The path of shattered glass cut through the Clockwood like a scar, leading Aurora into silence.
Not the kind of silence that offered peace—but one that waited.
Branches thinned above her, and the trees, once gnarled with clock-hands, stood dead still, frozen like statues. The air changed too, colder and thinner, as though she were climbing time itself—each step pressing her deeper into memory's bones.
Then she saw it.
A chapel.
Or what was left of one.
The ruined structure stood crooked among blackened roots, stone arches cracked and overgrown with thorny vines. Its roof had collapsed, allowing pale twilight to pour into the hollow interior like moonlight through a skeleton's ribs.
And yet, bells rang.
Soft, dissonant, echoing from nowhere and everywhere, like a choir singing underwater.
Aurora's boots crunched on forgotten mosaic tiles as she stepped inside. The air smelled of dust, old wax, and wilted lilies. A shattered altar lay at the far end, broken mirrors scattered around it like fallen feathers.
Painted on the far wall was a faded mural.
A girl in blue, faceless, dancing alone beneath a bleeding clock.
Cinderella.
She had been here.
Aurora stepped closer, drawn to the mural's center. There was something beneath the flaking paint, something carved deeper than the surface.
A word.
Scratched in with trembling fingers.
"Not chosen."
She reached out—fingers hovering over the cracked stone—but stopped as she heard it.
Footsteps.
Not hers.
Soft. Measured. Inside the chapel.
Aurora turned, but saw no one.
And yet, a candle lit itself near the ruined pews.
Then another. And another.
The entire chapel illuminated one flame at a time, casting long shadows across the stained glass and shattered idols.
At the center aisle stood a figure.
Not masked. Not cloaked.
But mirrored.
A reflection with no original.
It looked like Aurora.
But twisted.
Eyes too wide. A smile stitched from silence. Skin like smooth porcelain, hair glimmering like liquid night.
"Who are you?" Aurora whispered.
The reflection tilted its head, mimicking her perfectly.
Then, it spoke—with her voice.
"The princess who dreamed of escape and awoke in a lie."
The walls groaned.
The chapel pulsed.
Images flickered through the broken glass—Red pulling a knife from her cloak, Cinderella burning a dress made of light, and a third girl Aurora hadn't seen before, lips sewn shut, screaming without sound.
The mirrored version stepped closer.
"You weren't supposed to wake up. You weren't the one they picked."
Aurora stepped back. "Picked for what?"
The reflection smiled.
"To break the loop."
Suddenly, the candles all blew out—extinguished by a wind that came from inside the ground.
The stone beneath Aurora's feet cracked.
And something rose from it.
A coffin.
No, not a coffin.
A bed of glass.
Inside it—herself.
Sleeping.
Skin pale. Lashes still. A single droplet of blood suspended beneath her closed eye.
She was staring at her own sleeping body.
The reflection circled the glass bed like a priest before an altar.
"She's still dreaming," it whispered. "You are the echo."
Aurora shook her head. "No. I woke up. I walked. I remember—"
"You remember what they want you to remember," the mirror-voice interrupted, now warped, ancient, cruel. "They gave you a fairy tale because they knew you'd believe it."
The chapel ceiling cracked. Dust fell like snow. From the stained glass above, another figure formed—a face hidden behind a burning crown. Not a king. Not a prince.
A watcher.
The dream-watcher.
Aurora dropped to her knees.
Her head ached with names she had never spoken. Seraphine. Elara. Brynn. Girls who had lived lives and lost them in the turning gears of this endless story.
"The curse doesn't begin with the spindle. It begins with the lie."
Aurora reached for the glass bed. Her fingers touched it.
Warm.
Real.
And inside the sleeping body, her own fingers twitched.
Then opened their eyes.
Two Auroras stared at each other. One inside the coffin. One outside.
And both whispered, in perfect unison:
"I am awake."
The chapel shattered.
Stone exploded into starlight. The vines hissed like snakes. Bells screamed, off-key and broken.
When the light faded, Aurora was alone again.
The coffin was gone.
The mural erased.
But a new path had appeared—a staircase descending beneath the chapel, carved into the roots of the world.
At the entrance hung a single word burned into the stone.
"Downfall."
Aurora placed her hand on the wall and took a deep breath.
If she stepped through, there would be no turning back.
But the lie was already unraveling.
And the truth waited below.
She descended into the dark.