Night fell too fast.
The mansion was quiet, but not in peace in warning.
Valo sat by the window, staring at the forest beyond the iron gates. The shadows there moved differently now. Too aware. Too alive.
Eli stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder. They're asleep, he said softly. Or pretending to be.
Valo's eyes didn't leave the glass. The mirror broke, but its memory didn't. It's inside them now… testing them.
Eli frowned. They're our sons, Valo. They'll control it.
Her reflection met his in the window red eyes glowing faintly. You don't control the mirror, she whispered. You survive it.
Down the hall, the twins lay in the dark, but sleep refused to come.
Ethan stared at the ceiling.Do you ever feel like… something's still watching us?
Sam turned to face him. Yeah. I feel it when I blink.
The silence thickened. Then click.
The light by the door flickered once, twice, then went black. The air dropped cold. The window fogged, though it was warm outside.
Sam? Ethan whispered.
No answer.
He turned and froze.
Sam was standing beside the bed, eyes wide, pupils dark as ink. His body trembled, jaw slack, as if something else was moving him.
Ethan sat up, heart hammering. Sam…?
Sam's voice came out warped, doubled, layered, a voice not entirely his.
You think you can save him?
Ethan stumbled backward, hitting the wall. Stop it! That's not funny!
You'll always be his shadow, Ethan. Always second. Always weaker.
The lights flared crimson a soft hum crawling up the walls. Ethan's hands began to glow gold instinctively, but Sam's aura was darker, threaded with red. Their energies collided in the air hissing, sparking.
Ethan's throat tightened. You're not him… you're not Sam!
The figure smirked. Then fight me.
In their room, Valo jerked upright.
Eli's eyes snapped open. The twins.
They were already running before the next crash sounded the sound of glass shattering and energy tearing through walls.
The twins faced each other, both shaking, both crying, both trapped in the illusion the mirror had left behind.
The air around them rippled, reflecting fragments of broken memories moments twisted cruelly. In one reflection, Ethan failed to save Sam. In another, Sam turned away as Ethan fell.
The illusions laughed their own voices mocking them.
Ethan screamed, Stop it! It's not real!
Sam clutched his head. Make it stop! Make it stop! But the voice whispered inside him the same one from the mirror.
He'll abandon you. Like everyone else.
Sam's hands glowed red, uncontrolled fire bleeding into the air. The floor cracked beneath them. Ethan raised his hands to shield them both, golden light clashing against the red.
Valo burst through the door, fire spiraling from her palms. Eli followed, golden aura flaring. The wave of power struck the twins' energy but instead of breaking it, it magnified. The room became a vortex of light and shadow, fire and gold colliding.
Valo's scream cut through the storm. Stop! You're fighting the wrong enemy!
Her voice barely reached them the illusion was too deep. The twins' minds were trapped inside the mirror's echo, forced to believe they had to destroy each other to survive.
Inside the illusion, Ethan saw Sam's body dissolve into darkness, heard him whisper: You failed me…
Rage and fear twisted his light into a blade.
Sam saw Ethan's eyes fill with gold and believed the lie that his brother wanted to erase him.
Two hearts. One bond. Shattering.
Then a sound.
A heartbeat. Not theirs.
Valo's voice echoed faintly, breaking through the fog:
You're each other's halves. Not enemies. Don't fight the fear hold it together.
Eli's voice joined hers, louder, raw.
Breathe. Listen. You're my sons, you know who you are!
Ethan froze mid-strike.
Sam blinked the darkness around him flickered.
Their breaths synced. Their lights pulsed gold and red, circling, trembling, then merging. The illusions screamed, shattering one by one, dissolving into dust. The pressure broke, and the room exploded outward with a deafening hum.
Valo shielded her face as glass and light burst around them.
When it cleared, Sam and Ethan were on the floor, shaking, crying, but conscious.
Eli dropped to his knees, pulling them close, tears cutting down his face. You're here… you're both here.
Valo's knees gave out beside him. Her flames flickered and died. They nearly broke...
Ethan buried his face in her shoulder. It told me to hurt him…
Sam clung to Eli, trembling. I heard it too… it sounded like me.
Eli met Valo's gaze both knew what that meant.
The mirror hadn't died. It had moved into their blood, their bond.
Valo's voice cracked. It's in them now. Both of them.
Eli looked at the twins exhausted, frightened, but still glowing faintly gold and red, intertwined like fire and dawn. Then we'll teach them to control it, he said quietly. Before it controls them.
That night, the mansion didn't sleep.
In the silence after the storm, the faint shimmer of dust rose from the cracks in the floor, forming, for just an instant, the faint outline of a mirror frame.
And from within, something whispered not in hatred this time, but in hunger.
The stronger they grow… the sweeter the fall will be.
The air pulsed with a strange rhythm every breath the twins took made the walls shiver. Eli's eyes glowed faintly, his reflection in the mirror moving seconds out of sync with him.
Then the glass cracked.
One hairline fissure. Then two.
Then hundreds spiderwebbing like veins of frozen lightning.
The twins' hands rose on their own, fingertips trembling. They whispered something no, someone a name neither of them remembered learning. The mirror began to breathe.
Stop, Valo's voice came out soft, shaking, as she stumbled forward, clutching the doorframe. But the moment she looked into the glass her reflection smiled back at her.
Not a kind smile. A knowing one.
The room twisted. The reflection of the hall behind her melted into black fog. Eli reached for the twins, but the mirror screamed a sound like breaking bones under thunder.
Eli! Valo shouted, lunging toward him.
The glass shattered.
Dust exploded into the air, sharp as frost. Every shard dissolved into ash mid-fall, swirling in red light. Eli grabbed the twins, shielding their faces as the mirror disintegrated, leaving only a glowing outline on the wall something that looked like an open door.
Valo's eyes widened as she realized what it was too late. The floor rippled like water, the light beneath it pulsing to the beat of a heart that wasn't human.
Her footing gave out
and she fell.
Right into Eli and the twins' arms.
They crashed together against the ground as the last of the mirror's dust curled into the air, forming ghostly silhouettes that whispered her name.
Valo…
The voice wasn't Eli's.
It came from the dust.
The air thickened.
Valo's heartbeat echoed in her ears too loud, too heavy. The dust spiraled tighter, glowing faintly red, forming faces that flickered in and out of existence.
Valo…
The voice came again, calm this time but underneath it, there was a second one, echoing like something buried beneath stone.
She froze. It knew her name.
Her breath came in short bursts. Eli, she whispered, clutching his arm. It It knows me.
Eli's eyes snapped to the wall. "Stay behind me," he said, his voice low but trembling with fury. The twins pressed closer, their small hands clutching his shirt.
The glowing outline where the mirror once stood began to bleed light.
The shape pulsed as if something alive was on the other side, pressing against the thin veil between.
Eli's veins burned red, the same color as the dust. He lifted his hand, and the dust swirled toward him like it recognized him or obeyed him. The twins mirrored his movement instinctively, their pupils flashing with faint crimson rings.
Then, from the wall, a hand emerged.
It wasn't human the fingers were too long, bones showing through stretched gray skin. It clawed through the light as if tearing through a veil.
Valo stumbled back, gasping, but Eli caught her wrist. Don't look away, he whispered. It'll pull you in.
The twins screamed in unison as the creature began to crawl out a hollow-faced thing made of ash and whispering dust, its empty sockets glowing faintly with the same red light as Eli's veins.
Valo's tears burned down her cheeks. Eli… what is that?
Idon't know," he said, his voice shaking. But it's calling you.
The creature's head twisted, slow and deliberate, toward Valo.
Its mouth split open and her voice came out.
Help me…
Valo's breath hitched. Her knees weakened. For a moment, she didn't know if it was pleading with her or mocking her.
Eli's arm shot forward, threads of red light spiraling from his fingertips. The twins' eyes blazed to life, and the dust responded forming a shield between them and the creature.
The red light cracked against the gray hand a sound like glass breaking underwater. The creature shrieked, retreating halfway into the wall, its voice twisting between human and hollow.
Then silence.
The light dimmed. The dust fell still.
Valo clung to Eli, her heartbeat thundering against his chest. Eli… she whispered. It knew my name. How?
He looked at the fading mark on the wall, then at the twins whose eyes still glowed faintly red.
Ithink, he said, voice breaking, it wasn't calling you.
He turned to the twins.
It was calling them.