Chapter 9: Mirrors Remember You
The house wasn't asleep.
It was waiting.
Every step Aria took echoed like a question that hadn't yet been asked. The floor groaned, not from weight, but from memory — like it remembered the tread of her feet from centuries ago.
Caius stayed close behind, his jaw clenched tight, eyes flickering to the walls that seemed to breathe. A door slammed in the distance - a warning, not a breeze.
The air was thick with static, like the tension before lightning.
"Trial One Begins: The House That Hears," Aria whispered, repeating the words burned into her memory from the ancient book.
She could feel it now — the house wasn't just haunted. It was listening.
They stepped into a corridor lined with mirrors, tall and tarnished. Dust veiled the glass, but beneath the grime, Aria caught glimpses — not of her reflection, but of other girls.
Other versions of herself.
In one mirror, a girl with fire-scorched hands and tear-streaked cheeks. In another, a child in ceremonial robes, kneeling before a silver altar. Another held a vision of her standing on a battlefield, her hair matted with blood, a blade in her hand.
Caius looked at her sharply. "These aren't… normal reflections."
"They're me," she said, voice soft. "I've lived before."
He didn't deny it.
Aria reached toward one of the mirrors. The glass shimmered like water, and a hand — her hand — reached back. But it wasn't her. Not this her.
She stumbled back, heart pounding.
"What is this place?" she breathed.
Caius touched the frame of another mirror. "I think this house remembers every version of you that's ever existed."
"And it wants me to remember them too."
A low creak broke the silence. From behind them, a whisper:
"You are the lock and the key."
They spun around.
Salrah stood in the center of the hallway, her white eyes glowing faintly. She hadn't entered the room. She had become part of it.
"You don't have time for all the answers," she said, her voice a hush inside Aria's bones. "You must decide quickly what kind of key you are. And what door you're meant to open."
"I don't even know what the doors are," Aria snapped. "I didn't ask for any of this."
Salrah's expression didn't change. "But the prophecy asked for you."
That felt heavier than any threat.
"You carry a key around your neck, child," Salrah murmured, her gaze locked onto the necklace. "But keys unlock both doors… and cages."
The chain around Aria's neck burned cold.
"I don't want to unlock anything unless I know what's behind it."
"That's not how fate works," Salrah said. "But it is how the trials begin."
The mirrors began to flicker.
The corridor rippled like heat over asphalt. Reflections moved without them — all the past Aria-selves turning their heads in sync, staring at her with hollow, knowing eyes.
A deep rumble shook the house. Dust rained from the ceiling.
"What's happening?" Aria asked, backing into Caius instinctively.
The mirror directly in front of them shattered.
From the shards, she stepped out.
Aria's breath caught. Her own face but not her, older,lonelier and wiser. She looked like a ghost with unfinished business.
Aria's throat went dry. "Liora?"
Liora then said. "I'm what was left of you. A dream echo."
"I've read whispers of dream echoes in the old times," Caius said quietly. "But I thought they were myths"
Liora said. "When a Dreamwalker dies before fulfilling her destiny, a fragment is left behind. I'm one of those fragments. And I've been trapped in this trial for centuries, waiting for the next 'you' to make it this far."
Aria's knees almost gave out. "So… all the past lives. They were real?"
Liora stepped closer. "Real. And unfinished."
Caius didn't speak, but his body was braced like he expected the walls to swallow them any second.
"The trials are built from memory, blood, and prophecy," Liora continued. "Trial One shows you what's behind you. The next will test what you choose moving forward."
"Do you know all the trials?" Aria asked.
Liora's eyes darkened. "No one knows them all. Not even Salrah. They shape themselves around the truth you fear most."
A tremor shook the floor again. The mirrors began to crackle with electricity.
"It's starting," Liora said.
Caius stepped in front of Aria. "We're not ready—"
"No one ever is," Salrah whispered. "But ready or not, the key turns when the door calls."
And with that, the floor split open.
Aria screamed as the ground vanished beneath her and Caius. They plummeted into darkness — mirrors spiraling around them like shards of forgotten lifetimes — before crashing into a room lit by candlelight.
The air was hot, heavy.
The room had no doors. Just walls, and an altar with two objects:
A dagger, and a small wooden box with her name carved in it.
Aria stood shakily. "What now?"
Liora's voice echoed from nowhere: "Choose. But choose wisely. One frees you. One frees something else."
Caius looked between the dagger and the box. "It's another trial. A choice."
"Was this what the first trial was about ?" she muttered "Memory "then "Trial Two… is decision."
She stepped forward.
Her hand fingers trembled above the box, caught between mercy and madness.
It pulsed faintly with warmth — like it knew her.
But the dagger… it called to something deeper. Something angry. Something tired of cages.
She hesitated. "Which one leads to the next trial?"
Caius met her eyes. "Maybe both do. Or maybe one ends us."
Her hand curled around the box.
It opened with a click.
Inside was a note.
It read:
"You chose mercy. But not all cages are made of bars."
"Had you chosen the dagger," Liora's voice whispered, "the descent would've come in fire, not stone".
The candlelight flickered.
The altar split in two.
Behind it, a hidden staircase began to unrave
l itself downward, step by stone step.
Salrah's voice echoed once more:
"The trials aren't linear. Each answer births the next question".
" You are the lock and the key, Trial Two Begins: The Choice That Chains."
Aria took a breath.
And descended.
The Choice That Chains
The staircase spiraled downward, stone by stone, as if being built with each step Aria took.
Caius followed in silence, his presence a tether in the shifting dark. The walls weren't stone — they pulsed faintly, like living things holding their breath.
"What even is this place?" she murmured.
Caius's voice was low. "A construct of the House. Each trial lives where it's needed."
"And this one needed a tomb?"
They reached the bottom.
A vast chamber opened before them — round, windowless, and impossibly silent. In the center: seven chains hung from the ceiling, each ending in a different object.
A rusted crown. A broken mirror. A child's shoe. A bone flute. A book with no title. A vial of blood. And a small silver key.
All hovered just out of reach.
Aria's breath caught. "I don't like this."
"Good," Caius muttered. "That means it's working."
The moment they stepped inside, the door vanished behind them.
Then a voice rang out — not Liora, not Sahlra, but something older.
"You chose mercy. Now you must wear its weight."
The chains trembled.
Suddenly, memory returned — not hers, but someone else's. A village burning. Screams. A woman with Aria's eyes running toward a child, only to vanish in smoke. Mercy had been a choice. And it had cost lives.
Aria clutched her head. "These aren't my memories—"
"No," Caius said grimly, eyes on the crown. "They're the memories of your bloodline. Every time mercy was chosen… and chained to consequence."
Aria's knees wobbled. "So the choice wasn't the end. It was the beginning."
A figure emerged from the far side of the chamber.
Chained at the wrists and neck. Hooded.
They dragged their feet, bound by invisible rules.
When the figure lifted their head, Aria gasped.
It was… her.
Not a mirror this time. Not a dream echo.
An imprisoned version of herself.
This Aria was older. Hollow-eyed. And wrapped in chains that pulsed like heartbeats.
"She's what you become if you never choose again," a voice said — this time Liora, distant but sharp. "If you let mercy paralyze you instead of set you free."
Caius stepped between them. "This is a test. Don't let it fool you."
But the chained Aria began to speak, voice cracked and raw.
"You think you did something noble. But you only delayed the fire. You chose the box… now you carry every weight it spared."
The chains lifted, moving as if sentient.
They coiled toward her wrists, slow and searching.
Aria stepped back. "I didn't ask for this!"
"No," the chained Aria rasped, "but you accepted it."
And then—
A voice whispered from the book hanging above:
"Only the key breaks the loop."
Caius looked to the ceiling. "The silver key. It's the only object not stained by memory."
"But how do I reach it?"
The chained version of herself began to smile — a broken, sad thing.
"One chain must be worn to release another."
Aria stared in horror.
"I have to put one on," she realized.
The objects trembled in unison.
One chain, one burden. One key.
Caius didn't speak. His eyes were on the vial of blood.
Aria closed hers.
The box had asked her to be merciful. But mercy without courage is still a cage.
She stepped forward, reached up—
—and chose the book with no title.
The chain snapped downward, coiling around her wrist like it knew her.
The pain was instant. Not physical, but emotional — every unspoken truth, every question she'd avoided, burned into her mind.
The moment the chain locked, the silver key fell.
It hit the floor with a soft chime.
Aria knelt, breathless, and picked it up.
At once, the chamber changed.
The chained version of herself vanished. So did the crown, the mirror, the flute. All gone.
Only the door ahead remained — carved from old wood, marked with the same runes Caius had drawn in the clearing.
The key fit perfectly.
Click.
As the door opened, Liora's voice echoed:
"The second trial is passed. But chains leave marks."
"And some you will carry into the next."
END OF CHAPTER 9