His Erased Song, Her Reborn Voice

from my vision, leaving only a sea of indistinct faces and the ghostly blue glow of the hologram shimmering in front of me. The hologram was of Scarlett. Her signature platinum blonde hair, her imp

tte. Liam stood in the wings, just out of the spotlight's glare, his face an unreadable mask. His eyes, though, they were fixed

nd, crackled through my in-ear monitor. "Don'

, the celebrated producer Liam Stone, had been systematically erasing me. He was turning me into a stand-in for his estranged ex, the pop star Scarlett. This performance, a surprise "comebac

. For just one note, one single, defiant sound, I tried to reclaim my own voice. I pu

istorting for a split second. The perfectly synthesized voice cracked in

to a snarl. His message in my ear was

think you're doing, Av

, smooth and flawless, washing over the arena. I fell back into the routine, a hollowed-out she

rm, his fingers digging into my skin. He dragged me off the stage, past his

from mine. His charming public persona was gone, replaced by a c

oice trembling. "This is you and her. I'

amatic. Your artistic sensitivity is getting the

me. It was a familiar feeling from the past few weeks, a feeling I had been trying to ignore. I s

a physical blow. It was a certainty tha

preg

e into the ghost of his past love. The grotesque irony of it was suffocating. I wa

windows. I saw my own tired face, the dark circles under my eyes, but superimposed over it was the phantom of Scarlett' s perfect, smiling mask. It was real. It had all been real. The cheering crowds, the crackle of sta