( Emrys POV)
I didn't open the door for hours.
I just sat there, hunched in the corner like some paranoid animal, watching the wall. Watching the words.
"You can't run from a reflection that thinks it's real."
I wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or cry. But none of those came.
Only the buzzing hum of the light overhead.
And the whisper of my own thoughts, too loud in the quiet.
Eventually, I moved. Not because I was brave—because I was tired of being still.
The door creaked open like it had aged a century since I shut it. The hallway beyond wasn't empty anymore.
Something had been there.
Blood smeared across the walls in erratic strokes. Symbols. No, letters—broken, shaky, like someone tried to write while their hands were shaking:
/ "E.M.R.Y.S—DEAD. KEEP HIM DEAD."
I stepped over shattered glass. My reflection had followed me here, apparently.
That's when I heard it again.
That soft static crackling.
A radio?
I turned, and down the hall, there it was—an old intercom speaker mounted to the ceiling, sparking faintly. A voice came through it, layered in static:
/ "…subject… breach… containment…"
Then another voice, colder.
Too familiar.
/ "Zero-One is still functional. Proceed to Phase Two."
I froze.
That wasn't a recording.
They were watching me.
The second voice stopped, and so did the static. All that was left was silence. Not peaceful. Not dead. The kind of silence that hides something breathing right behind it.
I moved. Slowly. Carefully.
Every mirror I passed was cracked, but not shattered. Like something inside them had punched once, then waited.
I didn't look at them. Not anymore.
I followed the hallway toward the source of the voice—because yeah, I'm that idiot. But it wasn't just curiosity. It was recognition. That voice, the cold one? I'd heard it before. Not recently. Not in words. But in dreams. In the space between memories.
My name—Zero-One.
I reached a steel door marked RESEARCH WING. The keypad was still glowing. No security code this time. Just one word:
/ Welcome back.
I pushed it open.
The air hit me like ice. Sharp and wrong. Like the smell of bleach mixed with rust.
The room beyond was massive—desks knocked over, flickering monitors, dried blood smears leading between abandoned workstations. But that wasn't what made me stop.
It was the photographs on the walls.
Dozens. Hundreds. All printed in black and white. Some blurry, some clear.
All of me.
Sleeping. Walking. Screaming. Bleeding.
Different ages. Different times.
I stumbled back, my hand shaking as I reached for one.
It was a photo of me at maybe eight years old. Standing in a hospital gown, eyes wide and terrified. Behind me, shadowed figures in lab coats blurred into the background. One had a hand on my shoulder.
I flipped it over.
/ Subject Zero-One: Phase One – Mirror Response Trigger Successful.
Mirror response. Like they were training me to react to it.
I dropped the photo like it burned.
Suddenly, a monitor flickered to life near the center of the lab. Static danced across it, then snapped into a grainy black-and-white security feed. It was focused on a long hallway—lined with mirrors.
And at the end of it… was someone walking.
No, something.
It looked like me. But taller. Twisted. Like a broken version of my reflection that had finally found its way out.
It walked slowly, dragging its hand along the walls. Blood streaked after it.
The feed cut.
Another screen lit up.
This one showed the lab I was in. Live.
I stared at myself on the screen.
And right behind me…
Another figure. Slowly raising its head.
I spun.
Nothing.
No one.
But I felt it. Breathing down my neck.
I didn't scream.
I ran again.
This time, deeper into the building.
I don't know what scared me more—
The thing I saw on the screen…
Or the fact that I didn't even feel surprised anymore.
My feet slammed against the tiles as I bolted through corridor after corridor. I didn't know where I was going, only that I had to be far from the thing with my face and the cameras watching me bleed without bleeding.
Then it hit me.
Not pain—sound.
A metallic crash. Sharp and sudden, like something dropped from high above. It echoed through the vents, chased by a child's giggle warped through static.
I stopped.
And that's when the memory slammed into me.
I didn't black out. Not exactly.
The hallway just... dissolved. One second, the lab was all metal and fear. The next, it was sterile white. Too clean. Too bright.
A room I hadn't seen in years but knew by heart.
I was strapped to a chair—too small to fight it. Tubes in my arms. Machines whirring softly behind me.
A woman stood in front of me, her silhouette framed by harsh fluorescent lights.
Dr. Ilya Soren.
Not evil-looking. Not monstrous. That's what made her worse.
She looked tired. Beautiful in that cold, porcelain way. Like a glass doll that learned how to smile but never meant it.
She crouched in front of me, hands gloved and voice soft.
/ "Emrys," she said. "Do you know what reflection really is?"
I didn't answer. In the memory, I remember staying silent. Detached. Too used to the pain by then.
/ "It's not copying," she went on. "It's mimicry with intent. A mirror image wants to learn. To replace. You understand?"
She tilted her head, smiling just slightly. Like she was proud.
/ "You're doing so well. You're the only one who hasn't cracked."
She reached into her lab coat and pulled out a silver shard—glass, maybe. No… a mirror fragment. Sharp on the edges. She held it up to my face.
/ "Look closely. Which one is you?"
I looked.
And for a moment, the reflection moved before I did.
The memory vanished like someone yanked it from my head.
I was on the ground now, chest heaving. Back in the present. Concrete beneath me. Cold again. The memory left behind a ghost of warmth—her hands on my shoulders, her voice in my ears.
Dr. Soren.
She'd been dead for years.
Hadn't she?
A low sound echoed down the hallway. Not quite a voice. Not quite a growl. The lights flickered.
And I realized something else:
The reflection in the mirror back then—it didn't move before me.
It moved instead of me.