The light returned slowly — not in a comforting wash, but like old wounds reopening beneath scarred flesh. A red hue bled through the mirrored walls, raw and surgical, staining the air with its feverish glow.
Elara stirred first.
Her knees ached against the cold glass floor, her palms bruised from the fall — or had someone pushed her? She couldn't remember. The last trial had blurred her senses. The whisper in the dark hadn't been a sound. It was pressure. Something deep inside her skull trying to surface and recoiling like a shy animal — or a dangerous one.
She blinked.
Kemi stood rigid near the center, fingers white-knuckled around the tablet, her lips whispering quick counts and algorithms. Sweat dripped down her brow as her eyes raced over code and cipher no one else could decipher. She was in her world, and that world was breaking.
Jace and Harper sat back-to-back, silent. Their faces were drained of color, breaths shallow. Not from fear exactly — but from knowing that the room wasn't finished with them.
Dorian paced. Hands twitching, jaw clenched. His muttering had turned guttural, almost manic, like the room had sunk hooks into his nerves. "One of you is false," he repeated under his breath. Over and over.
The phrase still hung in the air.
No one had died this time. That should have been a relief.
It wasn't.
Because now they understood: the room didn't need to kill quickly.
It could wait.
Rot grew best in silence.
Elara pulled herself up slowly. Every movement felt like sand grinding through her bones. Her throat was parched, and her muscles screamed. She turned—
And stopped.
There, across the mirror-polished floor, was a door.
But not the sleek, seamless ones the mansion used. This was wrong. Wood. Hand-carved. Hinges rusted and slightly ajar. It didn't shine — it breathed. It belonged in an old house with creaking floors and sunlit windows, not here.
"Guys," she called out. Her voice cracked, dry as paper.
Kemi looked up, eyes narrowing. "What the hell…"
Harper stood quickly, tense. "It wasn't there before."
"No," Dorian echoed, his pacing halted. "It wasn't."
Jace approached it, fingers brushing the grain of the wood. "Feels real," he murmured. "Too real."
He pushed it open.
It creaked — the kind of creak that stirred something instinctual. Not fear. Recognition.
A narrow stone staircase stretched beyond. Lit not by LED strips or plasma panels, but flickering candlelight. Warm, golden, utterly alien to this place.
It felt like another world.
Older.
More intimate.
"Is it a trap?" Harper asked.
"Of course it is," Dorian snapped. "The real question is — whose?"
Elara didn't hesitate.
Her feet moved before she could think. Something in her chest pulled — not curiosity, not courage.
Memory.
The staircase smelled of old rain and paper. Of damp wood. Of stories read beneath blankets.
She knew that smell.
The others followed in silence, one by one.
Their footsteps echoed down the winding descent. Time seemed elastic here — stretching, folding.
At the bottom: a chamber.
No mirrors. No steel. Just stone and wood and decay.
Books lay scattered in half-rotten piles, many torn and yellowed. The shelves were collapsing, and the damp air tasted of mold and time.
Drawings lined the walls — some childish, others intricate. All of a girl's face. Dozens. Hundreds. Different angles, different styles.
Freckles. A tooth missing. Smiles, tears, rage.
Elara stepped closer. Her breath hitched.
She knew that face.
She didn't know how — but she did.
She touched one of the drawings — the sun in the corner, crayon-thick. A simple sentence scribbled below in shaky hand:
"I remember what you forgot."
Behind her, Harper crouched near a cluster of dolls. Roughly made, hand-stitched from rags and scraps. Each had a crooked smile. Some were missing limbs. One was stuffed with dried flowers.
"These… aren't props," Harper whispered. "They're… keepsakes."
Kemi's hand was on the stone wall now, eyes wide. "This is a memory construct," she murmured. "But this isn't part of the system's architecture. It's beneath it. Buried."
Elara turned. "You mean… one of us made this."
Kemi shook her head. "No. I mean it was hidden. Someone didn't want this to be found."
"Which means we should be here," Dorian muttered.
Elara's foot bumped a small box, nestled in the shadows beneath a torn blanket.
Blocky, childish handwriting scrawled across the lid:
FOR ELLA
She froze.
"Ella…"
It echoed inside her.
That had been her name.
Before the Mirror Room. Before the Facility. Before the Fire.
Before everything had been ripped away.
No one had asked her real name since the trials began.
She hadn't remembered it herself.
Until now.
She opened the box with trembling fingers.
Inside:
A silver locket. Tarnished. Familiar.
A crayon drawing — her and a woman with wild black curls. Her mother. They were standing in front of a red two-story house with a garden.
Tears stung her eyes.
Beneath it, folded paper. Childlike handwriting.
"Don't forget who you are. You promised."
Her hands began to shake.
And then — flashes.
The fire. The screaming. A bed surrounded by mirrors.
Her mother's voice.
Her sister's laugh.
The smell of burning plastic. The weight of being dragged. Sirens.
Glass shattering.
She dropped the paper, knees hitting the floor hard.
Jace picked it up. "She left this for you," he said softly.
"Who?" Harper asked.
Elara's voice cracked. "My sister. Mira."
"Mira?" Kemi repeated, the pieces falling together. "As in… Mirror?"
Elara nodded, breath ragged. "She built this place. Not just the room. The whole damn construct."
"But why?" Harper asked.
Elara looked at the walls — the drawings. The dolls.
"She was left behind," she whispered. "I escaped. They took me out. But they didn't take her. Or maybe… I left her. I don't know. It's all… broken."
Kemi stepped back, tablet flickering. "Then this isn't a puzzle. It's a prison."
Suddenly — the walls pulsed.
The mirror surfaces phased in like ghosts — slowly, then all at once. Glass where stone had been. Reflections twisted.
The warmth vanished.
The light turned cold, blue. Mechanical.
On the floor, a new message appeared — blood-red across the tile.
"One remembers. One forgets. One will never leave."
A speaker crackled above them. Coyle's voice. Distorted, warped.
"She's here. She never left. Ella… it's your turn."
The temperature dropped.
Elara's breath fogged in front of her.
Then the locket snapped open in her hand.
Inside was a mirror.
But it didn't show her reflection.
It showed Mira.
Alive. Smiling. Crying.
"Mira," she whispered.
And the girl in the mirror whispered back.
"El-la."
Behind her, the door slammed shut.