The whisper echoed in his mind long after the words had faded from the corridor walls. “Find the mirror.”

  Nael stood frozen, his breath shallow and uneven. The fluorescent lights flickered, as if unsure whether to stay on or blink out into darkness. The hallway was still empty, unnaturally silent, as if the building itself held its breath. He forced his legs to move, step by step, as he followed the corridor deeper into the institute—into the belly of a place he had once trusted.

  The walls shifted subtly around him. He was sure the hallway hadn’t been this long. Every turn he took seemed to stretch into more turns, bending the geometry of the building into something that made no architectural sense. It was like a dream—or a trap.

  Then, he saw it.

  At the end of the hallway stood a door different from the others. Black wood. Carved edges. An ornate handle shaped like a serpent swallowing its tail. Etched into the surface were faint symbols—circles within circles, jagged lines intersecting with curved runes. The door radiated cold.

  Nael’s hand hovered above the handle.

  He didn’t remember deciding to come here. It was as though the building had guided him. Or the shadow. Or something older.

  He turned the handle and stepped through.

  The room beyond was vast. Larger than the building should allow. Mirrors covered every wall, every angle, arranged in chaotic patterns—tall and narrow, wide and low, circular, triangular, some shattered at the edges, others pristine. The ceiling was mirrored, too, reflecting his image back a thousand times. A cold, artificial breeze swept across the floor, disturbing the dust but leaving no scent, no sound.

  Nael stepped inside.

  Immediately, the door behind him vanished.

  He spun around, heart racing. Where the door had been was now just another mirrored wall.

  He touched the glass. Cold. Solid. His own face stared back at him, but something about the reflection felt... off. His mirrored eyes didn’t blink when he did. His expression was a beat behind.

  He stepped away.

  One of the mirrors shimmered.

  It rippled like the surface of disturbed water, and then changed. The reflection was no longer of the room, but a different place entirely—a dark forest, moonlight filtering through twisted branches. A child stood among the trees, barefoot and crying. Nael felt something twist inside him.

  He recognized the boy.

  It was him again. Younger than before. Maybe six or seven. Lost.

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  Nael approached the mirror slowly, hand outstretched. The moment his fingers brushed the surface, the image changed.

  Now he saw his mother.

  Not as she was, but as he remembered her before the incident. Smiling. Kneeling to hold his face. Whispering something.

  He pressed his hand harder against the glass.

  The whisper came again, from somewhere deep in the mirrored labyrinth.

  "The truth is hidden in the cracks."

  A crack appeared across the mirror in front of him, distorting his mother’s face. The smile twisted into something grotesque. Her eyes turned black, bleeding into the edges of the reflection.

  Nael recoiled.

  Another whisper, louder now.

  "You broke the seal."

  The mirrors began to tremble. Images shifted rapidly—memories, nightmares, possibilities. In one mirror, he saw himself lying on a metal table, his chest cut open, wires emerging from his ribcage. In another, he stood over a grave, name erased, holding a letter with blood-soaked words: "It was never supposed to be you."

  The reflections began to step out.

  First one. Then another. Silent, doppelg?nger versions of himself, crawling from the glass like smoke turning solid. Each moved differently. One smiled too wide. Another wept constantly. A third dragged a long chain behind it.

  Nael backed away.

  They didn’t follow.

  Instead, they turned inward, walking into the mirrors again, disappearing into other realities.

  He ran.

  Through corridors of glass, his reflections watching from every angle. His footsteps echoed in layers, a cacophony of his own panic.

  Then he stopped.

  At the center of the labyrinth stood a single object. Not a mirror.

  A coffin.

  It was made of polished obsidian, reflective enough to show his warped image. Around it, shattered mirror shards floated midair, spinning slowly like a constellation. One shard hovered near his shoulder, and in it, he saw a woman’s face. Familiar.

  Dr. Halen.

  Her eyes were closed, as if sleeping. Then they snapped open.

  "Nael," her voice came from the shard. "Listen carefully. You have one chance."

  He reached for the shard.

  "They’ll try to erase this too. But your mind remembers more than they think."

  The shard cracked.

  "Find the Archivist. The one who remembers."

  "Where is he?" Nael shouted.

  But the shard shattered before she could answer.

  The coffin groaned.

  A soft hiss escaped from its seams, and the lid began to shift. Not open. Breathe. As if the coffin itself were alive.

  Nael stepped back.

  From within, a pale hand emerged.

  Then another.

  What pulled itself from the coffin wasn’t a person. It was a distortion—a living glitch in the world. Its face was Nael’s, but melted, flickering between versions. One moment a child, the next an old man. Its mouth opened, and a thousand voices poured out at once.

  "Do you see now?"

  Nael fell to his knees, clutching his head.

  Visions flooded him. Electric pain raced down his spine as memories—real, false, planted, stolen—merged and tore apart in his mind. He saw doctors arguing over his body. He saw himself submerged in a tank of black liquid. He saw a mirror break from the inside.

  And he remembered.

  The real Nael.

  The child who was taken.

  The program that replaced him.

  The experiments.

  The shadow.

  When he opened his eyes, the distortion was gone. So was the coffin.

  Instead, he stood alone in a white room. No mirrors. No doors. No sound.

  Until the wall before him split open, revealing a new figure.

  A tall woman in a grey coat. Hair tied back. Eyes sharp and ancient.

  "Nael," she said.

  He stood.

  "Who are you?"

  "The Archivist."

  She gestured behind her.

  Bookshelves. Miles of them. Filled with files, tapes, journals. Memories.

  "You wanted the truth," she said. "Now you must decide what to do with it."

  To be continued in Chapter Six...

  Nael begins to uncover the full extent of Project Whisper and its roots in ancient technologies hidden in plain sight. But as he learns more, so too does the thing that was born from his shadow...