One Second of Clarity

Each breath drags in decay, heavy as wet dirt in my lungs. I stumble through the streets, boots scuffing fractured asphalt, surrounded by the faceless. Their heads are smudges—oil smears on a windshield, no eyes, no mouths, just a haze where a person should be. My own reflection’s the same, a distorted smear in the puddles I pass. This is the world now: no one sees until you spill your rot. Confess your filth, they say, and the blur peels back. Truth is the key. Truth is the cage.

I’ve never confessed. Not once. Twenty-nine years in this skin, and I’ve kept my shadows locked behind my ribs. Around me, the faceless shuffle—some muttering, some silent, all of us trapped in this unspoken pact. You don’t ask. You don’t tell. Until you do. Then you’re naked, exposed, your face a map of every terrible thing you’ve done. I’ve seen it happen: a woman last week, sobbing in the market, words like splintering wood—I let him drown, I watched the water take him—and then her face snapped into focus. Sharp cheekbones, eyes red-rimmed, a mouth crumpled like she’d bitten through her own soul. Everyone stared. Then they turned away. She was known, and that was her punishment.

Today, I feel it creeping up—something gnawing at my edges. The grime’s heavier, a soggy mask crushing my breath. I pass a man hunched against a wall, his hands trembling. He’s whispering, I took it, I took it all, and I speed up before his face clears. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to know. But the itch in my veins won’t quit. It’s been years since I last felt this, since I buried it deep enough to pretend it wasn’t mine.

The city’s a carcass—withered spires clawing at a dead sky, windows like empty sockets. No one builds anymore. No one dreams. We just exist, faceless and festering, waiting for the moment we crack. I turn a corner, and there she is: the girl. She’s young, maybe sixteen, her blur softer somehow, like fog instead of static. She’s sitting cross-legged in the dirt, rocking slightly, and I should keep walking. I always keep walking. But her voice hooks me.

“You ever wonder what I look like?” she asks, not looking up. Her words are a blade, casual but cutting.

I stop. My tongue feels like lead. “No,” I lie.

She laughs, a sound like breaking glass. “Liar. Everyone wonders. You’re just too chickenshit to ask.”

I shift my weight, the rust-air stinging my throat. “What’s it matter? You’re a blur. I’m a blur. That’s how it works.”

She tilts her head, and I swear I feel her eyes even though I can’t see them. “Not forever. You could know me. All it takes is a little truth.” Her fingers trace circles in the dirt, deliberate, taunting. “Go on. Tell me something wretched. Let me see you.”

My gut twists. She’s baiting me, and I hate how it pulls. “I don’t have anything to say.”

“Bullshit,” she snaps, voice sharp now. “You’re drowning in it. I can smell it on you—old blood, stale guilt. Spill it, or it’ll eat you alive.”

I want to run. I want to smash her fuzzy skull into the ground. Instead, I stand there, fists clenched, a knot in my lungs trying to strangle me. She’s right. It’s been there since I was a kid, since the night I— No. I shove it down, but it’s like trying to hold water in my hands. It slips through.

“Fine,” she says, standing. She’s shorter than me, but her presence is a weight. “I’ll go first.” She steps closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “I killed my sister. Pushed her off the roof. Watched her hit the stones. I was eight. She was six. I didn’t even cry.”

The air shifts, and her face blooms into view—pale skin, wide green eyes, a scar slicing her left eyebrow. She’s beautiful, in a broken way, and it makes me sick. I stumble back, her confession a fist in my stomach. She smiles, teeth bared like a predator.

“Your turn,” she says.

I can’t breathe. Her face—knowing her—changes everything. The blur was safety, a shield. Now she’s real, and I’m still nothing. The words bubble up before I can stop them, raw and ragged. “I left them. My parents. The fire was everywhere, and I ran. Didn’t look back. I heard them screaming, and I kept running.”

It’s out. My chest caves, and the world slants. I feel it—the blur lifting, the air sharpening around me. She’s staring, her green eyes wide, and I know she sees me now: every line, every scar, every coward’s mark. I want to gouge my skin off, but I can’t move.

Then she laughs again, softer this time, and the shatter comes—the mind-fuck I didn’t see coming. “You think that’s the worst thing you’ve done?” she says, stepping closer. “You don’t even remember, do you?”

“What?” My voice creaks.

Her smile contorted, cruel and knowing. “The fire wasn’t an accident. You set it. I was there, hiding in the alley. I saw you strike the match. You didn’t run because you were scared. You ran because you wanted them gone.”

The ground drops out. My head screams—no, no, no—but there’s a flicker, a memory I’ve choked down for decades: the match in my hand, the gasoline stink, the heat licking my knuckles. I didn’t just leave them. I burned them. The confession I gave her was a lie I’ve told myself so long it felt true. She saw through it. She saw me.

“You’re a monster,” she whispers, her face inches from mine. “And now I know you.”

I stagger back, my face—my real face—exposed to her, to the world. The blur’s gone, and I’m flayed open, every stain carved into my skin. She turns and walks away, her laughter lingering in the charred-air, leaving me to drown in the truth I didn’t know I carried.