The door with her name on it pulsed like a heartbeat.
Saira hesitated. It wasn't the kind of hesitation born from fear — it was recognition. Something behind that door knew her, and worse — it remembered everything.
She pressed her hand to the cold black wood.
It swung open without resistance.
---
Inside was a mirror-lined corridor, endless reflections of herself — but none matched the woman she was now. They were younger, full of light and ambition, versions of her before the grief. Before the silence.
And at the end of the corridor, standing in the center, was the one version she never wanted to see.
The performer.
Bright smile, bold lipstick, a sketchbook tucked under her arm, and a spark in her eyes that believed she could change the world. The Saira from five years ago — the one who believed art could save lives, the one who still wrote letters to her future self.
This Saira stared at her with a coldness she didn't remember knowing how to feel.
"You gave up on me."
Her voice was quiet. Deadly.
Saira froze. "That's not fair. You don't know what I've—"
"I was you," the younger Saira snapped. "Until you let the world tell you that survival was enough."
The walls trembled.
"You think this house is about pain? It's not. It's about what you didn't do. It's about the promises you chose to break."
Saira backed away. "You're just a memory. You're not real."
The reflection stepped forward. "Neither are you — not the you I remember."
The corridor warped. Mirrors shattered inward. The glass didn't fall — it floated, swirling around her like stars made of regret.
Each shard showed a different choice she never made.
One where she applied for the art scholarship.
One where she stood up to her parents.
One where she answered Jay's final call.
She fell to her knees.
"Why are you showing me this?"
The mirror-Saira leaned down beside her. "Because until you forgive yourself, none of those doors will open. You'll just keep walking in circles. Wishing. Blaming. Surviving."
Saira looked up. Her reflection reached out a hand.
"Stand up," it whispered. "Start again."
She reached.
Their hands touched.
And the corridor collapsed into white.
---
Saira awoke on the floor of the main hallway, gasping — hands scratched from invisible glass, a quiet sob caught in her throat.
But the mirrors were gone.
Only a new door stood ahead now.
Painted bright red.
With one word carved across it:
> TRUTH.