I--- Adobe Illustrator 2020 -

“How do you know that?”

Mira saved. She closed the laptop. On the screen, before it went dark, the Pen Tool cursor blinked twice—not a command, this time, but a goodbye.

Her throat closed. The reference photo was of a client. Wasn’t it? She looked again. The woman’s glasses were wrong. The hair was shorter. Oh God. She had been tracing her mother’s face all along, disguised as a brief. i--- Adobe Illustrator 2020

The Pen Tool quivered. Then, letter by letter, as if remembering how:

“Glitch,” she muttered, and pressed Delete. “How do you know that

Mira laughed, a short, nervous burst. “A haunted software update?”

I’m still here.

She tried again. This time, the eye became a deep well of noir—black pupil, no catchlight, the kind of eye that looked back. She leaned closer. Did the anchor point just… shift? She hadn’t touched it.