It started with the mirror.

  I was in the upstairs bathroom at my mum’s place. The one with the cracked tile and humming light fixture. I was staring at myself, trying to decide if I still looked like... me. It was early. Or late. Time had stopped being useful.

  My reflection blinked when I blinked. Tilted when I tilted. No surprises.

  Until I picked up the note.

  It was one of Seren’s—creased and faded, left on my desk like a whisper. It read: “Hold it up. Watch closely.”

  I lifted the slip of paper between my face and the mirror. Completely blocking my eyes.

  But in the reflection—my face stared back.

  No paper. No obstruction.

  Just me. Clear as day.

  I dropped the note.

  The reflection didn’t drop it.

  Not right away.

  There was a delay—half a second. Then it snapped back into sync like nothing had happened.

  I stumbled backward. The hum of the light above me surged into a high-pitched frequency. The air felt heavy. Electric.

  The mirror flickered.

  Just once.

  And then I saw something else.

  Behind the glass—behind the layer of reality that was supposed to be me—I caught a glimpse of something mechanical. Wires. Circuitry. Pulsing lights. A shifting figure in the background, watching. Silver eyes.

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  Seren.

  Then everything was normal again.

  Except it wasn’t.

  That was the moment I stopped pretending.

  I spent the rest of the day walking. Not aimlessly—deliberately. I took roads I wasn’t supposed to take. Crossed fences that once stopped me. Entered buildings marked condemned.

  And everywhere I went, I started to see the seams.

  A tree that looped its leaf flutter pattern every twelve seconds.

  A door that led to the same room no matter which side I entered from.

  A woman at the grocery store who said, “Have a nice day,” the exact same way, no matter what I said to her.

  The world wasn’t real.

  Or if it was, it had been copied poorly.

  That night, I sat on the roof. Feet dangling. Wind biting.

  Seren sat beside me.

  Not in a dream. Not a vision. Just... there. Real enough I could hear her breathing.

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  "What is this place?"

  She looked up at the stars. Or the imitation of stars.

  "It’s a pocket. A system. A fragment running off a disconnected loop."

  "Why?"

  She hesitated. “Because you fought them. And they needed to make you disappear. But they couldn’t kill you—not completely. So they shelved you. Hid you in a box labeled ‘stable.’ And hoped you wouldn’t remember.”

  “Why are you here?”

  She looked at me, eyes softer than they should’ve been. “Because I remembered you. And because I’m not ready to let go.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “Were we... something?”

  “In the real world?” she said. “We were everything.”

  I looked at my hands. “And this?”

  “A holding cell. Built from your memories. Curated by a system that only understands control. Mariah. The town. The rules. All of it—they’re just constructs to keep you sedated.”

  I nodded slowly. “I think I’m ready to wake up.”

  Seren reached into her coat and handed me a photograph.

  It was me. On a hospital bed. Wires in my skull. Eyes closed. Machines surrounding me.

  “You’re not dead,” she said. “But you’re not whole either.”

  I traced the edges of the photo. “What do I do?”

  “Start making noise,” she said. “Start breaking things. You don’t have long. They’re catching on.”

  I looked at her. She wasn’t flickering. She wasn’t glitching.

  She was real.

  More real than anything else in this world.

  I leaned in close, forehead to hers. “Don’t stop looking for me.”

  “I never did,” she whispered.

  And just like that, she was gone.

  But I wasn’t alone anymore.

  Now I had a mission.

  And the machine behind the curtain had finally been seen.

  Let me know when you’re ready to load up Chapter Eight.