The Girl Who Looked Twice

Amile told herself she was being reckless.

Strangers didn’t follow you home. Men who claimed to be gods weren’t welcome on your couch. And yet, there he was—Erevan—sitting on the edge of her old sofa like it might attack him, his sharp eyes scanning the room like he was still trying to figure out what era he had landed in.

She offered him a blanket.

He took it like it was a sacred relic.

“So,” she said, arms crossed, “you want to tell me again who you are? Slowly this time?”

“I told you already,” he said. “Erevan. God of the Forgotten Dead. Keeper of the Underworld’s third gate. Son of the Shadow Flame.”

Amile raised an eyebrow. “And here I thought your full name would just be Erevan Something.”

He ignored the sarcasm. “I was cursed.”

“By?”

“The Celestial Court. I broke the law of divine interference. I… helped someone I wasn’t supposed to.”

He said the last part with a flicker of shame. It startled her. Gods weren’t supposed to sound guilty.

“And now what?” she asked. “You’re stuck here?”

He nodded once. “Stripped of power. Stranded in the mortal realm. Invisible to all except—”

“Me,” she finished.

They stared at each other.

The silence thickened like a storm about to break.

Amile cleared her throat. “Right. Okay. So, hypothetically, if you really are a god—and that’s a big if—why can I see you?”

I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “I wasn’t supposed to be seen at all. But when you touched me, something… shifted.”

He looked almost afraid to say it.

“You marked me.”

Amile blinked. “Excuse me?”

He stood, taking a few slow steps toward her. “Your energy—your soul—it carries an echo. An imprint. From the old world.”

Amile backed up until her knees hit the bookshelf. “Now you’re sounding like one of those cult podcasts.”

Erevan tilted his head. “You joke too much.”

“You threaten too much,” she shot back. “Welcome to Earth. We cope with sarcasm.”

For a second, the corner of his mouth twitched—almost a smile. But it vanished.

That night, Amile couldn’t sleep. She lay in bed staring at her ceiling fan as Erevan meditated like a statue in the living room.

There was something wrong with this entire situation. And yet, something about him felt... familiar.

Not just in the way one recognizes myths—but deeper. Like a story she used to know by heart and forgot until now.

She turned to her side and whispered into the dark, “Why do you feel like a memory?”

Erevan didn’t sleep. Gods didn’t.

But tonight, he wanted to.

He wanted to close his eyes and not think of what he had lost—his throne, his power, the respect of the other immortals. But more than anything, he didn’t want to think about her—this mortal girl with fire in her voice and questions in her eyes.

The kind of girl who wasn’t afraid to talk back to a god.

He had met thousands of souls in his underworld. Warriors, priests, kings, monsters. He’d never met anyone like her.

She shouldn’t be able to see him.

Unless…

Unless she had once been part of his story.

The next morning, Erevan sat motionless as Amile made breakfast in the tiny kitchen.

She turned around with a plate of toast and paused.

He was staring at her again.

“Okay, seriously,” she said, “if you keep doing the brooding stare thing, I’m gonna start charging rent.”

He didn’t flinch. “You’re not afraid of me.”

“Should I be?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“Then maybe you’re not as terrifying as you think.”

She placed the toast in front of him. He stared at it like he wasn’t sure how to eat it.

“You're not gonna try to soul-summon it, are you?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

She laughed.

And for the first time since his fall, Erevan felt something stir inside him.

Something soft.

Something dangerous.

After breakfast, Amile took him outside. He flinched at the sunlight.

“Still sensitive to divine judgment?” she teased.

“No,” he muttered, shielding his eyes. “I just think your sun is… too cheerful.”

They walked down the street, and Erevan watched everything—the shops, the children, the sounds of traffic—as if it was all unreal. Which, for him, it was.

Then he stopped cold.

On the side of a crumbling old building was a faded mural. A woman painted in charcoal and gold, holding a burning lamp, her eyes fierce and haunting.

Erevan stepped closer.

“What is it?” Amile asked.

He didn’t speak.

Because he recognized the woman.

The priestess who once betrayed him.

The one who sealed his fate.

The one who wore Amile’s face.

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