The Fractured Mirror"
In the heart of the soaked city, where raindrops met the silence of cracked pavements, Kaida stood before an ancient mirror hanging on the wall of a forgotten building.
It was no ordinary mirror—it was made of fractured glass, as if telling a broken story before it ever reflected her image.
She gazed into her reflection, but what she saw was not what she expected.
Behind her calm, blue face shimmered a wavering shadow, a ghost that couldn't hold itself together, whispering names she didn't know—words leaking through the cracks.
At that moment, a heavy step echoed behind her.
She turned—and saw him.
Renzor, who now lived in her heart under the name Vailen, stood as though wrestling with a storm within. His ashen eyes flickered with a light that defied explanation.
"The mirror doesn't reflect reality," he said as he stepped closer.
"It shatters truth... to reveal what's hidden."
Kaida looked at him, realizing the man who had once been her enemy was now a piece of scattered hope.
Yet, questions still encircled her heart like tightening chains.
"How did you know about the mirror?" she whispered.
"It's not the city's mirror," he answered. "It's the mirror of my soul. I saw it the moment I lost everything... when my heart broke."
Kaida felt Vailen's words blend with the sound of rain, as if together they wove a sorrowful melody from the past.
He began to tell his story—a tale of a man entangled in a game greater than himself, in a world that had grown within the tower, where every secret shattered like clear glass.
He spoke of a woman—not just lost, but whose soul had been taken by the tower—and of a child who never cried, and the curse that haunted him with every step he took.
Kaida listened deeply, and felt that this story wasn't distant from her own.
Perhaps it was a thread tying her fate to his.
When he finished, he reached out and gently touched one of the mirror's cracks.
It widened, as if opening a gateway between two worlds.
"This mirror," Vailen said, "is the bridge between what we see... and what we're afraid to see."
Suddenly, images began to move, and voices rose.
Kaida saw flashes from the past—visions of a place far from the city, where her brother Ren was resisting an unspeakable force, where her destiny was entwined with the deepest secrets of the tower.
In that moment, she understood that seeking the truth would not be a gentle path, and that the tower was not just a building—but a living entity, one that devoured those who came near, turning them into wandering shadows in a world that knew no mercy.
She looked at Vailen and said,
"I'm ready... but are you ready to lose what's left of you?"
He gave a sad smile.
"The losing began long ago."
As rain slipped across the fractured glass, the tower began to whisper their names—as though they were about to enter a new chapter, where truth would be crueler… and fate, much darker.