"Reality is a mask, and sometimes the mask watches you back."
Prince—now fully inhabiting Nasir's body—sat on the edge of the bed.The room was quiet, but the silence felt alive.
The walls seemed to breathe.Subtle distortions bent the corners.Shadows moved against logic—elongated, twisting slowly, like black smoke waiting for permission to solidify.
Prince's reflection in the cracked mirror was… wrong.Not entirely his face.There was something extra behind his eyes.A glimmer, like a second pupil, or a hidden throne in the depth of his iris.
He blinked. The image snapped back.But the feeling remained.
The First Surreal Warning
A whisper curled around the edges of his mind:
"Some fates are borrowed. Some lives are lent. But the debt will always call you."
Prince shivered.The words were not in the room.Not in his head.Not in Nasir's voice.
They were in the space between,a thread of sound that existed before and after the world's laws.
He tried to focus.The room was changing.The bookshelves stretched upward, impossibly tall.The ceiling dissolved into grey fog, faintly glowing with symbols he could not read, but somehow understood.
And in that fog—a shape:
A throne.Made of shadows and silver light.Empty. Waiting. Watching.
Prince's stomach twisted.He had seen it before—in his first vision.But now it was closer.More real.Almost breathing.
The Mirror Speaks
He turned to the mirror again.The reflection moved before he did.
It smiled.Not him.Something behind him smiled.
The whisper returned:
"Every reflection is a debt unpaid.Every echo is a memory stolen.Every shadow remembers your arrival."
Prince's chest tightened.He realized the reflection was not mimicking him—it was teaching him.Showing him possibilities, all of them wrong, all of them frightening.
He flinched.The mirror cracked further, tiny lines spreading like spiderwebs.Through the cracks, he saw fragments of another world:streets bending into impossible angles, figures with more eyes than faces, and faint, glowing letters etched into air.
The Veil Reacts
A chill wind swept through the room.Candles flickered violently.The lantern bent unnaturally.The fog behind the walls thickened.
Prince felt his consciousness split.One part stayed in the room.One part drifted into the space behind the Veil.
A voice called—not with words—but with impressions:
Fear of exposure
The inevitability of fate
The taste of old power
The smell of forgotten time
A hint of something worse waiting beyond Veil 12
Prince staggered back.
The Veil was alive.It was not just a layer of reality.It was judging him, testing him.
The First Glimpse of Avatars
Then, faintly, he saw himself move—but differently.Not the body he inhabited.Not Nasir.
A second version of himself walked through the grey fog, cloaked in a darker silhouette.Its movements were deliberate, precise, unnatural.
It paused.Its gaze met Prince's through the thin layer of the Veil.A silent message:
"I am you.And I will obey."
Prince realized, with sudden terror and clarity, that this was the first Avatar.A fragment of himself, already born behind the Veil, waiting to serve his purpose.
The room shook.A low hum filled the air.Books rattled.The ceiling warped.
Prince fell to his knees.
The shadows leaned closer.The mirror fractured more.And the throne in the grey fog—closer than ever—seemed to pulse.
A Hint of Cosmic Horror
The whisper returned:
"You are written into existence.But the debt is not yet paid.The world will adjust…or break."
Prince's breath caught.Something ancient and hungry stirred behind the fabric of the world.
He felt it watching:
A presence that did not breathe
A presence older than the Veil
A presence that had seen the arrival of countless gods and mortals, and consumed them
Prince realized, trembling:He had stepped into a game whose rules he did not yet know.And every move, every thought, every heartbeat would be watched.
Closing Mystery of Chapter 4
He rose slowly.The room returned to a fragile calm.
The mirror reflected only his own eyes—calm, yet aware.The grey fog behind the walls dissipated.The throne in the distance faded.
But the whisper lingered.And in his mind, a single word burned:
"Survive."
Prince knew:Survival alone would not be enough.The world behind the Veil demanded more.
It demanded mastery.
And the first rules of that mastery were yet to be learned.
End of Chapter 4