Mirror Doesn’t Lie

He turned again, slowly, back to the portrait. This time his gaze fell to the bottom edge of the frame. And there they were.

Words.

Etched not with ink or paint, but something deeper—something ancient:

"Blood is the key."

"DON'T GIVE UP YET."

He read them once. Then again. Committed them like scripture, branding them into his mind.

Then, without another glance, he raised his hand and slammed it down on the door Eva had opened for him earlier. His palm met the cold metal with a biting sting—not just cold, but ancient. Alive.

As the door creaked open, its groan rolled like thunder down the hallway. Other doors seemed to stir in sympathy, answering with soft creaks, subtle shifts. The air grew denser. Not colder. Heavier. As if every object in the room was being held in place by something unseen.

He stepped through. And the world listened.

"Why?!"

"Thwack!"

His hand cracked against his own forehead, dragging through his thick, tangled hair. Pain bloomed across his scalp—welcome pain. Something he could feel. Something he could control.

Everything else was slipping.

His hand remained twisted in his hair, fingers knotted in the sweat-damp strands. He dragged it back across his head, down his neck, pulling in a sharp, laboured breath. The air scorched through his lungs—dry, metallic, like the taste of rusted nails.

He lunged forward.

No hesitation. No awareness of space. Just motion. Intent.

His staff dragged behind him—not smooth, not composed. It struggled to keep up, shuddering with every uneven strike. Not a symbol of power anymore, but a crutch beneath the weight of unraveling thought.

Every step he took landed with impact—thud… thud… thud—war drums sounding out across the quiet. Each one louder, heavier, more punishing than the last. As if he were trying to bury his doubt beneath his own footfalls.

Then—he stopped.

Just before his room.

His head bowed. Not in thought. Not in humility. But in surrender.

His shoulders curled inward. Something invisible pressing down. A guilt too large to be spoken. A presence too near to be seen.

Still staring at nothing, he reached for the handle.

It turned slowly.

That sound.

The groan of the old lock. Not sharp. Not jarring. Just... familiar. The same sound from the night everything changed. The night the woman vanished.

The door swung open.

He stepped inside—and froze.

The room had been... reset.

No signs of what had happened there. No stains. No wrinkles in the sheets. The bed was pristine. The air smelled of citrus and cotton. Too clean. Sterile.

The silence wasn't empty. It was wiped.

Even the floor, where shadows once gathered, now gleamed faintly with the residue of harsh scrubbing. The walls glowed faintly, not with light, but with absence. Like they'd been made to forget.

Drawn by instinct, his feet carried him to the window.

Outside, the world was changing.

The sky was bleeding—slowly, silently—from grey into twilight. Purples bloomed like bruises across the clouds. Copper flared along the horizon, followed by deep blue swallowing the edges of the sky.

The field below pulsed with life. Insects flitted through the air, some glowing with soft yellow light—tiny sparks floating on the breeze. Others remained cloaked in shadow, their wings invisible until they caught the moonlight.

Then—the cry.

Not human. Not animal. Something... ancient. Whispered through the trees.

It came again. From deeper in the woods. Then again—from the sky.

The night was speaking.

It didn't fall. It unfurled. Bloomed around him. Crickets sang in the grass. Birds cut across the sky in wild, stuttering arcs, drawing patterns that only madmen or gods might read.

For a few fragile seconds, he felt still.

The storm in his chest loosened. His breath slowed. The noise quieted.

Then came the weight.

It dropped into his body like iron—thick, undeniable. Not just fatigue. A summons. A warning.

Rest. Cool yourself. Reset.

He let go of the window frame.

The wood's memory stayed on his hand like a ghost.

Turning, slower now, he moved across the room toward the other door. The one he had forgotten to fear.

But not tonight.

Not anymore.

The door closed behind him with a magnetic click—no rattle, no echo. Just a seal. As if this room had been waiting for him alone.

The air inside was different. Not colder, not warmer—just denser. Stagnant. Sound didn't move here. Even the faint rustle of fabric as he stepped forward felt swallowed whole. His staff didn't tap so much as it disappeared into the floor's silence. A hush so complete it felt holy.

The mirror stood at the far end.

Tall. Narrow. Its frame was matte, cool-toned, industrial—seamless as if grown from steel, not forged. Within it, the glass wasn't perfectly clear. It had a tint—smoke-gray, soft, and somehow ancient despite its modern finish. The curtain behind it, golden and heavy, gave the illusion of depth, of layers unseen. A faint glow filtered from behind it, casting ambiguous shapes: the trace of a shoulder, a turn of the head, the illusion of movement. Nothing ever solid, but enough to make the heart stutter.

He stood before it.

The mirror didn't just reflect—it remembered. It gave back his image with a clarity almost cruel: the wear in his skin, the fight etched into his jawline, the exhaustion stitched into the shadows under his eyes. But it wasn't just him. The reflection looked back with something more. Something knowing. As if the man in the mirror had seen further than he ever had.

And then… the shift.

It began behind the sternum. A rise—not pain, but pressure. Something unfurling from inside. His lungs misfired, first shallow, then gasping. His stomach clenched, a long-forgotten fear rising like a tide he couldn't hold back. His hand trembled as it reached for the edge of the nearby table—gripping until the wood bit back.

Then came the echo.

She was there. Not in the mirror.

In him.

It wasn't her face that struck first, but her weight. The feeling of her presence—how the air used to bend around her, the way silence deepened when she entered a room. The sound of her name surfaced like breath from deep water—his mind whispered it, his body braced for it.