The Veil Shattered

I find myself staring blankly at a screen turned off. Somewhat saddened that I couldn’t play my game, and the thought that I might not ever be able to, I ran out my cell to check on the one beside mine.

And there, turning around with the most vague and average appearance, was Aeris.

Except soon after she stood up, it wasn’t Aeris as I’d known her. No modest blouse. No skirt tucked just so, the picture of an average office worker vanished out of my world. That had only been a mask. A mask the prison had draped over her, and one I had willingly accepted, because it was easier than asking why.

Her true form was impossible to make. Long hair fell above her shoulders, the strands catching the dim glow and scattering it like threads of liquid flame. Her ears, sharp and unmistakably elven, framed her face with a quiet dignity I didn’t know how to meet. Her soft violet eyes, capable of glowing. Her clothes, elegant, layered, flowing, spoke of a world I had no part in, a world that had shaped her long before she was ever thrown in here.

For a moment, my chest seized. The sight of her was foreign enough that my instincts wanted to recoil. She wasn’t human. She wasn’t what I knew. It was wrong of me to have thought I’ve seen through the veil soon after meeting her, if that were true, why did I see it there always? It was protecting me from something so unearthly.

And yet, the fear never came. The prison, in its cold and suffocating way, had built this moment so carefully I couldn’t look away. It had wrapped me in its grip, not to protect me from her, but to protect me from myself. To keep me from running, like I always did.

And so, I didn’t. For the first time, I let myself look at Aeris as she really was. Not as the veil wanted her to be. Not as I wanted her to be. But as herself. She was unique by my standards but that didn’t mean no one could be like her, that she couldn’t be ordinary.

It’s amazing how much I just accepted, no matter how contradictory or lazy, just to keep things the way they are, to simply not try. But now, ever since meeting her, I’ve felt like I should try to give things my all. I’m grateful to Aeris, “Thank you.”

Aeris tilted her head, her pupils flattening downward like spilled ink. “Why the sudden thanks? Not that I mind. I’ve given you so many lectures without so much as a fraction of the tuition you owe.” At the end was a smile.

I take a look around the prison although it remains the same, something in me makes it look so very different. I thought about how easily I accepted all the strange phenomena that would occur, but it wasn’t until I accepted that slothful aspect of myself, or rather, until I saw myself that I could truly see this place and the people in it for who they are.

I thought back on the guards, sure they were reptilian in form but not in nature. They didn’t stand tall but rather with their backs arched, with their tails having spikes that would scratch the floor rather than their claws. Each one seemed less intimidating and more like employees just doing their jobs. Strange that now I can see the less human parts of them, the more human they seem.

Aeris stares at me for longer than anyone has before, her eyes brightening as they search for whatever it is she’s looking for. “You’re not afraid,” she finally says, almost accusing.

“I thought I would be.” I say lightheartedly. “But it feels like… the prison wanted me to see you like this. Like it wanted me to stop running.”

Her expression sharpened. “What do you mean by that? You always say strange things I can’t fully understand, things that reveal just how little you understand this world. But now… maybe, I think I do understand. Tell me, Akito. Your world, why does it cling to you like an old wound? You aren’t unhappy here. You don’t even miss your old world. And yet… you’ve never once claimed this one as your own. You keep your distance from everything, have you noticed?”

The question lands heavily, like a stone dropped in still water. I’m at a loss for words, because there’s no easy answer. It’s hard to think clearly when her sincere yet condescending teacherly side slips through. I know she cares, and I’m grateful she does, but why must she ask the questions she already knows the answers to like that? And why does she hide the ones she doesn’t know between the rest, focusing only on the ones about me? What’s worse is that I can’t even hide the discomfort her words stir in me.

“I never felt like I belonged over there,” I said slowly. “And here… the only place I have is as a prisoner with no sentence. Sometimes this place feels like a hotel. Sometimes it’s a nightmare. How can I call this world home when I’ve only ever been locked in it? My being here changes nothing… Just like it didn’t matter over there - ”

Aeris stepped forward, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “Why do you think of yourself that way? That you don’t matter? That you don’t have a place? That you’ve impacted nothing? None of that’s true. I saw it, your family, they care - ”

My fist clenched. “Don’t talk about them when you don’t even know how amazing they are! I’m not worthy of being related to people like them. But maybe you’re right, maybe I did leave an impact. I changed a few things. I was a burden. But now I’m gone, so in the end, it’s all back to how it was. It’s better this way. Where nothing changed…” My voice lowered. I tried to form an apology for snapping, but before I could say anything, Aeris pulled me into a hug.

“Please… don’t think about yourself like that. It’ll be okay.” It sounded more like she was saying it for herself than for me, but I listened anyway. She could probably feel that I was genuinely sorry. “You matter more than you’ll ever know. Look at yourself, right now, in this moment. This version of you is Akito. You’ve suffered so much, but you’ve kept going. You’re not a burden. And if you feel you’ve wronged someone, then apologize, make it right. But just because you gave up on yourself doesn’t mean the rest of the world did. You’ve been trying, Akito. That’s all anyone can ask.”

“Aeris, I—”

The prison shifted, cutting me off. A faint sound, like glass settling in its frame, echoed through the walls. The torches along the corridor flickered, not dimming, but refracting, as though each flame had become a shard of glass.

And then we saw it.

In the center of the hallway between our cells, mounted where no wall had been before, stood a tall, ornate mirror. Its frame wasn’t carved, but  grown, twisting like the roots of an ancient tree.

The cracks in the glass began to mend in some places, making one large shard at the center grow even larger. It now took up nearly half the frame. The other cracks and fragments remained unchanged, each reflecting something slightly different.

In the central shard, we saw the judgment chamber. Aeris and I stood side by side. Something was about to happen. But before we could make sense of it, a guard quickly slithered into view. He muttered something into his shoulder sounding fearful, tapped the ground with the butt of his spear, and just like that, it was as if the prison reset. I was back in my cell. I assumed Aeris was in hers.

When we emerged again, our eyes met at the same time. “What was that?” we asked in unison.

We laughed together, helplessly, half at our synchronized words, half at ourselves, for still being able to laugh in a place like this. But the levity didn’t last.

We looked toward the far end of the hallway, and saw the mirror was gone. In its place lay two folded pieces of paper. Each had our names inscribed. Rather, hers had a name, Aeris Faelan. Mine was still just a number, 10485. Once I processed her name, I glanced at her, tempted to ask, but what mattered more was whatever was inside the page.

I turned my focus back to my own. As I unfolded it, I noticed a look of panic flash across Aeris’ face. She opened hers, and the inscription inside wasn’t static. It changed with every passing second. Ours displayed the same thing, at the same time.

We didn’t know what it meant. But it was undeniably,

A countdown.