There are few things in this life more stomach-churning than a silence you didn't ask for.
Not the kind of silence that's restful, holy, or laced with moonlight and mutual understanding. No—this was the other kind. The silence that follows a scream. The silence after a blade is drawn. The silence that presses its teeth into your collarbone and dares you to keep breathing. It didn't feel like stillness. It felt like absence. And not just of sound, but of meaning, of safety, of him.
"Aria?" I called out, already knowing I wouldn't like the answer.
My voice cracked halfway through, broke like a violin string pulled too tight by panic. "Aria!"
But the Tower offered me nothing.
No breath. No rustle of fabric. No trace of his perfume, which always smelled faintly of jasmine and rusted secrets. There was no comforting click of his boots on marble. No sarcastic quip about how dramatic I was being—how he knew I'd come looking for him the second he stepped out of sight. Nothing. Just the cold echo of my own voice bouncing back at me like a ghost in the shape of guilt. The corridor stood still. The air felt too clean, like it had already been swept of witnesses.
He was gone.
And I mean gone. Not just out of sight or off to the side. It was as if the Tower had opened its throat and swallowed him whole—bones, soul, and all—and was now licking its teeth clean, basking in the taste of our confusion.
I stumbled forward, too fast, nearly tripping over my own feet. My boots slapped against the marble with an urgency that made my ears ring. I reached the mirror he'd entered and slammed my palm against the glass. It was solid. No give. No resistance. Just smooth, cold perfection.
The reflection staring back displayed Miko's delicate features, blinking at me from the other side, warped slightly by the angle and the panic that carved hollows into his usually unreadable expression. I hated the softness of it. Hated how helpless I looked in someone else's face. I pressed my forehead to the glass, breathing hard.
"Fuck," I muttered. And then again, louder, a desperate rhythm building in the hollowness of my chest. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."
The others stood behind me, all frozen mid-motion, as if any one of them might become the next to vanish. Leo's borrowed body twitched with restrained movement, Willow's magic flickering along its fingertips like it didn't know where to settle. Meanwhile, Leo, still trapped in Willow's elegant frame, looked like a man who had wandered into a mirror maze mid-identity crisis. Miko—in my body—simply stared, eyebrows raised but unreadable, like he'd just been handed a script he didn't remember auditioning for.
None of them spoke.
Because there was nothing to say.
I reached out again, fingertips brushing the edge of the mirror, as if I could coax it into unlocking. "Where the hell did you go?" I whispered. "Where did you take him?"
The questions had no answers, but they clawed at the inside of my throat anyway. Was it the wrong mirror? Did something go amiss mid-transfer? Had he been rejected? Consumed? Repurposed? I could feel my thoughts spiraling into uglier theories. The Tower had never been shy about consequence. And this—this had the sharp taste of punishment.
I forced myself to replay it. The moment he stepped through. His breath. His posture. His eyelashes lowering like he was about to pray. He'd closed his eyes. I remembered it now with infuriating clarity—how calm he looked. Peaceful, almost. Like he was stepping into a garden instead of a trial for the soul.
And then—
That was it. The realization struck not like lightning, but like the slow, inevitable toll of a cathedral bell—loud in its finality, shaking loose every grain of doubt I'd let settle in my bones.
He hadn't looked.
He hadn't seen his own reflection when stepping through.
My breath hitched, sharp and sudden, as if my lungs had only just remembered their purpose, like a blade finding its groove between tattered ribs.
Of course.
"Stay here," I barked, not bothering to check whether they were planning to follow. My voice carried with that fraying edge of command that dared them to argue. I didn't wait for a reply. I turned on my heel, picked the mirror next to the one Aria had used, clenched my fists until my nails bit skin, and squeezed my eyes shut.
I would not look.
Not at myself. Not at Miko. Not at the Tower's reflection. I denied it all.
And then I stepped through.
The sensation was nothing like before.
Before, it had been like falling into silk—cool, slick, and a little smug. But this... this was different. This was like moving through a breath, the kind that curls from a lover's lips when they exhale just before they kiss you—or kill you. The kind of breath that feels like a whisper too close to your ear, all goosebumps and promise. It didn't pull or push. It just was. Weightless. Chilling. Intimate.
When I opened my eyes again, the feeling slipped from my reach.
The hallway was there.
Same gilded vulgarity. Same pristine marble and disturbingly symmetrical decor. But this time... it was empty.
No Miko beside me, smugly admiring himself in my body. No Leo-Willow tangle of gendered melodrama. No awkward silences or frantic pacing—just the corridor, still and sterile, like the Tower itself had paused mid-inhale, watching, waiting, holding its breath to see what I'd do next.
And then—just as I began to question my own logic—his voice came.
"Cecil!"
It cracked the silence like a whip dipped in silk.
I turned.
And there he was—Aria, alive, panting, and flushed with panic—but there. His hands were clenched into delicate fists at his sides, his posture tight with a kind of feminine fury that only ever appeared when he was moments from either tears or total combustion.
When his eyes found me—well, not me exactly, but Miko's slender, dusky frame—his expression cracked wide open like a dam giving way. His relief hit me like incense smoke: sweet, suffocating, and stained with things I didn't have time to name.
"Cecil?" he gasped, voice shaking with both recognition and disbelief.
I gave a small nod, letting the illusion of my borrowed body fall away in the weight of my gaze. And just like that, the chaos inside his chest—visible in the way his ribs moved too fast for calm breathing—slowed. The air around him softened. Like just the idea of me had rewound his panic. I don't think I've ever felt more selfishly proud of being someone's anchor in my life.
That's when the idea hit me.
Not like a lightning bolt, not a eureka. No, this wasn't some divine gift from the Tower's sick puzzlebook of revelations. It was colder than that. Subtler. The click of a lock, the snick of a blade sliding clean through fabric. I blinked slowly and turned toward the nearest mirror—one directly across the corridor from where I'd first stepped in. The same ornate gold framing, the same too-perfect reflection. And then I shut my eyes. Completely this time. No cheating. No curiosity.
I stepped forward. Let the chill take me. Let the breathless quiet surround me.
And emerged into a new hallway.
Identical. Empty.
Another version of the same corridor, the same sterile limbo painted in white and gold, but this time no Aria, no sounds, no witnesses. My boots clinked on the marble like the ticking of a forgotten clock. It was as though I had entered a layer between breaths. A space meant to exist only when not being looked at. The loneliness of it curled beneath my ribs like a small animal.
I turned back. Same method. Eyes closed. Stepped through again. This time I held my breath, not out of caution, but reverence. I didn't know what I was holding onto—just that it mattered.
And when I opened my eyes again, Aria was there.
Still waiting. Still watching the place I'd disappeared from as if trying to memorize it with his breath. He gasped when I reappeared, stumbled forward half a step. I caught him instinctively, arms closing around his waist—my smaller, Miko-shaped arms, delicate and sharp, but they did the job.
"We're not trapped," I murmured into his ear. "Just... misfiled."
He let out a shudder that might've been a laugh. Or a sob. Or some cocktail of both. His fingers gripped the fabric at my shoulder like a man grounding himself on the last solid thing in a dream. When he finally pulled back, his cheeks were red with embarrassment, though his lips almost curled with fondness.
"I thought I lost you," he said, voice low.
"You almost did," I admitted.
We turned toward the mirror again—side by side this time—and stepped through together, eyes shut, synchronizing our breath like sinners rehearsing penance.
And just like that, we returned.
Willow's eyes widened. Miko stiffened like a man who'd just watched someone appear out of his own daydream. Leo was stunned yet silent, watching us reemerge as if we'd just cracked the bones of reality and waltzed back in through the marrow.
"I found a glitch," I said, voice quiet but certain.
They stared.
"A way to bypass the swaps. The system doesn't trigger if you don't see yourself. No reflection, no exchange. It just... moves you. Somewhere else. Another layer. The Tower's fractured this place like a kaleidoscope and didn't expect anyone to walk through it with their eyes closed."
It landed slowly. I saw the realization creep up the sides of their faces like the rising tide of a shared nightmare.
"And if you can do that," I continued, "if you can choose which layer you appear in..."
The rest of the sentence didn't need to be spoken. I could see it dawning in their eyes like a second sun, one they hadn't asked for. The implication hung there, suspended in the air like incense smoke.
Someone could hide here.
Forever.
An infinite number of halls, each indistinguishable from the next. A thousand versions of the same corridor, each one a perfect prison with no bars, no blood, and no clocks. That's when Leo—bless him, still looking like a panicked statue in Willow's long, vengeful frame—shouted.
"Cecil!"
My spine locked. I didn't even turn at first. I knew. Every instinct lit up in a slow, mournful crescendo.
He was here.
I turned like a man descending a gallows. Heavy. Slow. Not with fear, but with inevitability.
Vincent stepped out from the mirror behind me like he was walking out of a dream he was tired of having. His boots hit the marble with that lazy, predatory grace he always wore like perfume. Still beautiful, yet arrogant in the way only he could pull off.
For a moment, we just stood there, two ghosts caught in the echo chamber of our shared past. My mouth parted, just slightly. I had a thousand things to say—accusations, threats, maybe even one or two tragic sonnets if I got dramatic enough. But I never got the chance.
Because then all hell broke loose.
Vincent moved like lightning dipped in ego. He didn't speak. Didn't even smirk. Just ran. Past me. Headed straight for the mirror across from the one he'd exited.
"No—!" I shouted, lunging forward with everything I had, but I was already half a breath too slow. He was gone before I could reach him, diving cleanly into the mirror, vanishing as if smoke sucked down into a narrow bottle neck.
Then, almost like a cruel echo, Aria collapsed out of the adjacent mirror with a strangled cry. Only it wasn't Aria anymore—his body had been replaced by Vincent's leaner, sharper frame. The twisted truth sank in immediately.
Vincent had taken Aria's body, leaving him trapped inside his own. The thought churned in my stomach, hatred rising so fast I thought I might vomit. But there was no time to let that overwhelm me.
I had to move.
I sprinted for the next mirror and stepped through before Vincent could move another muscle.
I was in Aria's body now. However, Vincent — now occupying Miko's form — was already hunting for something at his hip, hands trembling and quick. No. I couldn't wait to see what came next.
Willow understood the situation instantly, darting across the hall, grabbing the side of the next mirror, and throwing herself through it. Another switch. Another desperate chase spiraling deeper into madness.
Bodies flipped and spun between us like cruel marionettes: Leo, Willow, Miko, myself, and him, twisting through flesh and bone like a grotesque waltz from hell. Each shift was a frantic gamble, a desperate effort to outpace the other before one could strike with lethal certainty. It was maddening. It was sickening. And it was the battle we'd been dragged into — endless, merciless, and raw.
Then, suddenly, everything snapped into a terrifying stillness. I was him. Not metaphorically or in spirit — I was Vincent, trapped inside his skin and mind. And he — poor, damned bastard — was me. Our wide eyes locked, breaths shallow and ragged, both swallowed in the confusion of this cruel swap. We were finally forced to wear each other's sins.
I moved first, sliding silently behind him with practiced ease. My fingers traced the familiar lines of his coat, my coat, slipping into the inner pocket where I knew the revolver waited, heavy and righteous in my grip. I spun it once between my fingers and aimed. Vincent — in my body — whirled around, panic breaking loose in his eyes with a desperation I hadn't seen since our gamble on the third floor. He patted himself down wildly, searching.
I didn't have to ask what he was looking for. A voice cracked through the tension behind him. "Looking for this?" Miko called, now inhabiting Willow's small, furious form, holding up the stopwatch between his fingers. Vincent cursed, venom lacing his words like a dark incantation.
Just then I raised the revolver again, but not at him.
At me, pressing the barrel against my skull, his skull. The moment was taut with unbearable possibility. Vincent paled. "Don't," he rasped, voice cracked and desperate. "Cecil, don't—fuck, just—don't do anything reckless—"
"Funny," I said quietly, "coming from you."
My finger curled tighter around the trigger. Neither of us knew what would happen if I pulled it — maybe the switch would reverse, maybe we'd both die, or maybe the Tower itself would unravel and spill its secrets onto the cold stone floor. I didn't care.
"You were crying," I said, my voice low, strained, steady only by force of will. "The night Elias died. I saw it. The Tower showed me. I watched it all over again — watched her fall, watched her skull break like porcelain. And you—" My breath caught. "You cried. Not like a villain, not like a killer. You cried like something inside you died with her. Like the whole world cracked open and buried you in its rubble."
Vincent's face faltered. His jaw trembled, lips parted like he might try to deny it, but the fight never came. Instead, he whispered, "I didn't want to." His voice was shredded raw, more breath than words. "I didn't want to do it, Cecil. I loved her. Just as much as you did."
Something in me lurched — a stamp against the inside of my heart, deep and sickening. For a moment, I couldn't breathe. For a moment, I wanted to believe him. But belief was a luxury I'd long since burned down with everything else.
"Don't," I said through clenched teeth. "Don't you dare say that. You loved her?" My eyes burned. "You blew up a train, Vincent. You killed all those people. Women. Children. Mothers who would never make it home from the market. Lovers who never knew they would suffer their last kiss. You think that kind of man can love?!"
"I had to!" he screamed, voice breaking in half. His whole body shook now, like the words were clawing their way out of him whether he wanted them to or not. "He told me to. He made me! I never wanted to—I never asked for any of this—I didn't even choose—" His hands curled into fists against his stolen chest, and for a second, I thought he might tear his own skin off to escape it.
I stepped forward, revolver still heavy in my grasp, my aim not wavering from the side of my head. "Was it him?" I asked, quietly.
Vincent flinched like I'd struck him. He didn't answer right away. But then—slowly, cautiously—he nodded. In that instant, the hallway stretched thinner around us, the mirrors gleaming like they were listening.
A shiver cut down my spine.
I narrowed my eyes. " I saw him in the vision…he was there. Standing in the corner. Just...watching. My mind—it won't let me remember his face. Like he's been scrubbed from existence." My voice was shaking now too. "Who is he, Vincent? Tell me."
For one brief, impossible heartbeat, he looked like he would.
He opened his mouth.
And then—
He moved.
A blur of motion, sharp and ruthless. His hand flew to my belt — my dagger — and in the next breath he was spinning, hurling it past me, a silver flash that split the air like a lightning strike.
The mirror behind me shattered, cracking with the sound of a memory breaking in two.
Without hesitation, I threw the revolver straight into the air.
And with it came the shift I'd been waiting for — the spell that had anchored this whole floor broke apart like brittle glass. I felt the world tilt and realign. I was myself again. Reborn, restored.
In that instant—Gods, in that perfect, crystalline heartbeat—I understood.
The Tower hadn't just built this trial to confuse us. It hadn't conjured all these mirrors to test our navigation or cleverness. That was never the point. This was a floor about envy. It was about inhabiting what we thought we wanted, tasting it, wearing it like a second skin…and then asking ourselves if we were strong enough to let it go. To reject the seduction of someone else's life. To shatter the false image and walk forward without it.
And what better way to do that than to drive a spear through your own reflection? To break the mirror, eradicate the envy, and refuse the lie it offered you.
My hand closed around the revolver as it fell—clean, perfect, inevitable—as if fate itself had been waiting for this moment, and the gun had never belonged to anyone else.
But Vincent, back in his original body, was already running. Of course he was. The elevator door at the far end of the corridor stood open now — waiting, patient, mocking. He wanted out. He wanted escape.
I refused to let him slip away so easily.
I spun on my heel, raised the revolver, and fired.