LUCIEN'S SUBSTITUTE WIFE

I stopped walking and tilted my head back, gazing up at the glittering sky.

The night above me was quiet, endless, and cold. For a moment, everything else faded... the deadlines, the exhaustion, the heavy weight of being alive. I closed my eyes, letting the midnight wind dance through my messy red hair. It carried the scent of asphalt, rain, and the quiet loneliness of empty streets.

How long had it been since I last allowed myself to simply breathe?

Exhaustion had almost become a part of my life. But tonight, beneath a sky too beautiful for a world this heavy, I wanted to linger. Maybe... just a few more seconds.

"The sky is so vast, isn't it?"

I straightened up. My heart raced in surprise, but quickly calmed when I saw an old lady standing right beside me. She was smiling as she gazed up at the vast sky, just as I had been doing moments ago.

"As vast as that sky is, so is the world," she said, pausing for a moment, her voice soft against the wind.

"But, hija, do you believe there could be another version of our lives?"

The question caught me off guard. Do I?

"Yes. Ever since I was little, I've believed in parallel worlds," I answered, slowly nodding.

"What if that world really exists?" she asked with a smile, her eyes reflecting the starlight.

She was a little creepy, but I wasn't afraid of her.

The idea of a parallel universe had always pulled at something deep inside me. Somewhere out there, maybe another version of me had chosen differently. Lived louder. Fallen in love sooner. Or never broken the way I did. It should have felt unsettling, but instead, it thrilled me.

Maybe she didn't grow up alone. Maybe she didn't have to work while studying. Maybe her life was more luxurious than mine... with a complete family and everything she could ever want.

"Then that would be better," I said. "At least the version of me in that world is living a better life than I am." I smiled.

"But what if she isn't?"

This time, the old lady stared straight into my eyes... no, it was as if she were piercing through my soul.

A shiver ran through me. I could feel the hairs on my skin stand on end because of the way she was looking at me.

"What if your other self is actually living a worse life in that world?"

I couldn't find an answer.

Had I never considered that possibility before? Could it be true? Or maybe not.

It was in that moment that I realized the universe was stitched together with unanswered mysteries. People vanished without reason, and eventually, we simply called them gone. Missing. Dead.

But what if they didn't simply disappear? What if they slipped somewhere else, into the hidden cracks of reality?

If such a world exists... I hope my other self is doing well, and so is my brother. I hope that in that reality, I'm still with him... that we're still facing life's challenges together.

"We can never be certain of the answers, and that's okay," the old woman said, breaking through my silence.

"It's getting late. You should start walking home now. Take care." She smiled and walked away into the darkness.

I took one last look at the stars. But before I could take another step, a piece of paper was carried by the wind and landed at my feet.

And there it was. A missing person's flyer.

Its edges were worn, its corners curled, and a face stared back at me from the concrete.

His face.

The one etched so deeply into my memories.

My chest tightened instantly.

Why now? Why here?

Several years had already passed. I no longer knew what else I could do to find him.

One night, my brother vanished like smoke dissolving into the darkness. No warning. No sound. Just gone.

We had been watching the eclipse, lying side by side on a mat behind our house. The air was cool, the world drenched in an eerie crimson light. We were laughing. Everything felt peaceful.

And then... emptiness.

It happened faster than the blink of an eye. One moment, he was there... so close that our shoulders were almost touching. The next second, he was gone. My vision dimmed for a heartbeat, as if something unseen had passed between me and the world, followed by a fierce, freezing gust of wind.

I looked around anxiously, repeatedly shouting and calling his name. But the silence of the night was the only thing that answered me.

No struggle. No trace. Nothing.

Reality was cruel. My brother had been swallowed by something I couldn't see, something I couldn't fight.

The only things that remained with me from that night were the cold wind, the missing piece of my life... and the endless questions and search for him that never seemed to end.

I hugged myself as I slowly picked up the crumpled paper from the concrete. My fingers trembled as I brushed away the dirt covering my brother's face. Even after all these years, his eyes were still the ones I saw whenever I closed mine.

He was my anchor.

And when he disappeared, it felt as though he had taken half of my soul with him.

"Agatha? Hija, is that you?"

I flinched at the voice coming from behind me. When I turned around, I saw Marta, our neighbor who owned the small sari-sari store at the corner. She was carrying an empty bucket, looking as though she had just finished washing something outside.

"Yes, Marta. Good evening," I greeted her, quickly hiding the flyer behind my back.

But it was too late. She had already noticed what I was holding.

She looked at me with a mixture of pity and sadness—a reaction I was already so tired of seeing from other people.

"Oh, child... it's already late, and you're still holding on to that," she sighed as she slowly approached me. "It's been years, Agatha. I know it's hard, but you need to move on with your life. You can't spend the rest of your life searching for someone who... might really be gone."

Really be gone.

The words felt like needles piercing straight through my chest.

"He isn't dead, Marta," I said softly but firmly. "I know my brother is alive. I can feel it."

"The problem with you is that you keep making yourself suffer over things you have no certainty about," the old woman said, shaking her head before turning around to enter their gate.

"Go home and get some sleep. The streets are dangerous at night."

"Thank you," I whispered as I watched her walk away.

No certainty.

I suddenly remembered what the strange old woman had said earlier about parallel worlds.

What if my brother didn't just disappear into thin air? What if he slipped somewhere else?

If that world truly existed, what if that's where he ended up while we were watching the eclipse?

A sudden, freezing gust of wind swept through the empty street, identical to the cold breeze from the night he vanished.

A shiver ran through me.

The flyer in my hand rattled in the wind, almost as if it were whispering a warning.

I was desperate.

I had spent years searching this world, chasing dead ends and cold cases. But what if I had been looking in the wrong place all along?

If I had to change the course of my fate just to find my brother, I would do it.

Even if it meant selling myself to the darkness of another world.

I looked up at the vast sky once more.

As the stars stared back at me in complete silence, one final, heavy thought pierced through my mind—a question that would soon rewrite my entire existence.

If there truly is another version of my life on the other side of the universe, where my brother is waiting... am I ready to face the truth, or have I been chasing nothing more than an intricate illusion destined for me?