Chapter 19: The Wrong Reflection
The question hung in the air, suffocating in its weight.
"So which one are you?"
Riven's throat went dry. His mind screamed for an answer, but nothing came. His pulse thundered, out of sync with itself. His body felt real—solid beneath his fingers—but there was something off. Something not quite fitting.
Vex's screen still flickered with the data. Two of him.
For eight minutes, another version of him had existed, breathing the same air, sharing the same space. But where was it now? Had it vanished? Or—
Had it replaced him?
Vera shifted, crossing her arms, but there was something different in her posture. A quiet tension. She was looking at him the way a soldier sizes up a potential threat.
"Say something," she muttered. "Anything."
Riven exhaled slowly. "I'm me."
It sounded weak even to his own ears.
Vex didn't look convinced. His fingers hovered over his console, running calculations, comparing readings. He was good at hiding his emotions, but there was a tightness around his mouth. A flicker of something hesitant in his movements.
He wasn't sure either.
Riven's skin prickled. A creeping sense of wrongness curled at the back of his skull, a whisper just outside of comprehension. His own voice—You were never whole.
He clenched his fists. No. That was the Monarch. That was the thing in the dark, the thing trying to unmake him. He wouldn't let it win.
"We're wasting time," he said, shaking off the unease. "We need to move. Whatever's happening to me, standing here overanalyzing it won't—"
He stopped.
The others noticed his reaction immediately.
"Riven?" Vera's voice was sharper now, cautious.
Riven turned his head slightly, just enough to catch the edge of the screen in his vision.
His heart stopped.
The vitals were still there. Two sets. One active. One lagging behind.
But the second one—the reflection—was moving.
Shifting on its own.
A fraction of a second too slow.
He inhaled sharply. His own breath came a heartbeat later on the monitor. His pulse raced, but the second pulse took just a little longer to catch up.
And then—
It smiled.
Not on his face. Not in the real world.
But on the screen.
His reflection—his double—grinned back at him.
And his own face did nothing.
The air in the room snapped.
Riven staggered back, knocking into the table. Vera's gun was up in a flash, her stance dropping into combat-readiness. Vex cursed under his breath, scrambling to pull up more data, but Riven barely heard them.
He couldn't look away.
The screen flickered. His other self tilted its head—just slightly too far. The wrong angle. The wrong shape.
The wrong Riven.
It was still smiling.
Then—
It moved.
Not on the screen.
Behind him.
A cold breath kissed the back of his neck.
Riven didn't think. He whirled around, fist flying, but there was nothing there. Just air. Just emptiness.
The screen blinked once.
The second vitals were gone.
---
The silence that followed was thick.
Vera didn't lower her gun.
Vex swallowed hard. "I—" He hesitated, rubbing his hands over his face. "That… wasn't just a glitch, was it?"
Riven's chest heaved. He stared at the monitor, the place where his second self had just been. "No." His voice was hoarse. "That was real."
Vera's grip on her weapon tightened. "So where is it now?"
The question sent a chill down his spine.
Because there was only one answer.
It was still here.
Somewhere.
Watching.
Waiting.
And sooner or later, it was going to take its place.