The smell hits him first. Smoke, thick, pungent, sacred. Not the acrid stench of burning rubber or synthetic fuel, but something older, ritualistic. Charred herbs, blood, warm iron, and something sweet, decaying.
Elias opened his eyes. Around him, rhythmic drumming echoed like a second heartbeat, steady and unrelenting.
He was on his knees. Dirt under him, warm and cracked. A ring of torches circled him. People stood beyond the firelight. some chanting, some watching in silence. Their faces blurred, their eyes shining like wet obsidian.
And they were chanting a name.
"Papa... Papa Loa... Papa Lenoir..."
Elias tried to move but couldn't. His hands were stained red, something sticky clinging to his fingers. In one hand, a knife. Curved, ceremonial, its hilt wrapped in string and bone. It pulsed.
He wasn't wearing his own clothes. His sleeves were torn, chest bare, painted with white sigils that meant nothing to him but felt heavy with power. There was something around his neck, a string of dark beads and claws, brushing against his collarbone with each breath.
He stood, or rather, his body stood, and he moved with it.
That was the first horror.
He was not in control.
"Speak, Papa," one of the figures whispered. A girl, no older than ten, with wide, unblinking eyes and a face streaked with ash. "The veil is open."
He looked at her, and she flinched, not from fear, but reverence.
They think I'm someone else.
He tried to remember his own name. Elias. Detective. London. Rae. Mirror. Roe. None of it meant anything here. His mind felt like torn paper, the words sliding off, crumpling in on themselves.
"Speak," the girl repeated. "You said the fire would come again. That it would find the bones of those who sleep."
His mouth opened. Words came out. Not his voice. Not his language.
The others cheered.
Flames rose from the central fire pit, illuminating carvings in the stone circle surrounding them. Symbols. One caught his eye.
A spiral. Broken at the center. The same that had been etched faintly into the mirror.
His heart thudded.
One of the elders stepped forward, placing a bundle wrapped in cloth before him. Carefully, reverently, they peeled back the layers, revealing a cracked, hand-carved mask of polished wood. It was split down the center and stitched crudely with twine, as if it had once been broken by force.
"You said you would wear it again, Papa," the elder said. "You said you would show us the man who burns."
Elias wanted to scream. His fingers moved on their own, lifting the mask. The moment the wood touched his skin, the world split.
FLASH
A city in flames.
White colonial buildings crumbling. People screaming in French. Black banners rising into the smoke. Bodies falling.
FLASH
A man, his own face, impaled on a pike, wearing the mask.
FLASH
The mirror, in seven pieces, scattered across the centuries.
He jerked back, mask falling to the ground with a dull thud. The crowd went silent.
He staggered. Looked at his hands, bloodied, cracked, shaking. One woman reached for him and hissed, recoiling.
"You are not him," she whispered.
"I..." Elias started. "I don't know where I am."
The child's voice returned, cold and steady. "You don't remember?"
She stepped forward and laid a finger on his chest.
"You forgot the fire. That's why it burns again."
Behind her, another figure emerged from the shadows. A tall man in priestly garb, his face half-shrouded in a cloth. But Elias knew that stance. That arrogance in stillness.
Darwish.
But younger. Sharper. His hair tied back, no spectacles.
He was staring at Elias with quiet rage.
"You should not be here," Darwish hissed. "You weren't meant to reach this far."
Elias stepped back. "This isn't real. I touched the mirror. That's all."
The man stalked closer. "No, Elias. You activated it. And the relic remembers. It always remembers the ones who tried to change the world."
He raised a finger toward the fire.
"You're inside the echo of a revolution. A storm that never ends. And the man you replaced? He burned for his truth. Will you do the same?"
The flames surged higher. Screams filled the air. The others began to scatter, the ritual breaking apart. Panic blooming.
But Elias stood frozen.
The mask at his feet started to hum.
And now, perhaps, dear reader, you are beginning to understand. Not every fire begins with flame. Some start with a question. And Elias? He is one.]
He dropped to his knees, the dizziness overtaking him.
The Watcher's voice returned, soft and intimate, right in his ear:
"He believed he was solving a murder.He was really solving himself."