Elias didn't sleep that night.
Not for lack of trying. But when he closed his eyes, the fire came back. Smoke curling around marble columns, ink-stained fingers clinging to a wooden toy, and a voice, soft, desperate, calling him Damon.
He stared at the ceiling in Rae's flat as the first crack of dawn painted the sky with sickly blue light. The air was stale with old electronics and bitter coffee. The mirror lay on the table a few feet away, wrapped in a dense layer of black cloth, sealed inside a reinforced pelican case like a weapon.
He could still feel it.
Rae was up before he was. She always was. She'd made tea, not coffee. Probably to keep him calm.
"Vital signs are stable," she said, looking over the scan readouts on her portable. "Brain activity spiked during the mirror contact, then dropped. But not dangerously."
"I died," Elias said flatly. "I felt myself die. And I forgot my own name."
Rae didn't argue.
"You said the name Lys Kalden," he continued. "Do you think she created this thing?"
"She didn't. But she was the last person who tried to destroy it."
Elias sat up, intrigued.
"She called it a 'chronotropic anchor,'" Rae explained. "An artifact that stores more than history. It stores gravity, emotional gravity. What you experienced in Alexandria was a psychic imprint. But it's not just memory replay. You weren't watching. You were that man."
Elias rubbed his temples. "So what now?"
"I found an address in Geneva," Rae said. "Kalden's old lab. Disbanded after 2019. But we might still find a lead. It's worth a shot."
He nodded. But something about the plan didn't feel simple. His gut whispered a warning.
Not that he could trust it anymore.
He moves forward, hoping the path wasn't already chosen. But fate does not consult its travelers.
Geneva - Three Days Later
The facility was an abandoned weather station built into the side of a snow-covered ridge, surrounded by fir trees and the long quiet of high altitude. A rusted gate bore the faded sigil of a defunct research institute. Rae disabled the external alarm with ease.
Inside, the lab felt like a time capsule. Dust-coated screens, overturned chairs, half-drained mugs. A coat still hung on a wall hook near the exit, like someone had once intended to come back.
Elias moved slowly, scanning for clues.
Then he found it.
A notebook, sealed inside a metal drawer beneath a microscope. On the cover: "LK | Memory Reversal Trials — Phase V."
He opened it. The pages were dense with diagrams, notes in German and English, and sketchy charts. But one line stood out:
Subject 0 displays signs of temporal slippage. Conscious bleed. Identity erosion probable.
He turned the page.
A photo clipped into the notebook, grainy and black-and-white. It showed a man strapped to a chair, a device not unlike the mirror resting on the table beside him. His face was obscured.
But the hands.
Those were his hands.
He stepped back. Air fled his lungs. The room tilted.
"What is it?" Rae asked, rushing over.
He handed her the notebook. Pointed to the photo.
Her face went pale. "No way. That's not possible."
Elias gripped the edge of the table. "What if this isn't my first time doing this? What if I've used that thing before and I just don't remember?"
A circle is not a path. It is a prison shaped like progress.
They searched the rest of the lab, but found only fragments. Mentions of "Host resonance," "Historical anchors," and a file labeled: Project Echo: Terminated.
No Lys Kalden. No new contact. Just dust and echoes.
As they stepped outside, snow began to fall.
Rae pulled her coat tight. "If she was trying to destroy the mirror, maybe she found out something even worse than what it can show."
Elias said nothing.
Because in his chest, the mirror wasn't silent anymore. It pulsed.
Not light. Not sound.
A memory, forming like frost.
A boy's face. A scream.
Then something new, a different name.
Julian.
He stumbled, catching himself on a rail.
"What did you see?" Rae asked.
But Elias didn't answer.
He wasn't sure he had the right to speak that name. Not yet.
He is unraveling. Thread by thread, soul by soul. But the design is older than he knows.
That night Elias sat alone on the balcony of a Geneva motel overlooking the city. The lights below shimmered through melting snow. Rae had gone to get food. Or distance.
He stared at the mirror in his lap, still locked away. But the case didn't hum anymore. It beat, like a heart.
He didn't open it.
Instead, he opened the notebook again and turned to the last page. There, in red ink, were just three words:
Return requires loss.
Loss of what?
Time?
Or self?
He closed the book slowly.
Behind him, a shadow moved.
In the reflection of the sliding glass door, another Elias stood.
Smiling.
Waiting.
There are seven anchors. Seven masks. Seven doors. But only one true name. And he has never known it.