"I'm free." I managed to whisper through the tears of joy, flowing down my cheeks onto the silver, mixing with it and making it popple.
After a few moments of my vision being blurred by the tears, the tears subsided, and my vision began clearing once more. Only then did I see myself reflected in the silver floor. I was relatively normal, nothing changed, the same frail, unnatural thin build, the same black circles under my eyes, a sign of the lack of sleep, the same hollow cheeks, the same scars from whipping and sword slashes decorating my torso, and the same neck length, dirty black hair.
But there was something different. Something changed. My eyes. Instead of the two normal brown eyes, my eyes were the color of…mirrors? I don't know. Like two orbs of liquid silver flowing endlessly and creating the illusion of an endless reflection with the liquid silver.
Getting back up on my feet, I took a look around me at the myriad of once black shards now mirrors. They reflected the area around me, normal, right? No, they were not in fact normal. They reflected the area around me, not me; they didn't reflect me. When I looked into them, no one looked back.
At first, I thought that it was just the angle, but eleven after moving and looking into other shards, I was still not reflected in the fragments of mirror.
Giving up, my attention shifted to the elephant in the room, the great mirror, and their reflections. If the mirror fragments were weird, the great mirrors were bizarre and outlandish.
"I noticed when I regained consciousness, but damn."
Unlike the mirror shards, the mirrors reflected me, but in a different area. And unlike the silver flooring, the me was different. Instead of the frail, crripled, tortured thirteen-year-old boy reflected in the liquid silver, the reflections on the giant mirror looked in a normal condition, good, no, extremely good even.
The first of the seven mirrors was unclear, covered in thick white fog. Inside said mist, I could see the unclear figure of a young man, me. I couldn't see where the fog ended and my body started, but what I could clearly see was the two deep blue eyes looking at me, hollow and lifeless.
My gaze fell on the second of the golden-framed mirrors. Unlike the first, it was clear, but that didn't make it less terrifying. Around the me in the mirror was surrounded by havoc, destruction, and amethyst flames. My hair was blond, the color of wheat. My eyes were the color of the purest gold, the pupil more like that of a feline than that of man, and burning with madness. A smile split my face, crooked and mad, full of mirth.
Staring into those golden orbs, a chill ran down my spine as my heart filled with dread.
I was about to gaze into the third of the great mirrors, but instead, the mirror hall dissolved around me as my consciousness was thrown back into my mind from my ether core.
I was lying on my back on a bed of cold and soft snow, staring into the blue sky above me, at the blazing white sun…
Suns?
Indeed, three suns were illuminating the world around me. It wasn't unusual to find certain areas of the world where the skies were different; there were some areas with countless moons or suns, and some with neither a sun nor a moon.
But the uncanny forest didn't have more than one sun, only one and one only. So what was that I was seeing? The only explanation I had for the missing suns was that, at some point between the recording and the present, the other two suns were somehow destroyed. My only hope is that whatever happened didn't happen during the time of this recording.
I was planning to get up, but then gave up, closing my eyes and focusing, searching. Eventually, I found what I was searching for deep within my mind. I was searching for the knowledge etched into my mind the moment the reflected rays of light converged on me, before the black shards got in the way of the rays turning into mirrors.
It didn't take me more than a few seconds to find the knowledge of my innate ability.
"Mirror Manipulation," I mumbled, seeing the cloud of air coming from my mouth due to the cold.
It allowed me to control and manipulate reflective surfaces. Simple right? No, not simple. Can I control perfectly reflective surfaces, or anything that reflects light? If the latter was correct, doesn't that mean that I reflect everything? After all, the only way we see is due to the light reflecting off the surface into our eyes, I think. I only know this from overhearing one of Amanda's lessons.
The beating from that still hurts to this day. I groaned from the phantom pain.
Moving my head to the side, I searched for the uncanny onyx trees to test my theory, but there were no uncanny onyx trees.
"Why am I not even surprised?!"
My attention shifted towards the snow, trying to move it. Nothing happened. I tried moving my hands to guide it. Still, nothing happened. I pushed harder and harder, but still nothing happened.
"What did I even expect?" I sighed.
Sitting up and using my hands as a support, something glinted on my right thumb, reflecting a ray of sunlight into my eyes. I looked at my right thumb, at the white ivory ring I wore on it. Instantly, my mood brightened.
Now, how do I do this?
I felt the ether move from my sternum as I guided it towards the ring. Surprisingly, it was easier than I thought, like second nature. The ether reached the ring, making it glisten with faint golden light.
A sword wrapped itself into existence from the storage ring. It had a sharp, pointed tip for piercing and a narrow body the size of a long sword that tapers smoothly. It looked simple but elegant. Sleek, straight, and built for speed and precision. But more importantly, it was made from steel so polished it looked like a perfect mirror.
How ironic.
It was truly ironic. From all the weapons I could've stolen, I chose the only one that fits my innate ability.
The sword fell on the snow beside me, making a crunching sound. I tried moving it with an upward swipe of my hands, like I tried with the snow. Regret, that's what I called the sword, because the runes for 'Be careful what you wish for' were written on its handle in tiny runic letters like an ominous warning, floated up, hovering just above the snow. Extending my hand, I grasped the silver handle tightly; it felt cold to the touch.
Pushing myself to my feet. I cleaned the snow off my bare torso and the rough and ripped fabrics of my pants, if they can even be called that. Staring ahead, I started walking, wandering aimlessly.
Just like that, my journey through the first recording began.