Chapter 18: The Fractured Mirror

The hallway stretched endlessly before Caelum, its walls twisting in unnatural angles as if the mansion itself was recoiling from his presence. The air was thick and heavy, laced with a musty odor that seemed to seep into his skin, clinging like a rotting memory. Time, too, felt distorted here—sliding through his fingers without meaning, leaving him with no anchor to reality.

Then, at the far end of the hall, he saw it: the door.

It wasn’t like the others. Jagged and broken, it pulsed with a faint, steady glow—like the faint thrum of a heartbeat. But there was no comfort in it. No safety. The door was a wound, gaping wide, pulling him in.

The Hall of Mirrors.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the floor beneath him creaked—a groan of protest as if even the house didn’t want him here. The air felt thicker now, suffocating. The room stretched impossibly wide, its size far beyond what the narrow hallway had promised. Mirrors lined the walls, fractured and whole, reflecting versions of Caelum that made his skin crawl.

One mirror showed him with a smile, his eyes wide with a hollow joy that wasn’t his. Another reflected him with eyes that were black pits, drained of life. Some showed him as a child, lost and uncertain, while others mirrored the hardened man he had become, cynical and cold. Each reflection was more distant, more alien than the last, as if the mirrors were not merely showing him—but the layers of him, each one more distorted than the next.

He moved closer to the nearest mirror, his own face staring back at him. But it wasn’t quite right. It flickered—shifted—until it became Dante’s face, grinning with that all-knowing, mocking smile.

"Which one of us is the real you?" Dante’s voice drifted through the air like a dark whisper, curling around his mind, sweet and poisonous. "Do you even know? Or are you too afraid to face the truth?"

Caelum’s heart thudded harder, and he stepped back, but the mirrors followed him, their frames rippling like water disturbed by a stone. The walls seemed to hum, vibrating with an unseen energy, tightening around him.

"Are you running now, Caelum?" Dante's voice came again, almost tender, yet tinged with mockery. "You know better than anyone—these mirrors don’t lie. They reflect everything you’ve tried to hide. The parts of yourself you can’t face. The pieces of you you’ve buried so deep."

Caelum swallowed hard. He couldn’t escape. The mirrors closed in, shifting and warping with each step he took, mocking him, distorting his every move.

What am I running from?

He didn’t know. Nothing made sense anymore.

A faint glint of something caught his eye from the center of the room. It wasn’t the mirrors, but something smaller—a broken mask, its fragments scattered across the floor, glinting in the dim light.

The mask.

The pieces were jagged, sharp—like the pieces of his own soul, splintered and scattered. He approached, his heart beating faster, but there was something compelling about it, something he couldn’t resist. He had to see it. Had to understand.

The shards lay in a shattered heap, their edges glistening with a dangerous allure. He reached down, fingers trembling as he picked up the largest fragment. The face of the mask stared up at him—his own face, but contorted, grotesque. The cracks split through the eyes, the mouth, distorting everything that should have been whole.

The mask had been a part of him once, a shield, a way to hide from the world. But now, it was nothing more than broken glass—its promise of protection a lie.

"You always were the mask, Caelum," Dante’s voice whispered, his breath against the back of Caelum’s neck. "Do you know who you are without it? Without the face you’ve shown the world?"

Caelum froze, his fingers still curled around the shard. His reflection in the broken mask was fractured, each jagged piece of glass showing a different version of him. The child, the man, the monster—all staring at him, accusing him. Every piece of the mask held a part of him he couldn’t escape.

"Is this who you really are?" Dante pressed, the words slipping from his lips like venom. "A broken thing, shattered beyond repair? A collection of parts that can never be whole again?"

Caelum's breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t fix this. He couldn’t put it back together. The mask—his mask—was gone. And with it, the illusion of who he had been.

He wanted to scream, to lash out at the mirrors, to destroy them all. But there was no escape from himself. No place to run from the truth. The more he tried to deny it, the clearer it became. The mask had been a lie. But what was the truth?

Can I even face it?

"Your past," Dante’s voice grew harsher now, pressing against him like a weight, "you’ve been running from it for so long. Hiding behind the mask. Hiding behind the illusion. But what happens when the mask shatters? When you can no longer pretend to be someone you’re not? What happens when you’re forced to look at what’s inside?"

Caelum’s heart beat in his ears. His vision blurred, the reflections in the mirrors multiplying like a thousand false versions of himself. The pieces on the floor shimmered like daggers, sharp and unforgiving. He couldn’t fix it. He couldn’t put it back together.

The mask—the illusion—was gone. The mirrors, the reflections, the shattered pieces—they all pointed to one thing: his identity, fractured beyond repair.

He looked down at the shard in his hand, his fingers trembling. A flicker of hesitation passed through him, the thought of reassembling the mask—of returning to the comfort of a false identity—but the more he stared at his reflection in the broken glass, the clearer it became. The child, the man, the monster—all of them were parts of him. Fragments he had been running from, pieces he had to accept.

This is who I am.

He let the shard fall, the sharp edges clattering to the floor like a thousand fragments of his shattered self. The mirrors stopped warping. The hum in the air ceased. The walls, which had been pressing in on him, seemed to fall away.

"You’ve made your choice," Dante said softly, his voice no longer cruel but almost sad. "You’ve chosen to face the truth. Even if it means you’re broken."

Caelum nodded, his voice barely a whisper. "I am broken. And that is enough."

Dante’s smile flickered, then faded. "It’s only when you accept your brokenness that you become whole."

The room fell silent. For the first time, Caelum felt it: the weight of the mirrors, the mansion, the voice—they were all a part of him. His fears, his desires, his shattered past. Reflections of the man he had been, and the man he could become.

As the last shard of the mask fell to the floor, Caelum stood tall, his heart steady for the first time in what felt like forever.

The path ahead was still uncertain. It always had been. But now, Caelum understood. It was his path to walk. Not the one he had run from. Not the one Dante had twisted. His own.

And that was enough.