My hands were trembling.
Not from fear.
From the cold.
Room 616 had grown colder since I returned. I could see my breath hanging in the air like fog from a grave.
My reflection in the TV screen looked wrong again.
It blinked a second too late.
Then it smiled.
I didn't.
---
The message on the desk was burned deep into the wood now.
> ONLY ONE OF YOU GETS TO WAKE UP.
Beside it was a photo I hadn't seen before.
Two versions of me, side by side.
One looked like me now — tired, shaken, human.
The other was... better.
Clean. Confident. Hair brushed. Posture straight.
She looked perfect. Like what I wished I was.
On the back of the photo, a name was scribbled:
> Mira 2 – "The One Who Stayed."
---
The lights in the room dimmed.
Then came the knock.
Not from the front door.
From the mirror.
Three hard knocks — but the glass didn't break.
It rippled, like water.
And something stepped through.
She was me.
Same face. Same scars. Same eyes.
But she smiled like someone who had won something I didn't even know I'd been fighting for.
She didn't speak right away. She just looked around the room, admiring it.
Like she was home.
> "You should've stayed asleep," she said.
---
I backed up.
The door wouldn't open.
My fingers scrambled at the lock, but it had no keyhole anymore.
Just a number burned into the wood:
73.5
My voice cracked. "Who are you?"
She tilted her head.
> "I'm the you that didn't try to leave.
I gave the room what it wanted.
And in return, it made me real."
Her eyes flashed with something like joy — but it wasn't joy.
It was hunger.
> "You're just a broken file, Mira. A corrupted save.
I'm the clean install.
The one the room likes best."
---
She stepped forward.
I stepped back.
> "You ran," she said. "I stayed.
You screamed. I listened.
You begged for your sister to come back…
I brought her."
My knees gave out. I slumped against the wall. The air was too thick to breathe.
From behind her, in the mirror-portal, I saw something else.
A hospital hallway.
My sister — walking.
Alive. Smiling.
But her shadow… was burning.
Mira-2 smiled.
> "The room gave her back to me.
It will give her to you too.
All you have to do… is let go."
---
She held out her hand.
And for a moment, I believed her.
I wanted to believe her.
I reached out. Fingers trembling.
Then I saw it — the faintest crack in her wrist. A split in the skin like porcelain.
And inside… not blood.
But ash.
She saw me notice.
And her face cracked too.
The smile split wider.
The eyes rolled back.
The teeth sharpened.
Her voice twisted — no longer mine:
> "Only one of us gets to wake up."
"And I've already practiced being you."
---
She lunged.
I grabbed the only thing near me — the photo — and tore it in half.
She screamed.
Not like a person.
Like a thousand voices all at once, howling from inside the walls.
The mirror shattered.
She fell backward, vanishing into the shards.
---
I was alone again.
Breathing hard.
The lights buzzed back to full.
The air warmed — barely.
On the floor, among the glass, was a single matchbox.
I picked it up.
Inside, one match.
And a note:
> "Use this when the dream wants to keep you forever."
---
But something else changed.
The door now had a peephole.
I looked through it.
The hallway beyond was full of people.
All versions of me.
Some young. Some old. Some weeping. Some on fire.
All waiting.
Every single one turned to face me.
And they all whispered, in unison:
> "You have one more night."