The city moved.
Kye didn't blink. He couldn't. Every part of him was locked in stunned terror, as if the very concrete under his feet had grown fangs. Buildings twisted, metal groaned like beasts awakening, and the porcelain man's smile stretched impossibly wide.
Then it began.
The sidewalk cracked beneath Kye's shoes, turning into a jagged mouth of stone teeth. He jumped back, narrowly avoiding the snapping concrete. The stitched man lunged, but Kye swung the bent road sign like a halberd, knocking the thing's arm sideways. It didn't cry out, it didn't flinch. It just tilted its head, watching him.
From behind, Kye heard a deep metallic voice boom: "Subject K-12: Initiating Trial 3."
A second billboard flickered to life.
MIRROR REALM: ECHO ZONE LOADING…
Kye's vision trembled. He stumbled into the centre of the street, and the entire world shattered around him.
Like falling through glass, Kye crashed into another layer of the city. Gone were the stitched men and twisted towers. Instead, this version was still, quiet, unnaturally clean. The sky was white like an empty canvas, and every surface, wall, street, and car was reflective. Not like a mirror, exactly, but polished enough that Kye could see himself in everything.
Dozens of versions of him looked back.
He stepped forward. All his reflections followed. But one, the one on the side of a car, didn't; It smiled.
Kye froze.
The reflection's eyes shimmered with pitch black, and its grin stretched past human proportions.
"You're not me."
The reflection blinked. "Not yet."
Then it stepped out of the mirror.
Kye stumbled back as the doppelgänger landed with a weighty thud, cracking the sidewalk. It looked like him, same height, same torn clothes, but his skin was greyish and sickly.
Its hands twitched like it was barely contained.
He raised the road sign again. "What is this place?!"
The doppelgänger walked in a circle around him. "The Echo Zone. Where everything about you echoes back louder. Anger. Guilt. Fear. You can't run. You can't lie. Only one of us walks out."
Then it charged.
Kye barely blocked in time. The force was unreal. The impact threw him into a wall. He grunted, scrambled up, and ducked just in time to dodge another strike. He swung low, cracking the fake's leg, but it didn't even flinch.
"You think you're a survivor?" it hissed. "You're a mistake waiting to collapse."
Kye snarled. "I've made it this far."
The reflection grabbed him by the collar and threw him through a storefront window.
Glass tore at his arms and cheek. Blood splattered the white tile floor. He staggered upright, wiping his face, only for the reflection to walk through the wall behind him.
"You survived luck, not strength. Not purpose."
"I survived because I didn't stop."
"You survived because I let you."
Kye screamed and threw a shard of mirror glass. It was embedded in the fake's shoulder, but the thing just laughed. "This world is built from your doubt."
Suddenly, dozens of other reflections appeared, some sobbing, some mocking, some dying.
All of them him.
"No!" he gasped. "You're not real. None of you!"
They swarmed. Hands grabbed his limbs, pulling, suffocating.
Kye roared. Something broke inside. Not fear. Not rage. Just refusal.
He headbutted the nearest doppelgänger, ducked a punch, tore the road sign from the ground, and spun with all his strength. The metal cracked through three reflections before bending in half.
Panting, bloody, furious, he looked around.
Silence.
Only one stood now. The original doppelgänger.
Its grin was gone.
"I see," it muttered. "You've changed."
Kye raised his fists.
"No. You've decided to change."
Then the mirror city began to collapse. Buildings shattered like crystal. Sky crumbled. And the last thing Kye saw before blacking out was his reflection saluting him with a smirk.
"Wake up, genius."
—--
The porcelain man's hand hovered inches from Kye's chest, palm open, fingers twitching. Kye stood frozen, breath shallow, road sign raised like a toy weapon. Then the man's face crumbled inward, not shattered, not broken, just peeled, like someone had sucked it inward through a straw.
The thing's body twitched once, twice, then collapsed with a paper-thin rustle to the sidewalk.
Silence.
Kye didn't move. Not even to breathe. Every building still blinked its red lights. Every drone above him still hovered. The city had moved once, and now… now it seemed to be holding its breath too.
A static voice, digital and layered, buzzed from the fallen porcelain mask.
"Test subject Kye Amsani, Dream Loop: 8 of 9. Cognitive anchors are stable. Survival latency… declining."
Kye blinked. "Dream loop?"
But before he could think further, the sidewalk beneath him cracked open like paper.
He dropped.
No scream came. His mouth was open, his throat ready, but all that escaped was a flood of grey ash, pouring into the air like blood from a throat wound.
He landed hard, bones rattling. The world blurred.
Then focus returned, barely.
He was in a tunnel.
It looked industrial. Rusted pipes wept steam. Muffled mechanical hissing echoed in the darkness. But it wasn't empty. Posters with his face plastered on the walls.
Some were kind.
"YOU WERE CLOSE, KYE."
Others weren't.
"HE DIED FOR NOTHING."
One was of Luca, grinning. But his eyes had been replaced with empty sockets.
"Best friends die fast."
Kye stumbled forward. His legs were slow. His mind lagged.
"Dream loop… eight of nine…?" he whispered.
Suddenly, the lights along the tunnel clicked on. One by one.
At the end of the corridor stood a person.
He couldn't see the face, but the posture… it mirrored his own.
They turned slowly. And what he saw nearly broke him.
It was him.
Not a clone. Not a twin. But he—hollowed. Paler, thinner eyes, dark like empty pools. His voice was perfectly timed with Kye's own, like a whisper in a cave.
"You're not going to survive the last loop."
Kye's voice cracked. "Who are you?"
The other-Kye smiled, not cruel, but tired.
"I'm the version that died six loops ago. You left me behind. You're always leaving something behind."
The lights flickered.
"I didn't ask for this," Kye snapped.
"No. But you did choose it."
Then the tunnel twisted.
Twisted. Like a wrung towel. Gravity shifted. Kye slid sideways and crashed into a wall as the world rotated ninety degrees. He scrambled upright, now on what used to be the right wall.
Other-Kye stood undisturbed.
"You're losing your grip," he said. "They're tightening the loop. You only have one more before you wake up. Or break."
"What happens if I break?"
"You stay."
Kye stepped forward.
Then a shadow dropped between them.
It wasn't a thing. It was the absence of one. Darker than black. It shifted like it was drawn in ink.
Both Kyes flinched.
Then it spoke.
"Kye Amsani. Please proceed to the Ascension Gate. Final trial begins now."
The shadow dispersed into mist.
Other-Kye began to fade.
"Remember," he said, voice weakening. "You can only kill the thing if you know what it is."
Then he was gone.
Kye was alone again.
He didn't wait.
He ran.
The tunnel narrowed, then opened into a circular atrium. In the centre stood a massive door, covered in handprints.
The Ascension Gate.
It opened for him.
Inside, black walls rose high like cathedral stone, engraved with memories. Snippets of his life replayed in stone:
His first test paper, marked "Top of Class."
The day his father left.
Luca smiling through a cracked lip after a fight.
His mother's trembling hand, reaching for pills.
Then the room dimmed.
And something stepped through the memories.
It wasn't fast.
It was patient.
A shape made of failed versions of himself. One limped. One screamed. One dragged a broken leg. All wore Kye's face.
The real one stood in the centre.
This wasn't about monsters anymore.
It was about regret.
The false-Kyes surrounded him.
He held nothing.
No weapon.
No shield.
Just his breath.
And his decision.
"I'm not perfect," Kye whispered. "But I'm not giving up on who I'm becoming."
The versions screamed.
And rushed him.
The lights exploded.
Darkness.
Then, A heartbeat.