Chapter 38: The Threshold of Fractured Echoes

There was no sound.

No walls, no floor, no ceiling—only an expanse of twisting reflections, stretching into eternity. The air itself was weightless, absent of temperature, neither cold nor warm. Yet something filled the space. A presence.

Caelum exhaled, feeling his breath dissipate without an echo. He was alone—except for the mirrors.

They lined the endless corridor, towering higher than should have been possible. Their glass did not reflect light, but swallowed it. Each surface was warped, rippling like liquid metal, showing not just his reflection but something deeper. Something wrong.

He stepped forward, and the mirrors trembled in response.

His reflection mimicked him, yet it was not him.

It stood straighter. Taller. It held itself with a confidence Caelum had never known. Its eyes—his eyes—glowed with something unreadable, something ancient.

Then it moved.

Not as a reflection, but of its own will.

Caelum froze. His fingers curled into fists, nails digging into his palms. The air thickened.

“You again,” he muttered.

The reflection smiled—a small, knowing thing, laced with amusement and condescension.

“Still pretending you don't understand?” the reflection said. Its voice was identical to Caelum’s, yet layered, reverberating as if spoken from the depths of a cavern. “How exhausting it must be, running from yourself.”

The mansion groaned. The mirrors around them shifted. Their surfaces flickered, revealing not just reflections, but scenes.

A hospital room. A bloodstained floor. A burning building.

Caelum’s pulse spiked.

“Stop,” he hissed.

“Why?” The reflection tilted its head. “Because you don’t want to see? Or because you do?”

The floor beneath them shuddered. The reflections grew more violent, distorting with every passing second.

Then, they shattered.

Glass exploded outward in all directions, yet there was no pain—only light. Blinding. Infinite. Devouring.

And Caelum saw.

Not just the mansion. Not just the reflections.

He saw everything.

The rooms. The shifting corridors. The endless, looping halls. They were not separate. They were one.

And at the center of it all—himself.

Not just one self.

Every version of himself.

The child. The liar. The dreamer. The killer. The fool. The god.

The weight of it pressed into him, collapsing his lungs, his thoughts, his being. The mansion was not a prison. It was not a creation.

It was him.

And as that realization struck him, the walls around him collapsed.