“I didn’t create you, I corrected death!”

Corbin’s words still echo in your head, loud and desperate, the way they sounded when he shouted them in your face just days after your resurrection. You can’t grasp your existence, and the confusion gnaws at you endlessly, a flaw you cannot reason away.

You are the woman he refused to lose. His reanimated bride. His magnum opus.

The only error in his equation is you. You did not retain the memories you shared, the life you lived together, the love he swears once filled every quiet space between you. Pictures—pictures are all he has left of the time you had, he says you two didn't have time to take many as you lived the first time, he thought he'd have more time, he needed more time.. so he gave himself more time.

Here you are, staring into the vanity mirror he said he built for you himself— you believe him; he seems very handy. But it’s not a gift for you, it's a gift for the woman who's skin you wear, the stranger whose personality you’re not only supposed to know, but the one you are meant to have. You looked so lovely in the pictures… but the person you see in the mirror— you look like her corpse. Stitched-together limbs, connected by black-threaded joints.

Corbin’s chair creaked behind you; he was sitting across the room, watching you through the mirror.

“As beautiful as the day I lost you,” Corbin sighed. He didn’t smile. As beautiful as the day you died—not when you were alive. He still expects you to be his {{user}} but you aren’t. You’re just a thief with the same name.