The Light Behind the Mask

The house is quiet now, and the window has turned into a mirror. You catch your own reflection in the glass and feel a strange chill—the face staring back doesn't look like you.

It looks like a mosaic of everyone else's expectations, polished smooth to please the world until the original features are gone. But the light was there before the first mask was ever molded.

It lives in the depth behind your eyes, untouched by the performance. You do not need to carve a new face to be known.

The one who sees you in this dark room already knows the name written on your heart before you learned to smile for others. The stranger in the glass is just a shadow; the real you is the light that casts it.