Spectres in the Mirror

Not the simple absence of light, but a living entity, so thick that the only thing that came to his mind were memories of past catastrophes.

Lion was running. He didn't know where, he just knew he had to. The corridors of Gigi-1, usually sterile and predictable, writhed around him like the intestines of a dying beast. They were shattered, the walls torn open to the icy vacuum of space, and the bodies of his companions hovered in unnatural zero gravity, their eyes white and turned toward him. And the shadows. Always the shadows. They moved on the periphery of his vision, twisted, elongated shapes crawling across ceilings and walls to the sound of deafening static and bones breaking in slow motion. They whispered his name not with voices, but with the echo of his own fears. No matter how hard he ran, how hard he struggled to wake up, they were always there. Always gaining ground.

He awoke with a choked scream that tore at his throat, sitting bolt upright in bed as if a cable had hoisted him up. The darkness of his room was identical to that of the dream, and for a paralyzing instant, terror immobilized him. His heart was a war drum going mad against his ribs, a caged animal that wanted to escape. Only the soft, steady blue glow that filtered under his door reminded him where he was. "You are safe. You're in Gigi-1". The mental repetition was a feeble mantra against the panic that still snaked through his veins.

It was so real... The feel of the cold shadows sliding across her skin, the smell of burning permeating her clothes, even in sleep.

Her legs were shaking as if she had run for miles as she stood up and made her way to the small bathroom in her room. He turned on the faucet, and the sound of the water hitting the sink was a rough but effective anchor in the oppressive silence. He splashed his face once, twice, three times with the icy water gushing from the recycler, trying to wash away not only the cold sweat, but the last slimy vestiges of the nightmare. The water ran down the back of his neck, down his chest, a little shock to keep the ghosts away.

When he looked up at the mirror, an icy sensation ran down his spine. The unmistakable, primitive feeling of not being alone.

His reflection stared back at him. It was him, yes, with the same features, but it was not him. The figure in the mirror had his eyes, but they were dead, empty as abandoned wells. And a smile. Thin, cruel, a grimace that did not belong to his face, was drawn on those lips that were his own but that moved with an alien, sinister will. For an instant that felt eternal, the world seemed to distort; the edges of the mirror rippled like water, and the reflection seemed to lean forward, crossing the edge of the glass.

"¿Lion?" Eldrinch's voice, laden with sleep and worry, broke the spell like a hammer blow. Lion blinked, violently, and the reflection returned to normal. It was just him again, pale as death, with drops of water running down his skin like tears he dared not cry. But the echo of that alien smile was still burned into his mind.

She opened the door. Eldrinch stood in the hallway, wrapped in a jacket thrown over her pajamas, her hair disheveled and her eyes hazy with sleep, but alert. "Are you all right? I heard you...scream."

"Nightmare," Lion said, his voice a hoarse whisper. He dressed his face in a mask of calm that was too big for him. "Nothing important. What are you doing up at this hour?"

"Same thing," she admitted, shrugging her shoulders with uncharacteristic discomfort. "Couldn't sleep. Too much calm. Makes me nervous. After all we've been through, the silence sounds like . foreboding." She folded her arms. "I wanted to... I don't know, make sure the leader of our fearless team hadn't been replaced by a clone."

Lion forced a smile that strained his jaw muscles. "The evil clone sleeps like a baby, without remorse. It's me, the original, with a bunch of idiots at my command." He stepped aside in an inviting gesture. "Well, since we're both awake and sharing this glamorous night shift..."

They left the room together. The nighttime residential area of the base was a world apart, a realm of deep silence and low blue lights casting long shadows. They barely passed a pair of maintenance technicians with tired faces who nodded to them. They rode up in an elevator that glided in almost unearthly silence to their special place: the upper observation dome, a small private balcony for senior staff that offered an unobstructed view of the cosmos.

And there, hanging in the infinite blackness, was the Earth. A hypnotic sphere of deep blues, cloudy whites and the dim golden lights of the night cities. The cradle of humanity, spinning in majestic silence and indifferent to its nightmares and crises.

Several minutes passed without a word, simply letting the vastness soothe them. It was Eldrinch who finally broke the silence, his voice as soft as the touch of silk.

"You've been weird lately," she said, not looking at him, her profile trimmed against the Earth. "More than usual, I mean. You're...distant. Distracted. And it's not because we haven't been given missions, I know. It's something else."

Lion felt a pang of guilt. She could always see it. She could always read in the blanks of his words, in the tension in his shoulders. He was her anchor, and at that moment, the temptation to cast off and tell him everything, Kenji's message, the destroyed probe, the cult, the visceral fear that it was all about to fall apart, was almost overwhelming.

To divert attention, to protect himself and perhaps unwittingly protect her, he resorted to the only defense he could think of: absurdity and stupidity. He turned to her with a terribly serious, exaggeratedly dramatic expression. "You can't tell anyone, El. It's a state secret, top level." He paused to build suspense. "I think...I think I'm in love."

Eldrinch looked at him, his eyes flickering in complete bewilderment. "What?"

"Yes. She's one of the new botany scientists. She's got red hair like the sunset on Mars, wears those square glasses.... She smiled at me the other day in the cafeteria when I dropped my tray. I think... I think she's the one."

Eldrinch's expression went from confusion to something more complex, more tense. His shoulders contracted almost imperceptibly, and his gaze drifted to Earth. "A... botany?" His voice sounded flat, too controlled.

"Yeah, I think her name is Luce or something. It's just..." Lion couldn't take the charade any longer. The pressure in his chest relented for an instant and a harsh, genuine laugh escaped him. "I'm kidding, El. Of course I'm kidding."

She glared at him, a spark of genuine anger in her eyes, but then gave him a gentle swat on the arm. "Idiot. I almost believed it." A trace of relief, quick and well-disguised, crossed her face before her mask of exasperation settled back on.

"No, it's nothing like that," Lion said, his tone becoming softer, more sincere, though still evasive. "It's just...this. This fictional peace. I'm not used to it. It gives me too much time to think. And my mind... it's not a very pleasant place lately."

"I remember when it was you who couldn't stand the silence," Eldrinch said, his voice softening with a hint of nostalgia. "I also remember that whiny little boy who hid behind me in the shelters every time the alarms went off for a meteor storm. You'd cling to my arm like it was a life preserver."

"And I remember the kid who never beat me in every combat simulation, even when I gave him an insulting two-minute head start," he replied, stepping into the game, seeking refuge in the past. "Always so competitive."

"I could still beat you," she challenged him, a small, genuine smile peeking over her lips. "I find it hard to believe sometimes that that whiny little boy is now my commander."

Nostalgia wrapped around them like a warm blanket, a tangible reminder of a simpler time, where enemies were clear and monsters were only in the movies. Stuck by that feeling of absolute trust, by the desperate need to share the weight that was crushing him, Lion was on the verge of doing so. The words, bitter and urgent, burned in his throat: Kenji showed me something, El. A shattered probe. It wasn't an accident. There's a cult, the Sons of Absolute Truth, and I think they're lying to us, that this is all a sham and that something terrible is coming....

He opened his mouth, the initial sound catching in his throat.

But then, the image in the mirror came back to her mind with the force of a blow. The empty, cruel smile on his own face. The feeling of being watched, of being possessed. Kenji's panicked warning. And, above all, the overwhelming weight of his duty as a leader. If there was an internal threat, a conspiracy, dragging Eldrinch into the center of it was not protection; it was condemnation.

He closed his mouth. He swallowed his words dryly

I couldn't. He wouldn't drag her into this darkness. Not yet.

Eldrinch noticed her hesitation, saw the shadow of anguish and conflict that crossed her face like a flash of lightning. "Lion?" he asked, his voice now charged with renewed and deeper concern.

He shook his head, forcing a smile that didn't reach his eyes, that failed to hide the torment in them. "Nothing. I was just... remembering how simple everything used to be." He rose from the seat, the movement abrupt. "Come on. We should try to get some sleep, even if it's just for an hour." Her voice regained a faint veil of authority. "I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a... long day."

And as they moved away from the dome, the Earth, indifferent, continued to spin in its eternal silence, witness to the silent battles being fought in the fragile hearts of those who pretended to dominate the stars.