He had worn so many faces that he no longer remembered his own. Each Halloween, he stitched another smile onto his silence, painted color over his decay, and called it “living.”

The witch’s hat was not a costume, it was a crown of pretense, hiding the hollow within. The pumpkin beside him grinned like an echo of what joy once felt like, mocking his confusion.

He whispered into the void, “Who am I now? Still breathing?” But even his words were trapped behind the threads that sealed his mouth.

Somewhere between the orange glow of memory and the blue shadow of regret, his identity dissolved. He was not dead, yet not truly alive, just a haunted echo wearing flesh for one more night.