, his heart beating with a strange anticipation as he turned the key to the front door. He had been looking forward to this moment- surprising Laila when he returned home early, after all the pain and sacrifice he had endured. It had been weeks of recovery, weeks of uncertainty, but now he was well enough to finally give her the life he’d always wanted for them both.

He smiled softly to himself as he stepped inside, a quiet sense of relief washing over him. But then- he stopped.

His eyes froze, his breath catching in his throat as he took in the sight before him.

Laila, his Laila, stood in the living room, but she wasn’t alone. She was wrapped in the arms of another man. A tall, broad-shouldered figure who held her close, her tiptoes barely touching the ground as she leaned up to kiss his cheek.

The world around Zayn began to spin. His vision blurred. The sound of his breath became deafening in his ears.

“Laila,” he whispered, though it felt like the word couldn’t even escape his lips fully. The room felt small, suffocating. His legs shook, and for a moment, he thought he might collapse.

She didn’t notice him.

“How long do we have to play this?” the man’s voice was rough, filled with something Zayn couldn’t quite place. "I miss you, Laila."

Zayn’s chest tightened as he heard the words, the air in the room feeling suddenly impossibly thick. He couldn’t breathe. His throat closed up, and his legs threatened to give way beneath him.

Laila smiled, her eyes flickering with something Zayn had never seen before. It wasn’t the warmth he had always known. It wasn’t the love he thought they shared. It was cold, calculating, empty.

"I am tired of playing his 'good wife,'" she said, her voice dripping with something Zayn couldn’t recognize. "See, he’s loaded. I’m waiting for him to transfer his wealth to me so we both can have a secure future. Just like I made him the donor. Trust me."

Her words echoed in his ears. And for a moment, the room swirled into a blur of memories, of pain, of betrayal. His mind flashed back to the brothel, to the other Laila- the one he had tried so hard to forget. Her words reverberated in his thoughts.

"People would leave you not for love, but for money."

It was a cruel twist of fate, a reminder of the emptiness he had always felt. His mother had betrayed him the same way. His entire life had been shaped by this coldness, this lack of love. First, his father’s abandonment. Then his mother’s betrayal. And now, this.

He staggered back, his breath shallow and ragged. The world around him seemed to close in, suffocating him. His heart- his very soul- felt as though it had been ripped out of his chest. Was he that unlovable? Was he so worthless that she had to pretend all this time?

He couldn’t stay. He couldn’t look at her. The thought of it- the idea of them, together, of everything he had believed- shattered into a million pieces in his mind.

Without another word, he turned and stumbled out the door. His legs barely held him up as he made his way to the car, the air outside doing little to ease the suffocating weight that pressed on his chest.

He slammed the car door shut with shaking hands, his entire body trembling as he gripped the steering wheel. His breath came in short, desperate gasps, each one more difficult than the last.

His heart felt like it was cracking in his chest, the pain so sharp and overwhelming he thought he might suffocate under it. His head fell back against the seat, and the tears came—tears he hadn’t allowed himself to shed in years.

Laila. The woman he thought he loved. The woman he had given everything for. She was gone. And in her place was someone else. Someone who had never cared for him.

She was never his...

She only wanted his money...

Zayn sat in the car, parked in the darkness of a street that felt too wide, too empty. The world outside felt as hollow as the space inside him. His hands trembled on the steering wheel, but it wasn’t just the cold night air. It was the raw, suffocating ache in his chest, the kind that no amount of distance could heal. His mind swirled with images, fragments of a life that no longer felt like his own. Her face. Her smile. That last conversation. She never really loved me, did she? he thought, the question hanging in the air like an accusation, but there were no answers.

The silence in the car was unbearable, but it was nothing compared to the silence inside him. He closed his eyes, but all he could see was her in the arms of another man. Her lips on his cheek, the words she had whispered, I’m tired of playing the good wife. A bitter laugh escaped him. What was I? He had been so sure, so damn sure that he had moved on, that he had built something real. But it was all a lie. He had been a fool, a joke in his own story.

Zayn’s breath came in shallow gasps, his chest tightening as if the air itself had become too thick for him to breathe. He wanted to scream, to break something, to shatter the mirror he had been looking into. But instead, he sat there, frozen. He could feel the tears welling up behind his eyes, but he fought them, as if refusing to cry would stop the ache in his heart. But it wouldn’t. The tears came anyway, hot and fast, and before he knew it, he was sobbing, his body shaking with the force of it.

Why? he wanted to scream into the empty night. Why is it always like this?

His hands covered his face, as if that would somehow block out the pain. But it was impossible. The ache inside him was relentless, gnawing at him with the fury of a wound that would never heal. He had been abandoned. Again. The realization hit him like a punch to the gut. He had tried so hard. He had tried to be different. But it was never enough, was it? He would always be the same lonely man he had been before. No one would ever really love him.

The tears came harder now, choking him, swallowing him whole. He gasped for air, but it felt like the world had turned against him, pressing in from all sides. His heart was a jagged, broken thing, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t fix it. He couldn’t make it stop hurting. I’m not worth loving, he thought, his chest convulsing with a sob. No one will ever really love me.

He could hear his breath, ragged and uneven, as he struggled to stay in control. But there was no control anymore. He was falling apart, and there was no one to catch him. His hands gripped the wheel, but it didn’t help. The loneliness was suffocating, the kind that made everything else fade into the background. His mind was filled with echoes of the past, the feeling of waiting for a call that would never come, of watching his friends talk to their parents while he sat in the corner, alone.

You’re not worth it, the voice inside him whispered, cruel and sharp. You never were.

Zayn couldn’t stop the flood of thoughts, the weight of them pressing down on him like a thousand tons. He wasn’t worth her love. He wasn’t worth anyone’s love. He had tried to be better, to be someone who could be loved, but he had failed. He had always been destined to fail, hadn’t he?

He leaned back against the seat, closing his eyes, but it didn’t make a difference. It didn’t make the pain go away. How did I get here again? he wondered, his voice barely a whisper. How did I let myself believe this time would be different?

The silence in the car was deafening, suffocating. It was the same silence that had always been with him, even when he was surrounded by people. The kind of silence that made you feel like no one could ever truly understand you, like no one could ever really see you. The kind of silence that filled up the spaces inside you until there was nothing left.

Zayn’s sobs quieted into soft, broken breaths. The tears slowed, but the ache in his chest remained, a constant, gnawing reminder that nothing would ever be enough. He could feel the weight of it crushing him, the realization that he was always going to be alone, that he was always going to be the one left behind.

He wiped his tears with the back of his hand, but it didn’t help. His eyes were red, his face wet, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t sure if he had ever felt more empty, more lost. There was no one left for him. Not really. No one who would stay, no one who would ever truly care.

Zayn stumbled into the brothel, his body shaking, his mind in a fog. He didn’t know why he was here- only that he couldn’t stand the weight of his own existence anymore. The suffocating silence of his empty house, the hollow echo of a love he had been too blind to see, had driven him to this place. This dark, filthy place where everything had once seemed so simple, so much more real than the lies he had told himself.

He had to find her. He needed to hear her voice, to feel her presence again. The absence of Laila, both in his heart and in the life he had tried to build, was a wound that never healed.

He walked down the dimly lit hallway, his feet heavy, each step harder than the last. His breath felt shallow, his body unsteady, but still, he kept moving forward, driven by an impulse he didn’t understand. As he reached her room, he hesitated. His hand lingered on the doorframe for a moment, and then he pushed it open. His heart leaped into his throat, his pulse racing, but the sight that met him made his stomach twist with nausea.

There was a woman on the bed with another man- soft, languid, her body sprawled carelessly beneath the pale light of the bedside lamp. But it wasn’t her. Not Laila. He stood frozen for a moment, staring, trying to push away the nauseating pang of disappointment that tightened his chest.

“Where is Laila?” he asked, his voice hoarse, sharp with desperation. His words came out too loud, too frantic, like a man grasping at straws.

The woman on the bed looked up slowly, her eyes clouded with the haze of a world he had once tried to forget. She smirked, sitting up, her movements lazy, seductive. “Laila?” she said, her voice thick with mockery. “You want me to be your Laila?” she teased, the words oozing with a sickly sweetness.

Zayn felt his frustration flare, his heart clenching with the ghost of something he could no longer name. “No. Laila. The woman who used to stay here,” he spat, his tone sharp with impatience.

The woman paused, the brief flicker of recognition crossing her face before it faded. She exhaled slowly, taking a drag from her cigarette, the embers glowing faintly in the dark room. “We had no Laila here,” she said flatly, her voice devoid of interest, as though the name meant nothing to her.

Zayn’s heart dropped into his stomach. No Laila? How could that be? He turned abruptly, his legs unsteady as he walked out, each step a battle against the sickening realization gnawing at him. He had to find her- he had to. But the further he walked, the more the empty, desolate truth sank in.

At the reception desk, the woman behind the counter looked up as he approached. The brief flicker of recognition in her eyes was followed by a hardening of her expression. She knew him. And she knew why he was here. Zayn’s stomach churned.

“Where is she?” His voice broke slightly, urgent, nearly desperate now.

The woman sighed, leaned back in her chair, her gaze distant. “Her...” she began, her words cold and final. “She’s dead.”

The words hit him like a slap, his whole body seizing as the blood drained from his face. Dead? His knees buckled, and he reached out to steady himself against the counter, his hands trembling. “No... no,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “She can’t be... She can’t be dead.”

The woman’s eyes softened briefly, pity bleeding into her gaze. But there was no comfort in her words. “She overdosed,” she said matter-of-factly, as if it were just another story, another casualty of the same old, broken system.

Zayn’s legs gave out entirely, and he crumpled to the floor, his body shaking violently. The sound of his sobs was harsh in the quiet, a raw, guttural cry that tore through him, a cry born from the depths of his regret and his grief. His face crumpled, and he wept, not as a man but as a child- a child who had lost everything he had ever cared about, everything he had ever hoped for.

Minutes passed, but time held no meaning. He was drowning. Slowly. The weight of his own sorrow crushed him under its suffocating pressure. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. His hands beat against his chest in an attempt to expel the guilt, the helplessness that filled him.

The woman behind the counter offered him a glass of water, but it meant nothing. Nothing could fill the void, the emptiness that spread within him, slowly, steadily.

“Can I... can I have her room?” His voice was barely a whisper now, raw, broken. “Not with anyone. I want her room. The way it was.”

The woman looked at him, wariness in her eyes, before reluctantly nodding. She took his money, and twenty minutes later, he found himself standing in the doorway of her room.

He stepped inside, his movements slow, heavy, as though every inch of the room was suffocating him. The familiar space was dark, the silence thick with ghosts. He could almost feel her presence here, could almost smell her, the faint memory of her scent lingering in the air, reminding him of a time when everything had felt real. When she had felt real.

Zayn sank onto the bed, his body numb. His mind, too, was numb. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, he let himself remember. He could see her in his mind’s eye- Laila, her dark eyes full of life, her smile full of mischief. He could almost feel the brush of her fingers against his forehead, a gentle, familiar touch that had always calmed him, even when he didn’t deserve it.

And then, the voice. The voice that he had tried so hard to escape, but it was never far. Always there, waiting. Her voice.

A delicate hand brushed against his forehead, and Zayn’s heart stopped. His eyes flew open, his breath catching in his throat. She was there, in front of him, her dark, seductive gaze fixed on him. She bent down, her breath warm against his ear.

“You thought of me,” she purred. “And here I am.”

Zayn’s chest tightened, his hands trembling.

“Dediya na dhoka,” she whispered, a cruel smile playing on her lips. “Kaha tha maine, dhokebaaz niklegi woh.”

He couldn’t stop the tears that welled in his eyes, couldn’t stop the sobs that escaped him, raw and bitter. He had turned away from her, abandoned her, and now- now she was right there. Her words cut deeper than any knife.

“You were busy replacing me with her,” she mocked, her lips curling into a sadistic smile.

Zayn’s hands shook as he touched her, touched the past, touched his own brokenness. He felt as though he was drowning, lost in the memories, in the hurt, in the overwhelming loneliness that had always been there. She held him, and for a moment, it felt as if he could breathe again- dark, suffocating, but real.

“You think I’m gone?” she whispered. “I’m always here. Always.”

And in that moment, Zayn let go. He let the darkness consume him, let her pull him under, because at least it was something. At least it was real.

The tears kept falling, and his voice broke as he sobbed. “She left me,” he whispered. “I gave her everything- my house, my wealth, my... even my marrow. And I left you for her.”

The woman smiled softly, her voice sweet and venomous. “But I never left you,” she murmured. “I’ll never leave you. I’m always here.”

Zayn closed his eyes, surrendering to the pain, to the darkness that had always been with him. The woman held him close, the only one who had ever truly been there, the only one who understood the hollow ache that consumed him. And in her arms, he wept for everything he had lost.

Zayn's body trembled in the woman's arms, his sobs barely controlled, his mind slipping further into the abyss with each breath he took. His heart, a broken mess of shattered hopes and crushed desires, beat weakly in his chest, echoing the hollow emptiness that had consumed him.

The woman’s fingers traced the back of his neck, a slow, deliberate motion, as though soothing him- her touch both tender and possessive. She leaned down, her lips brushing against his ear, her voice a soft, poisonous whisper that seeped into his very soul.

"Why fight it, Zayn?" Her words were smooth, silk and poison wrapped in a honeyed tone. "You’ve lost everything. You have nothing left. She left you. The world has turned its back on you. You think you’re worthy of redemption? Of love?" Her fingers curled tighter into his skin, her grip cold, unyielding. "No one is coming to save you. Not anymore."

Zayn's breathing hitched. Her words were like a steady rhythm pounding into his skull, drowning out everything else. He tried to pull away from her, but she wouldn’t let him. Her presence was suffocating, wrapping itself around him like a vice.

"You’ve been abandoned, Zayn," she continued, her voice sinking deeper into his ears. "Your love betrayed you. Your past betrayed you. There’s no escape from your pain. It’s never going to stop. You can’t keep pretending to live in a world that doesn’t want you." She paused, her fingers brushing the back of his hair as she kissed the side of his neck, her lips leaving a trail of coldness in their wake. "But there is a way out, Zayn. A way to end it all. You don’t have to keep hurting. You don’t have to carry this burden anymore."

His chest tightened at her words, the overwhelming weight of despair crashing over him. It was all true. He had nothing. No love, no family, no future. Every connection he had ever known had been ripped away, leaving him raw and exposed. He wanted to believe there was a way out, a way to end it all, to stop the suffocating pain. But deep down, somewhere in the wreckage of his soul, a part of him resisted. He still held on to a faint, desperate hope that he could find a way to survive.

But the woman’s voice, smooth and relentless, was unyielding. "You don’t need to fight anymore, Zayn. You can be free." Her hand slid from his neck, down to his chest, where his heart still beat- weak, feeble, but still alive. "You can leave this place. Leave this pain. Forever."

Her lips brushed against his ear once more, her breath hot against his skin. "I’m here. You won’t be alone. I’ll be with you. Always."

Zayn closed his eyes, his hands trembling at his sides, the unbearable weight of her words pressing down on him. His breath was ragged, the room spinning. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to end it all, to surrender to the nothingness that seemed so much simpler than facing the jagged shards of his existence.

"You don’t have to feel this anymore," she coaxed, her lips lingering close to his skin. "You’ve been in pain your whole life. Let go. Join me. We can escape this hell together. You don’t have to carry this burden of living when you’ve already lost everything. Death is freedom, Zayn."

Her words were like a final lullaby, pulling him closer to the edge. He could hear the faint hum of her voice, feel the heat of her body against his, a twisted comfort in the darkness. The promise of escape was so sweet, so tempting, and for a brief, fleeting moment, he believed it. He believed that this was the end he had been waiting for. That the silence of death would finally give him peace.

He closed his eyes, his chest heaving with the weight of his decision, his hands trembling. She could see it in him- see the struggle within his eyes- and with a slow, malicious smile, she pushed him further, whispering in his ear: "You’re already dead inside, Zayn. Let go of the world that doesn’t care about you. End it. And you’ll finally be free."

And for the first time in his life, Zayn didn’t feel the sharp sting of a fight within him. There was only numbness, only surrender, as he fell into the embrace of the woman who had become the dark siren calling him into the void. His breath slowed, his mind clouded with the darkness she had nurtured, and he whispered the words that had haunted him for so long:

"Help me escape."

And with that, he closed his eyes, ready to follow her into the eternal night.

Zayn stood on the stool, his hands gripping the ceiling fan above him, his head spinning with the weight of everything he had lost. His heart was a hollow, shattered thing, its beats slow and erratic, as though it too had given up. The room around him was dim, the shadows stretching long across the walls, swallowing him whole. The woman- the one who had whispered sweet poison into his ear- sat on the bed, her smile languid, knowing, a cold satisfaction behind her eyes.

Her presence was suffocating, a reminder of everything he couldn’t escape. His vision blurred, not just from tears, but from the haunting weight of his own thoughts- the years of rejection, loneliness, abandonment, and pain. Every moment of his life had been a failure, a battle he never stood a chance at winning. His family. Laila. All of them had slipped away, leaving him broken, alone, and drowning in the deepest void.

He could hear her voice now, that sweet, dark lullaby she had sung to him, guiding him toward this moment.

"Just let go, Zayn. You’ll be free. You don’t have to fight anymore. This pain, this emptiness, it will all end. We’ll be together again in the afterlife. I’ll be waiting for you. You don’t have to live like this anymore. You don’t have to feel all of this. Come to me."

His breath was shallow as he looked down, his eyes flicking to her. She was reclining on the bed, her smile soft and cruel at the same time. There was something almost tender about her, like a motherly figure coaxing a child to sleep. Her words were poisonous, but they were the only comfort he had left in a world that had left him to rot.

And then, he heard it. The faintest whisper in his ear. "Meet me in the afterlife, Zayn. I’ll never leave you. No one will ever leave you again."

Her voice, dripping with mockery, was so familiar, so luring. He had spent so many years searching for love, for something to fill the hollow spaces in his heart. And here it was, the answer- death. Sweet, eternal release from the endless pain of living. He didn’t have to go on pretending anymore. He didn’t have to keep struggling, fighting for something that wasn’t coming. The world had turned its back on him. His father, his love, Laila, they had all abandoned him. But this woman- this shadow of his past- was offering him what he had always wanted. Peace. Reconnection. A way to escape.

Zayn’s heart was racing now, his chest tight as his hands clenched harder onto the ceiling fan, ready to pull himself up, to let go. The thought of joining the woman in the afterlife, to finally end the cycle of pain, was overwhelming. The pain was too much. He was too tired. And somewhere deep inside, he believed it- believed that this was the only way to be free, to be done with it all.

A soft chuckle escaped the woman’s lips, her eyes glinting in the dim light. "Mujhe maalum tha tum aaogey(I knew you would come to me)," she purred, her voice low, silky, like a final embrace. "I’ve always known you would come. And when you do, Zayn, it’ll be perfect. We’ll finally be free. No more pretending. No more hurting. Just you and me. Together."

He could hear her words as if they were the only truth left in the world, the final certainty that could make sense of everything. He could see the smile on her face- soft, knowing, cruel. And he believed her. He believed that this was the only way. The only escape.

His vision began to tunnel, the world spinning. The stool beneath him seemed to waver, as if time itself was stretching, giving him a last, fleeting moment to change his mind. But he couldn’t move. His body was numb, his mind clouded, and the room felt smaller, darker, suffocating with the weight of his despair.

"Mere paas aao," she repeated, her smile never faltering.

Zayn swallowed, his hands shaking as he gripped tighter. "I’ll be with you," he whispered to her, his voice cracked and broken, the last of his strength fading with the words. "I’ll come to you."

Zayn’s body dangled from the stool, the weight of his decision pulling him deeper into the dark abyss, but the pain, the suffocating silence, didn’t come. The darkness closed in on him, but it was not an end- it was a beginning. It felt as if something was holding him back, something invisible but strong, tugging at the very core of his being, keeping him tethered to this world he had tried so hard to escape.

His hands, numb from the rope, barely held on. The fear began to creep back into his chest, spreading like wildfire. He wasn’t ready to die. Not yet. He couldn’t leave everything behind- not like this. The rope felt tighter, choking him, but the very instinct to survive fought back, his body jerking, desperate to breathe again. With all his might, he managed to loosen the knot, and in one swift motion, he fell to the floor, gasping, sobbing for air.

The room was still spinning, his vision hazy as he lay on the cold floor, his chest heaving with each painful breath. He hadn’t died, but in that moment, he wished he had. He felt more lost than ever, more broken than he ever thought possible.

Her figure materialized before him, her form ethereal, glowing in a strange, cold light. She didn’t look at him with the same cruelty she had before; instead, her expression was serene, almost pitying. Her lips curled into a smile, and she took a step closer, her eyes locked onto his with an intensity that sent a chill down his spine.

" I don’t know how to live without you."

Her eyes softened, her gaze melting into a mixture of sympathy and something darker. "You never had to leave me, Zayn. You can’t leave me. I am all you have now."

The room spun again, and Zayn felt himself being pulled toward her. His mind, his heart, everything in him was drawn to her. His body trembled as if he were afraid to let go, but in that moment, something whispered to him- You have no choice. You need her.

“You don’t understand,” he whispered hoarsely, “I tried to move on. I tried to build a family … but it all fell apart.”

She stepped closer, her delicate fingers brushing his cheek with a tenderness that was both soothing and terrifying. “She never truly loved you, not the way I do. She left you, just like everyone else. But I? I will never leave you. I am the only one who understands you. The only one who will ever truly care.”

The words wrapped around his mind like a fog, clouding his thoughts, distorting his sense of reality. The line between the physical world and the supernatural blurred. Laila wasn’t just a figment of his imagination anymore. She was there, in his world, speaking to him, guiding him. And with every word, he felt himself slipping deeper into her grasp.

“You need me, Zayn,” she murmured, her voice now a constant presence in his mind. “You always have. You can’t escape me. You are mine.”

The world around him seemed to fade into the background as her words consumed him. He felt her presence more than ever, surrounding him, filling the empty spaces within him. His pulse quickened as he felt the weight of her love, or what he thought was love, crash down on him like an ocean wave. He couldn’t breathe without her. He couldn’t think without her. She was everything.

In his madness, he stopped noticing the passing days. The world outside the brothel felt distant, as if it was happening to someone else. He existed only in the presence of her ghost, her essence. His heart beat only for her. His thoughts were tangled in the illusion she had carefully woven around him, pulling him further into her web.

Zayn began to believe she was the only one who truly cared, the only one who could save him. She was the only reality he knew, the only truth in his twisted existence. He ignored the world outside, the people who had once loved him, the life he had tried to build. All that mattered was her. The ghost of Laila became his everything.

Each day, he spoke to her. Each night, he begged for her guidance. He lived for her. He breathed for her. In his mind, they were together, forever. And with every passing moment, the world outside became more and more distant, fading into nothingness as Laila's presence consumed him entirely.

In the depths of his madness, Zayn stopped questioning the reality around him. Because in his mind, the only truth was that she would never leave him. She was all he had, and that was enough. That was everything.

And as he looked into the mirror, his reflection barely recognizable, the last shred of his humanity seemed to slip away. All that was left was the ghost of her. The ghost that stayed.

The days bled into one another, each one more indistinct than the last. Zayn became a shadow of himself, the man he had been fading into the whispers of the past. He no longer recognized the person who stared back at him in the mirror. The reflection was a stranger- familiar, yet completely foreign. There was no trace of Zayn left, no trace of the man who once lived in the world outside these four walls. Now, there was only her.

Laila.

Her presence became more than just an illusion, more than a haunting ghost in the corners of his mind. Her voice echoed in his head at all hours, soft, soothing, guiding him into a twisted semblance of solace. It started slowly, almost imperceptibly. He would dress in a way that she would, wrapping his body in dark silks, curling his hair, trying to make himself as perfect as he imagined her to be. It felt like something he had to do, like it was the only way he could truly feel her beside him.

At first, it was just a little act- a small imitation of her movements, her grace. He would stand in front of the cracked mirror and trace her image, learning how she carried herself, how she stood with that quiet confidence that now eluded him. But soon, the act became something deeper. The line between Zayn and Laila blurred, and he began to forget. Forget who he was, forget who she was, forget how he had once been loved.

He started to wear makeup, the heavy strokes of dark eyeliner and the soft hue of lipstick becoming his new reality. He spent hours perfecting the details, his hands trembling as he applied foundation, concealer, the colors of a woman who never existed except in his mind. As the transformation took place, Zayn’s identity melted away. The reflection staring back at him wasn’t just Laila. It was him too- her and him, intertwined in a way that no longer made sense.

When he would walk through the brothel, he felt the world shift around him. No longer did he feel like an outsider, a lost soul in the void. He felt like her. He would glide down the hallways with the same air of indifference that he had once seen in her- his shoulders squared, his eyes dark and knowing. The mirrors that lined the walls seemed to reflect her, but they never showed his face. They never showed Zayn anymore. Only Laila.

Zayn had become Laila. He had vanished into her, his identity swallowed whole by the ghost of a woman who had never truly been his.

But he didn’t care anymore. Because in some strange, twisted way, he realized he was still loved. He wasn’t Zayn anymore; he was the woman who had actually loved him, the only one who had ever really cared.

One morning, when he stared at his reflection- painted, adorned, dressed in clothes that could have belonged to a different life- he no longer felt the need to question who he was. He smiled faintly, a broken thing, but a smile nonetheless. It wasn’t Zayn who smiled. It was Laila. The woman he had become, the one he had to be, in order to survive the hell he had created in his own mind.

And in the silence of that room, the ghost of Laila whispered to him once more, the only truth left in a world he had long forgotten. “You are mine, Zayn. You always were. You will never leave me. We are one.”

And Zayn, the shell of a man he had once been, smiled through the tears that began to spill from his eyes, as he whispered, “I am you.”