Mirrored Silence

After hearing the sounds through the wall, I ran to check the inside of Aeris’ cell, only to find it empty.

For a second my heart skipped a beat, but then her voice, her real voice drifted from the corner of my ear, soft and delayed, as though it had taken effort to reach me.
“Hey… never mind. It’s nothing.”

She was lying. I didn’t need her strange gift to know that much. I wanted to press her, to demand an answer, but how could I, when I can’t even explain why I’m here? The words would only trip over themselves, hollow, like everything else I’ve tried.

Something else caught me instead, our bracelets. The eyelids stayed mostly shut, but the pupils had begun to swivel restlessly, searching. They weren’t just watching us. They were mocking.

Then a guard appeared. Normally they act like statues carved from flesh and scale, but this one’s grip trembled against his spear shaft. His eyes flicked between Aeris and me, wide with something dangerously close to fear. For a long moment we all stood there, silent. Finally, he lowered his weapon and walked away without a word.

“He was confused,” Aeris murmured. “And he was also scared. Whatever happened, it wasn’t scheduled.”

“They schedule things here?” My laugh sounded brittle in the quiet. “Feels more like a slot machine rigged against us.”

“Your strange quips are starting to make more and more sense…” her voice carried quietly. “I appreciate you inviting me here, sorry about… that happening.” She wore a weak smile. It was pained but it was hers.

After we parted ways, I felt a tinge of sadness swell up inside me. My first attempt at trying to reach out, do something, anything, of course something terrible had to happen. “Sometimes it’s just best to remain as you are… dreams betray many, but hard work betrays no-one.” I let out a weak laugh, I’ve always thought that the man who spoke those words was a genius, an inspiration. Despite his flaws, he did his best and enjoyed life his way. I guess there was more I should’ve learned from him.

I reach for the controller and find that the “Epic of Zinc” was already pre-loaded. “Did Aeris do this before she left?” Although I’m used to speaking aloud, something tells me this should be my last time for a while.

Upon pressing start a window popped up saying something along the lines of, “oops you forgot to save last time you played, thankfully we did that for you :)” I glanced over it just like anyone would reading a EULA.

As the overworld loaded, I knew something was off. This wasn’t a matter of a corrupted saving but instead something more akin to a pirated copy. Nothing was correct, the little blue-should-be-green guy isn’t wearing a hat. Although there was a game where he starts like that before meeting his living hat, it didn’t look like this. Where there was once a dungeon now is a classroom, a real one. My character sat where I once did, along the wall closest to the door.

I tried pressing buttons, but nothing happened until the final boss slid into the upper middle of the screen, he flickered for a moment before assuming the silhouette of a woman with vague features. I didn’t want to assume, but I had a feeling that the real game wasn’t in the tray, and that this is another continuation of the prison’s scheme.

A text box appeared near the bottom of the screen. The name of the speaker was captioned “Ms. Faelan” and she spoke addressing the class getting everyone to settle down to take attendance.

At the sight of the name, I was relieved, the Aeris I know is named Aeris. Just Aeris. I was half expecting that this game would reveal that she was actually the spitting image of an evil witch but sadly her hair was too dark to match the envious witch.

I turned my focus to the books besides the game console, I saw they were all exclusively light novels. A sinking feeling popped into my chest as I began to worry about whether or not the prison was going to make me confess my past to Aeris. “It’s all going to be fine, just look, I’ve never had a teacher named “Ms. Faelan”, I doubt there even is one.”

As I caught myself speaking aloud again, I heard a sound reverberating through the walls. It’s probably some poor new inmate arriving and the hallways rearraigning themselves to make way to the orientation chamber. Wow, look at me knowing things and yet knowing nothing. I wonder if that’s how she feels, just taking her best guess to ease her worries, to ease mine.

As the game continues, the character named “Ms. Faelan” reads out name after name, each corresponding student responds. Once she reads the name “Everett”, my character stands. Honestly, I’m shocked, I was thinking his name would be Welda or something just far removed enough to avoid copyright infringement.

But instead of the next line of dialogue showing after the teacher called on Everett, my cell began to change. Rather, reality itself started falling away.

As the game’s world swallowed the walls of my cell, I found myself sitting upright at a desk made of a dark, unfamiliar wood. A schoolroom. Rows of students blurred at the edges of my vision, their forms too vague, like scenery rushed into existence only to fill a role.

“Everett?” The teacher looked straight ahead, not at me but through me, as though waiting for something I wasn’t prepared to give.

From behind, a boy’s voice cut through, annoyed “He’s here. Just sleeping.”

My head, heavy as lead, was tugged upright by something unseen. Not harsh, but irresistible, like a gentle tide pulling me into place.

“It’d be one thing if you were truly asleep,” the teacher said, her tone soft with concern. “But your eyes… they’re awake. You just don’t answer. You come early every day, earlier than anyone else, and yet you hide in silence. Why is that?”

Her question clawed at me. Something about her concern, it wasn’t fake, it wasn’t mocking, it was worse. It was real. I wanted to lash out, to tell her to stop pretending she saw me, but the words stuck. I swallowed them down, because acting out never changes anything. It only draws the wrong kind of attention.

I forced myself to look away, toward the clock. For a moment, I forgot to breathe. The hands shifted forward, impossibly slow, impossibly loud, marking a time I knew too well. That one minute. The last minute before the final bell. That single choice. The escape I always took.

And then the veil slid into place again. The warped glass, the heavy silence, the suffocating familiarity. I realized it wasn’t coincidence. The prison wasn’t showing me some arbitrary classroom, it was forcing me to relive the place where running away became my habit.

My chest tightened. The minute hand struck forward with finality. The world folded in on itself, and the names, the voices, the walls of the school, all blurred into one thing: a shattered mirror.

Everett looked back at me. And I couldn’t tell anymore if I was playing a game, trapped in a memory, or simply being judged. But I didn’t have the time to figure that out because the boy in front of me took a step forward, and I was compelled to the same, walking into the mirror and back behind the desk.

The teacher’s words lingered, drifting just above me like smoke I couldn’t swat away. Her eyes flicked toward the clock at the front of the classroom. Reflexively, I followed.

Its hands were frozen five minutes before the bell, a single tick away from when I’d usually leave. The strange thing was, I remembered this habit, it was something Aeris would always do. But instead, my memories were telling me that I’d slip out five minutes early, every day, before anyone else could notice. Not to get anywhere faster, not to do anything important. Just so I wouldn’t have to feel the weight of staying until the end.

But this clock was different. Its glass face shimmered, veiled as if something unseen had draped itself across it. Behind the distortion, the hands jerked forward. A single motion, deliberate, heavy with meaning.

The room tilted. The teacher’s voice blurred into static. That veil, the same suffocating blur I’d seen around Aeris before, thickened, swallowing the classroom whole.

And in that instant, I understood this wasn’t just the game. This wasn’t just memory. This was the prison itself, bending my past into a shape it wanted me to see. A familiar shape, so I wouldn’t resist. So that I would understand.

The tick of the clock rang in my skull. When my eyes opened again, Everett was me. And I was Everett.