Aleah's POV
I had changed. The mirror didn't recognize me anymore. The girl who once loved everyone had become a hollow shell—void of feeling, numb to the point of hurting those I cared about most—my family, my friends, and myself. Fear was gone. It had been replaced by a cold emptiness. The only person who truly understood me now was Mysterio.
Days stretched on without seeing him, and that absence gnawed at me, a slow poison. In a world where you constantly fight demons, you either break or become one. I had become the latter. Every person who played me was going to pay—first Yasmin, then Sage, and finally, Aleah herself.
Ivy was already suffering enough; no need to drag her deeper into this. Mysterio was the one I wanted to break the most—but I wouldn't. Not yet.