What The World Leaves Behind

"You ever heard of The Whispering Gorge?"

Mireille's voice cut through the night air, casual, like she wasn't about to drop some ominous cryptid bullshit on me. The car hummed beneath us, rolling down the empty highway, nothing but headlights and the endless stretch of road ahead.

I sighed. "Am I about to?"

"Damn right you are." She grinned, the glow of the dashboard catching the sharp edges of her teeth. "You like creepy shit, don't you?"

"I like burgers," I said. "And silence."

"Too bad, because this one's good." She stretched her arms over the wheel, her bracelets clicking together. "Way out past Ironpoint, there's this canyon—big, empty, mostly rock and dust. Not much to see. But if you stand in it? If you speak?"

She paused. Let the silence stretch, the weight of the words settling in.

I didn't bite.

She smirked. "It speaks back."

I snorted. "Yeah, that's called an echo."

She clicked her tongue. "See, that's what people think at first. But the thing about The Whispering Gorge?" She drummed her fingers against the wheel, slow. Measured. "It doesn't just repeat what you say."

The way she said it made something cold curl at the back of my neck.

I shifted, arms crossing. "So what, it remixes your voice? Spits it back in a demon filter?"

"Nah," she said, eyes still on the road. "It starts normal. You say something, it echoes. Just like you'd expect. But the longer you listen…"

Another pause.

This time, I felt it.

Mireille wasn't just telling a story. She was building it.

She did that. Always had. Spun words like they were something solid, something real.

She leaned forward, her voice dropping just a little. "After a while, the echo starts repeating things you didn't say."

The highway stretched on.

Somewhere out past the trees, a coyote yipped into the night.

I exhaled. "Sounds fake. And stupid."

"Oh, totally," she said. "Except for the people who go in and don't come out."

I rolled my eyes. "Right, because the gorge eats them."

"Not eats." She shot me a sideways glance, too amused. "Replaces."

The cold thing in my chest twisted.

I didn't let it show.

Mireille grinned. "It starts small. Maybe your voice sounds a little different. A little off. Then it's saying things you thought about saying, but never did. Then it's answering questions you never asked."

She tapped the wheel, thoughtful. "And then one day, you call out—" she flicked her fingers, light and casual—"and the echo answers first."

The car was too quiet.

I hated that I felt it.

Hated that it settled under my skin like a splinter, like something I couldn't dig out.

I scoffed, tilting my head against the seat. "Alright, and let me guess—the big moral of the story is don't talk to yourself?"

"The moral of the story," Mireille said, lifting one hand from the wheel, "is don't wait too long to figure out which voice is yours."

Outside, the world blurred past. The headlights stretched long over the empty asphalt, reaching for something we'd never catch.

I shook my head. "That's dumb."

"Maybe." She popped a fry into her mouth, voice half-muffled around it. "Maybe not."

She didn't push the story further. Didn't try to spook me with some grand, dramatic finale.

She just let it sit.

Like she knew it would stay with me anyway.

And I hated that she was right.