Iris Reflections

The night hung heavy with a blanket of stillness, the kind of quiet that weighed on the soul, and Seraphina stood before her mirror, a strange chill creeping through her veins. Her fingers hovered above the cold glass, tracing the edges of the frame. The flickering candlelight in the room created shifting shadows, but there was something deeper, something unspoken, that gnawed at her from within. It was as if the secrets she had uncovered—the truths that had been waiting to surface—had finally begun to reveal themselves, pressing down on her like the weight of an unseen force. Lyria's presence, once something distant, had now become a constant, suffocating her with the weight of its existence. It was as if the very air she breathed had thickened with Lyria's unseen hand, tightening its grip on Seraphina's heart.

She leaned closer to the mirror, the coldness of the glass seeping through her fingertips. At first, it felt like nothing more than a distortion—a trick of the light, the play of shadow and flame across the room. But as her breath grew shallow, she realized something was wrong. The reflection before her was not her own. It was hers, yes, but it was something… different.

Her heart skipped a beat. The eyes staring back at her were not her own. They were Lyria's.

At first, Seraphina thought she had imagined it. Her eyes—those familiar, warm brown orbs—had always been a constant in her world, a defining feature that had never wavered. But now, staring back at her from the glass, the reflection was warped, twisted by something alien. One eye was a deep, unsettling amber, and the other a cold, unnatural shade of violet. They felt out of place, foreign, like they belonged to someone else entirely. Someone who had seen too much, felt too much pain, and walked too many bloody paths.

Her breath hitched in her throat as her pulse quickened. Was this some sort of illusion? A trick played by the shadows that seemed to dance on the walls? Or had she—no, become—something else entirely?

A sharp chill ran down her spine as her heart thundered in her chest. She reached up to touch her face, half-expecting to feel the familiar contours of her own skin, but the reflection remained unchanged. The amber and violet eyes stared at her—cold, unblinking, and unyielding. Seraphina stumbled back, feeling the weight of the moment sink into her bones.

And then it happened.

The room around her began to warp, the air growing heavy and oppressive, suffocating her as if the walls themselves were closing in. The mirror before her grew darker, as though a storm was brewing just beyond its surface, and the very air turned thick and oppressive. She could feel her body growing light, her mind dizzying in the space between breaths.

When her vision cleared, the mirror was gone. She no longer stood in her chambers. Instead, she was on a battlefield—amidst the screams of death and the stench of decay. The battlefield stretched out before her, a vast wasteland of destruction. The cries of the dying filled the air, mixing with the sickening sound of steel clashing against steel. Blood and dirt stained the ground, and in her hand, she felt the cold, unyielding grip of a dagger. Her dagger.

Her fingers tightened around the hilt as the cold steel pressed into her skin, slick with blood. It was the same dagger she had seen in her dreams—the one inscribed with the words "Sera fecit." The inscription had once been meaningless, just a whisper in the back of her mind, but now, it seemed to hold weight—something far more dangerous than she had ever anticipated.

Blood dripped from the blade, falling in slow motion to the ground, each drop like a dark, crimson raindrop. The blood pooled at her feet, and as it spread, it began to take shape. It twisted and coiled, forming the body of a serpent, its scales glistening darkly in the dim light. The serpent's eyes—bright, predatory—locked with hers, and for a moment, everything else seemed to fade away. It was watching her, waiting for her to make the next move.

She didn't need to move. The serpent did it for her. It coiled in on itself, forming the shape of an ouroboros—a symbol of endless destruction, of something devouring itself. The blood, still warm, seemed to pulse with life, following the serpent's every movement, as if it had a mind of its own.

The serpent's gaze never wavered. It was relentless. It was inevitable.

And then, in the silence that followed, a voice echoed in her mind. It wasn't Lyria's voice. It was her own, but it was different, distant, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.

"Sera fecit," it whispered, a soft, almost reverent tone. "Sera made it. Sera did this."

The words reverberated through her chest, sinking into the marrow of her bones. The serpent's gaze burned into her soul as if to say, this is your path. This is what you are destined to become. The words felt suffocating, like the air was being sucked from her lungs.

For a moment, she thought she could escape it. But no matter how far she tried to run, the truth followed, just beyond her reach. She was not just an observer. She was a participant. The blood on her hands, the weight of death, the path of destruction—it was all her doing. It was inevitable. She was bound to it. There was no way out.

She stumbled backward, her legs unsteady beneath her. Her fingers flew to her eyes, brushing against the cold, foreign feeling that had settled there. Her reflection in the mirror returned, and the eyes—Lyria's eyes—were still there, staring back at her. She could feel them within her now, not just in her reflection, but deep inside her. The predatory coldness, the hunger for destruction—it was all becoming a part of her.

And in that moment, Seraphina understood. She was no longer herself. She was Lyria. She had become the very thing she had feared, the very thing she had tried to resist.

Could she change it? Could she fight it?

The question spun in her mind like a dizzying whirlpool. She had fought so hard to resist this darkness, to reject this path. But now, she realized, the fight was over. There was no escaping it. The serpent's path was her path. The blood was her blood. The death—it would be her death.

The mirror cracked then, its surface splintering into a thousand pieces, each shard reflecting a part of her soul. She turned away, but the truth lingered, thick and suffocating, in the air around her. She was trapped in her own reflection, bound by the path she had chosen—the path that had already been set in motion.

The serpent's hunger had consumed her.