*"There are doors that open only for the dying. He forgot to close his." — The Fool*
The rain had followed him home.
It beat against the apartment windows in a steady, uneven rhythm — like a heart learning to beat again. The old pipes hummed, and the single lamp by the couch painted everything in that dull, gold-grey of memory.
Jake sat there, still in his school clothes, hands folded like a prayer he didn't believe in.
His grandmother had gone to bed early. She'd cried when he came back from the hospital, though he never told her what he remembered — mostly because he didn't. Only fragments: the bus's headlights bending upward, the noise folding in on itself, the world going *quiet*. And then… water.
Always water.
He rubbed the base of his neck — the skin there felt tight, almost bruised. He'd noticed it in the mirror earlier: a faint, pale mark like a rope burn, right where the spine met the skull. He'd covered it with his collar.
Outside, a siren wailed in the distance and then fell silent. The room breathed again.
He tried to read, to distract himself, but the words wouldn't stay still. They shivered faintly, letters rearranging just long enough for him to doubt his eyes.
When he blinked, the book was normal again.
*Stress,* he told himself. *Trauma.*
But when he looked toward the window, the reflection didn't move with him.
Jake froze.
In the glass, his reflection sat perfectly still while he turned his head. It stared at him — same face, same clothes — but its eyes were open wider. Too wide. The mouth curved just enough to look like it wanted to speak.
He stood slowly, heart hammering. He reached toward the window. The reflection tilted its head the other way, curious.
And then—
"Noli tangere."
"Do not Touch"
The whisper was low, feminine, and distinctly behind him.
Jake spun.
No one. Just the dim room and the lamp humming like a living thing.
He turned back to the window. The reflection was normal again.
He swallowed hard, forcing a laugh that didn't sound like him. "Right. I'm losing it."
He went to the sink, splashed cold water on his face, and looked up.
This time the mirror didn't show his kitchen it showed a field. Dark, endless, and wet with rain.
And hanging above it — upside down — was a figure in pale light, bound by a thread that seemed to pulse like a heartbeat.
He stumbled back, hit the counter, and gasped for air. The image wavered — then shattered soundlessly, rippling across the mirror's surface like disturbed water.
He stared at his own terrified reflection until it settled.
Behind his eyes, something stirred.
A word—no, a *name*—rose unbidden from the depths of him:
*Suspensus.*
The sound didn't belong in his mouth, but it came anyway, like an instinct older than thought. The air went heavy. For a single heartbeat, gravity itself seemed to forget which way was down.
The lamp bulb flickered, went out, and came back blinding white.
Every shadow in the room was hanging upside down.
Jake fell to his knees. His chest ached, his throat raw. He could hear it now — whispering in waves, layered voices speaking in Latin that his mind half-understood:
*"Suspensus… pendet inter caelum et terram…"*
*(He hangs between heaven and earth.)*
He gasped — and suddenly, everything *snapped* back.
The lamp dimmed. The shadows obeyed gravity again. The window only showed rain.
Jake slumped against the counter, shaking, breath loud in the silence.
After a while, he laughed quietly, bitterly. "Yeah. Definitely trauma."
From her room, his grandmother called sleepily, "Jake? You okay?"
He hesitated, swallowing the tremor in his voice. "Yeah, Nana. Just—just dropped something."
He stared at the mirror again. This time, there was only his reflection. But as he turned away, a faint fog bloomed across the glass — and written there, as if by unseen fingers, appeared three words:
*Non pendes solus.*
*(You do not hang alone.)*
Jake didn't see it.
But the Fool did.
And the Fool smiled.