My eyes snapped open. Not to the familiar, clean lines of my apartment bedroom, but to… mirrors. Everywhere. Floors, walls, ceiling. A dizzying, endless expanse of reflective surfaces, each one showing a slightly different, distorted version of reality. Or, more accurately, death.
My head swam, disoriented. The pull, the terrifying sensation of being ripped from one reality to another, had left me breathless. I stumbled, my knees weak, and felt Cam's panicked grip still on my arm.
"Sera!" Cam shrieked, her voice echoing wildly in the mirrored space, bouncing off every surface, distorting into a cacophony of fear. She was clutching her mop, somehow still holding onto it. "What is this?! Where are we?!"
I squeezed her arm, trying to ground us both. My own reflection stared back at me from a dozen angles, each one a different permutation of panic. But then, as my eyes adjusted, I noticed something else.
In one mirror, my reflection wasn't me. It was an old woman, frail, lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by machines. In another, I was younger, beautiful, but with a faraway look in my eyes, stepping in front of a speeding car. Another showed me, gaunt and pale, shivering in a cold, dark alley. Each reflection was a stark, brutal image of death. My potential deaths.
"This is… the In-Between," I whispered, my voice hoarse. "He brought us here."
"The In-Between?!" Cam cried, her eyes darting frantically from one horrifying reflection to another. Her own face was contorted in terror, but like mine, her reflections were not her. They were also visions of her own demise: Cam, drowned in a murky pool, her tattoos blurred by the water; Cam, consumed by flames, her sporty clothes blackened; Cam, alone in a dense forest, surrounded by shadowy figures. "What are those?! Sera, what are those?!"
Azrael glided into view, his dark suit a stark, unreflecting void in the blinding expanse of mirrors. He stood in the center of the room, utterly unfazed by the disorienting reflections. He didn't even cast a proper one, just a ripple of darkness in the glass.
"This is the Bonding Chamber," Azrael stated, his voice calm, cutting through the chaos of reflections and Cam's rising hysteria. "It allows for introspection. And confrontation."
Confrontation. With our own deaths. Nice. Very romantic.
"Confrontation with what?!" I demanded, tightening my grip on Cam's trembling arm. "Why are there… those things?!" I gestured wildly at the surrounding mirrors, each one a different nightmare.
"These are your potential ends, mortal," Azrael replied, his gaze sweeping over the reflections. "Each a thread of fate. Before the Pact can be fully… solidified… one must confront their true death. You will need to reject or accept me fully. This chamber reveals the paths that lead to your demise, should the bond remain tenuous. For the human, it is a necessary… reminder."
Cam let out a strangled gasp, her eyes locked on one particular reflection of herself – a twisted, broken version of her body, lying at the bottom of a ravine. "My… my true death? I can't… I can't look at that!"
"You must," Azrael said, his voice unwavering. "To understand the choices before you."
Suddenly, a shimmer of light separated Cam from me. A soft, invisible barrier solidified between us. Cam's reflection in the nearby mirrors seemed to intensify, drawing her gaze, pulling her in. She was trapped, unable to tear her eyes away from the horrifying possibilities of her own end.
"Cam!" I yelled, reaching for her, but my hand met an unseen wall. She was still there, but separated, locked in her own private horror show. Her face was pale, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
I turned back to the mirrors surrounding me. They had shifted. Now, there was one reflection that dominated. My own. But it wasn't the violent, sudden deaths of the others. This one… this one was different.
It showed me, older. Much older. My hair, once curly black, was streaked with gray, pulled back in a messy bun, just like now. But my face was lined, etched with years of sorrow. I was sitting alone in a small, dimly lit room. A single, flickering candle on a table beside me. The window showed nothing but an inky, endless void. The In-Between.
I was bleeding. Not a dramatic, gushing wound, but a slow, steady trickle from my wrist, pooling on the worn wooden table. My hand was shaking as I held a small, dull blade. My eyes were hollow, filled with an unimaginable loneliness, a despair that cut deeper than any physical pain.
And then, my lips moved. A whisper, so soft I almost didn't hear it, even in the silent chamber.
"Azrael," my older self murmured, a heartbroken plea. "Azrael…"
It was my name. His name. Called out with a raw, desperate yearning in my final moments. A self-inflicted death. Alone. Bleeding. Calling his name.
I felt a cold dread spread through me, chilling me to my core. This wasn't a sudden accident or a violent end. This was… despair. A slow, agonizing surrender to loneliness. To being left behind.
I stumbled back, tears blurring my vision. My heart, already a chaotic mess, felt like it was breaking. I never thought about growing old. Or about dying. Not like this. But the loneliness? The utter desolation in those reflected eyes? It was a terror far deeper than any explosion or fiery demise. It was the fear of being forgotten, of being invisible, magnified a thousand times. It was everything I was truly scared of.
"Is that… is that real?" I whispered, my voice raw, choked with unshed tears. My gaze was fixed on the reflection, unable to tear myself away from the devastating image of my own future.
Azrael's voice was calm, utterly devoid of judgment or emotion. "It is one possibility. A potential future, should you resist the inevitable. Should you… reject the bond. It is the end that awaits a soul severed from its true anchor."
"You want me to bond with you by watching myself die?" I asked, the words a bitter accusation. "By showing me… that?"
"If you fear it, you give it power," Azrael replied, his voice a low hum. "If you face it… if you comprehend the true nature of your end… you become something else entirely. You transcend."
"That sounds like something a cult leader would say," I scoffed, trying to regain some semblance of my usual sarcastic composure. It was a weak attempt, though. The image of my older, despairing self was burned into my mind.
"Cult leaders offer false promises," Azrael stated. "I offer truth."
He stepped closer, his presence drawing all light, making the endless reflections seem to dim around him. His void eyes bored into mine, seeming to see the terrified, heartbroken mess I was.
"This is not a chamber of torture, Sera," he murmured, his voice softer than I'd ever heard it, almost… gentle. "It is a chamber of choice. A chamber of understanding. You cannot fear what you have already seen. You cannot deny what your soul already knows."
He reached out, his pale hand slowly, deliberately, lifting my left hand, his thumb brushing over the black ring. The binding rune pulsed with cold energy.
"The consummation will begin when you accept the truth of your own end," he continued, his voice a low, resonant thrum that seemed to vibrate in my very bones. "Only then can you fully accept the binding. Only then can you fully accept… me. Your true nature."
I couldn't look away from my despairing, older self in the mirror. Calling his name. Bleeding. Alone. The implication was clear: reject him, resist the bond, and that would be my fate. Not a quick, violent death, but a slow, agonizing slide into a loneliness so profound it would make me end it myself. It was the ultimate weapon against my deepest fear.
Suddenly, a loud crack echoed through the mirrored chamber. A sharp, splintering sound that cut through the silent, oppressive tension.
I spun my head around. One of the mirrors, not the one showing my future, but one of the smaller, older reflections, had fractured. Long, jagged cracks spiderwebbed across its surface.
And then, impossibly, the cracks widened. The glass began to splinter and fall inwards, not outwards. A dark, jagged hole formed in the center of the mirror.
And something began to stir within the void.
Something long and pale, like an ancient, withered arm, began to emerge from the broken mirror, reaching, grasping. It wasn't Cam. It wasn't human. It was something else. Something… old.
Azrael's head snapped towards the shattering mirror. His calm demeanor finally broke. A flicker of something that looked like… surprise? Alarm? Crossed his perfect features.
"Ah," he whispered, his voice a low, guttural sound, filled with an ancient recognition. "The previous bride."
The arm pulled back, then another, larger form began to push through the gaping hole in the mirror. A terrifying, skeletal figure, draped in tattered, ancient fabrics, its eyes two hollow, burning embers. It pulled itself free from the mirror, a spectral banshee emerging from its prison. And it was coming for us.