The shadows swirled, their presence growing more tangible, more dangerous. Each step they took caused the air to crackle, like the electricity before a storm. I felt it — the tension, the weight of their intent. They weren't just shapes made of darkness. They were more than that. They were reflections, distorted versions of us, pulling on our minds, making us question everything.
I gripped the shard tighter in my hand, the cold blue light flickering ominously, its edges starting to blur. The figures drew nearer, and I could feel my heartbeat speeding up, the dread settling deep in my chest.
"Stay close," Alice's voice sliced through the haze, distant but clear. "They'll try to make you doubt yourselves. Don't fall for it. These aren't your reflections... they're your fears."
But it was hard to keep my mind straight with the shadows circling around us, their forms growing ever more vivid, each one wearing a face I knew too well.
My reflection — my twisted self — reached out of the mirror, dragging its fingers along the surface. The glass cracked again, and a deep voice rumbled from the other side.
"You think you know who you are, Alex?" the reflection hissed, its voice a rasp of anger and mockery. "You're nothing but a shadow of yourself. You don't know who you could've been, who you should've been."
I took a step back, my fingers trembling around the shard. "Shut up," I muttered, but the words were weak. The reflection's smile twisted further, and I could feel its presence tightening around me, suffocating me.
Behind me, I heard Arisa's sharp intake of breath. "Alex, look out!"
I spun around to see one of the shadowy figures lunging toward her, its form flickering in and out of reality. It wasn't Arisa. Not really. It was a distorted version of her — someone else, someone she was afraid of becoming. The fear in her eyes was the only thing that made it real.
"Arisa!" I shouted, lunging forward.
But before I could reach her, the figure grabbed her, pulling her into the dark tendrils that spiraled around her. Arisa's scream echoed in my ears, and for a moment, I felt myself losing control, slipping into that place where the line between reality and nightmare didn't exist anymore.
"Let her go!" I screamed, swinging the shard. The cold light flared in my hand, but the shadowy figure only laughed.
"Can you save her?" the distorted voice whispered. "Or are you too scared of what's inside you to even try?"
I took another step forward, the shard growing heavier in my grip. I couldn't think. I couldn't let the fear control me.
The shadow that had taken Arisa's form turned, its body dissolving into black mist as it lunged toward me. I braced for impact, but the moment before it touched me, the world twisted again.
And then... I was somewhere else.
I blinked and found myself standing in a different room — one that didn't look like the room we had just been in. It was cold, too. But different. The walls were smooth, polished, and too white, the kind of sterile place you'd expect to find in a hospital or an asylum.
But it wasn't the room that caught my attention.
It was the mirror standing in the center of the room, reflecting something I couldn't make sense of.
No, it wasn't a mirror.
It was me.
Or... it was supposed to be.
I stepped forward and looked into the reflection. The face that stared back at me was familiar, but there was something deeply wrong about it. The eyes... they weren't my eyes. They were darker, colder. And the expression? It wasn't mine either.
The figure in the mirror smiled, but it wasn't a smile that I recognized.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
The reflection's smile grew wider, the eyes glowing with a malevolent light. "Who do you think you are, Alex? You've been running from the truth for too long."
The words hit me like a slap. The truth? What truth?
Before I could respond, the reflection stepped out of the mirror, its form shifting and distorting. It was me — but not me. The dark version of myself that had taunted me before was now standing in front of me, so real it almost felt like I could reach out and touch it.
"You've always been afraid, haven't you?" the figure said, its voice dripping with mockery. "Afraid of what you might become. Of who you really are."
I couldn't answer. I just stood there, staring at it, feeling my chest tighten with every word it spoke.
"You can't escape your own reflection," it whispered. "And you can't outrun your own fears."
The air grew colder, the room growing darker. The shadow that had taken Arisa's place was back, but now, it was me. The distorted version of myself was everywhere — crawling out of the cracks, growing and stretching, trying to swallow me whole.
I had to escape. I had to break free.
I gripped the shard tightly, feeling its cold light burning through the fear in my veins. With a shout, I swung the shard toward the figure, watching as it sliced through the air.
And just like that — everything shattered.
The room collapsed in on itself, the glass breaking with a deafening crack. The distorted version of myself screamed as the shards of glass exploded into the air, but I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.
I forced myself to keep moving, and the shadowy figures seemed to recoil, dissipating into nothingness as the shards of glass fell to the ground around me.
I was back in the room, but Arisa was gone. The mirror had vanished, and the shadows had faded away.
Everything was silent.
I blinked, taking a shaky breath, and turned around. James was standing a few feet away, his eyes wide with concern, but there was something different in his gaze. Something I couldn't quite place.
"Alex," he said quietly, his voice uncertain. "Are you okay?"
I looked down at my hand, still clutching the shard. The cold light was gone, leaving only a dull, lifeless piece of glass. I dropped it to the ground, hearing the sharp clink as it hit the stone floor.
"I'm fine," I said, even though I wasn't sure I believed myself.
But I couldn't dwell on it now. Not yet. The trials weren't over, and we were running out of time.
The door behind me opened, and Alice's voice rang out, cold and distant.
"You're not finished yet. The next trial awaits. The Mirror Trial."
I felt my blood run cold. The last trial. And somehow, I had a feeling that this one would be the hardest yet.
I turned to face the others. "Let's go."
And we walked forward. Together.