Scene One – Cracks in the Mirror
Maya sat alone in her quarters, but the silence was anything but comforting.
The walls hummed faintly with the station's heartbeat—life-support pumps, distant generators, the muffled chatter of crew filtering through metal. Once, the sound had reassured her: proof that the colony lived, that human ingenuity kept them afloat on the edge of nowhere. Now it only felt fragile, as if the station itself were holding its breath.
She ran her hands over her face, pressing against her eyes until stars burst behind her lids. Anything to block out the shimmer that wouldn't leave her veins, the faint golden threads winding like a curse beneath her skin. She'd scrubbed her arms raw in the shower after the council meeting, but no amount of water could wash it away.
When she finally lowered her hands, she caught sight of herself in the mirror across the room.
For a heartbeat, she saw only her reflection: tired eyes, lips pressed thin, hair still damp. Human. Ordinary. Herself.
Then the mirror rippled.
Her reflection blinked slower than she did, its head tilting with a predator's patience. Gold bled across its eyes like a second sun rising in the glass.
Maya's chest constricted. She stumbled back, breath hitching, but her reflection leaned closer to the glass, as though it could climb through.
You cannot wash me away, the Rift whispered. Its voice was not sound but vibration, resonating inside her skull. You are already mine.
"No," she breathed, clutching her arms as if to hold herself together. "I am not—"
Not what? Not chosen? Not changed? You tasted power and you did not spit it out. You craved it. You crave it still.
Her reflection smiled, but her own lips did not move.
Maya's hands shook. She grabbed a data-slate from the table and hurled it at the mirror. The glass cracked with a sharp snap, splintering her reflection into jagged fragments.
Silence followed. The mirror bled only her own broken image back at her.
But her heart kept racing, because she wasn't sure which part of that image was hers and which belonged to the Rift.
The chime at her door startled her. She almost told whoever it was to leave, but her throat locked when the panel slid open and Alexander stepped inside.
His presence filled the room like gravity—steady, commanding, impossible to ignore. But his eyes softened when they fell on her, taking in the fractured mirror, the tension in her posture, the rawness of her hands.
"Maya," he said quietly. "You didn't come to mess tonight."
She swallowed hard. Her voice scraped out brittle. "I wasn't hungry."
He studied her a moment longer before stepping closer, his boots soft against the floor. He didn't ask about the mirror. He didn't ask why her breath came ragged or why her eyes burned. He simply lowered himself onto the edge of the bed beside her.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Finally, Maya whispered: "They're right, you know."
Alexander turned to her, his brow furrowing. "Who?"
"The council. The crew. Everyone whispering when I walk past. They see it in me, Alexander. The Rift. It's not just a mark anymore—it's me." Her voice cracked, and she hated how small it sounded. "I don't belong here. Not with them. Not with you."
He reached for her hand, but she flinched before he could touch her. That small recoil carved something sharp across his face, but he masked it quickly.
"You don't get to decide that alone," he said, his tone low but unwavering. "You think I don't see the Rift trying to crawl inside you? I see it. I fight it with you. Every second."
"You can't fight what I carry," she said bitterly. "You didn't see the mirror just now. You didn't hear it. It—" She stopped herself, biting her lip so hard it almost bled.
He waited, patient in a way that infuriated her.
"It told me I'd fail you," she admitted finally. "That I'd stand by your grave. That I'd lose you. And for a moment…I believed it."
His silence was heavy, and when he finally spoke, it was a whisper of steel: "Then we prove it wrong."
She turned on him, anger flaring through her fear. "How can you be so certain? You saw what happened in Sector Twelve. You saw what I became."
"I saw you save twelve lives." His jaw tightened. "I saw you fight when no one else could. You think that's weakness? You think that's corruption? Maya, if the Rift wanted a puppet, it wouldn't have chosen someone who resists it every breath. It hates you because you don't break."
His words hit something deep inside her, something trembling and raw. She wanted to believe him. Desperately.
But when she looked past him, the cracked mirror still stared back—splintered, jagged, a reflection in pieces.
And in the fractured glass, one shard still shimmered gold.
That night, she dreamed of glass.
She stood in an endless hall of mirrors, each one reflecting a different version of herself. Some bore the glow in their veins proudly, wielding the Rift's light like a weapon. Others were shadows, hollow-eyed and broken, their hands dripping with time that ran like sand.
In the center stood one reflection untouched—her, as she had been before Aetherion, before the Rift, before Alexander. She reached toward it, longing for its simplicity.
But when her fingers brushed the glass, the reflection shattered.
The shards fell upward, raining into darkness, and in their place her double stepped forward—gold blazing in her veins, eyes molten.
"This is who you are," it whispered. "And the sooner you stop denying it, the sooner you'll stop hurting him."
Maya woke with a gasp, sweat cold on her skin, Alexander's arm still around her as if he'd known she would break in the night.
She pressed her face against his shoulder, silent tears burning trails down her cheeks.
And in the quiet dark, one truth sank into her bones:
The Rift was no longer just in her.
It was in her world.
Scene Two – The Weight of Distrust
The morning after her nightmare, Maya walked the corridors of Aetherion Station like a ghost.
People parted when she approached, their conversations dipping into strained silence. A medic carrying supplies ducked into a side hall. Two engineers whispered harshly before one shot her a glance that burned with suspicion. Even the children who sometimes played near the observation deck stared at her as if she carried contagion in her skin.
She couldn't blame them. The shimmer was harder to hide now. When the light hit her veins at certain angles, it pulsed faintly gold beneath her skin, like threads of fire stitched through flesh. She pulled her sleeves down, but the glow still slipped through, an accusation she couldn't escape.
By the time she reached the central atrium, she wanted nothing more than to retreat to her quarters again. But Alexander was waiting there, standing with two council members, his expression a careful mask of command. His voice carried across the chamber—measured, reassuring, the voice of a leader holding a fragile colony together.
"Sector Twelve's breach is sealed," he was saying. "We are conducting sweep scans every twelve hours. The Rift is not inside the station."
Maya stiffened. Not inside the station? Her chest tightened. He knew that wasn't true. He'd seen the mirror in her quarters. He'd seen her shake under its whispers. Yet he lied, not for himself but for them—for the fearful eyes watching him like he was the last tether to sanity.
The councilors nodded, but one, Sophia, pressed further. "And what of her?"
Maya felt the shift immediately. Dozens of eyes swung toward her.
Alexander's gaze snapped to Sophia, his expression like ice. "Maya has done nothing but fight for this station. Without her, Sector Twelve would have collapsed."
Sophia's lips curved in something between a smile and a sneer. "Or perhaps it collapsed because of her. You saw the light in her veins, Commander. Don't tell me you didn't. The Rift doesn't just leave its mark—it claims its vessels. Can you swear she isn't already compromised?"
The words sliced through the atrium like a blade.
Maya's throat closed. For a second she wanted to defend herself, to shout that she wasn't a threat—but the memory of the mirror choked her. The way her reflection had smiled. The way the Rift had whispered mine.
Alexander's reply was immediate, clipped with authority. "I don't need to swear anything. I've seen her resist the Rift with more strength than any of us could summon."
Sophia's gaze flicked between them, sharp as glass. "Forgive me, Commander, but isn't your judgment…compromised as well?" Her eyes narrowed on the space between him and Maya, as if measuring the unspoken bond that tethered them.
The atrium buzzed with murmurs. Suspicion. Doubt.
Maya's stomach turned. Her presence wasn't just endangering herself—it was eroding Alexander's command.
"I'll leave," she said suddenly. The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "If my being here is putting the station at risk—"
Alexander cut her off, his voice hard enough to silence the room. "You will do no such thing."
The finality in his tone made her flinch. But he wasn't looking at her—he was staring down the council, daring them to challenge him further. When none did, he dismissed them with a sharp gesture.
The crowd scattered, though not without casting lingering, poisoned glances. Maya kept her eyes down until the atrium emptied, then turned to him, voice raw.
"You can't keep defending me like that. They don't trust me. And if they stop trusting you because of me—"
"They won't."
"They already are!" She stepped back, her hands curling into fists. "Don't you see it? They're waiting for me to slip. One mistake, one flicker of gold in the wrong place, and they'll call me an enemy. And you'll fall with me."
His expression shifted, a crack in the iron control he wore for everyone else. "Do you think I care about their whispers? About Sophia's scheming? The only thing I care about—" He stopped himself, breath sharp.
Maya's heart pounded. She wanted him to say it. She wanted the words to break the silence that stretched between them every time their eyes lingered too long. But he bit them back, swallowing them like they were forbidden.
"The only thing I care about," he finished instead, quieter, "is that you don't give up on yourself. Because if you do, then the Rift has already won."
Her anger wavered, collapsing into exhaustion. "And if I'm already half theirs?"
He stepped closer, closing the distance she'd tried to keep. His hand lifted, hesitant, then rested against her sleeve-covered arm. His thumb brushed over the faint shimmer beneath her skin, as if to remind her she was still solid, still flesh, still here.
"Then we fight for the other half," he said. "Together."
Her throat tightened, tears threatening. She hated that he could still reach her, hated that part of her wanted nothing more than to believe him, to lean into him until the rest of the world disappeared.
But the cracked mirror lingered in her mind. The reflection that hadn't matched her. The Rift's voice that sounded too much like truth.
So she nodded, but it was a fragile thing, a promise she wasn't sure she could keep.
Alexander let his hand linger a moment longer before stepping back, slipping the mask of command over his face again. "Come. The station needs to see you walking beside me, not hiding in the dark."
Maya followed him out of the atrium, her veins humming with gold beneath her skin. She tried to ignore the eyes that tracked her, the whispers that never truly stopped.
But as they walked together through the fractured trust of Aetherion, she couldn't shake the question echoing louder than any voice around her:
Was she still Maya, or already something else?
Scene Three – When Shadows Break Free
The station's lights flickered for the third time in less than an hour.
Maya felt the vibration shiver through the deck plates as if the bones of Aetherion itself were grinding in pain. The crew had stopped pretending it was just a power fluctuation. They whispered now, low and urgent, every time the air trembled. Some glanced toward her when they thought she wasn't looking. Others didn't bother hiding it.
Alexander had ordered additional sweep scans, but the reports were the same: no breach, no anomaly, no Rift incursion. Yet everyone knew the machines were lying.
So when the first scream tore down the corridor, it was almost a relief—proof they weren't all going mad.
Maya and Alexander were already running, boots hammering metal, weapons slung but unraised. The scream came from the hydroponics bay, a place normally humming with the gentle rhythm of water pumps and plant lights. Tonight it pulsed with terror.
A young crewman stumbled into the hallway as they arrived, eyes wild. "It took him—it took him into the glass!"
"What glass?" Alexander snapped, catching him by the shoulders.
The man shook violently, pointing back inside. "The water tanks—the reflection—he just—" He broke off into sobs.
Maya pushed past them into the bay.
At first, everything looked normal: rows of greenery, the glow of ultraviolet lamps, condensation misting the transparent nutrient tanks. But then her eyes caught the shimmer. The surface of one tank rippled though nothing touched it, liquid bending unnaturally inward, as if gravity had turned sideways.
And inside the reflection—no, inside the glass of water itself—a figure writhed, pressing hands against the inner surface. His face was distorted, stretched, but his eyes were clear: human, terrified, pounding soundlessly from behind the mirrored barrier.
Maya's stomach lurched. It was the crewman who'd vanished.
"By the stars…" Alexander muttered, drawing his weapon though it looked useless against water. "What is this?"
The answer came not from him, not even from the terrified sobbing behind them, but from the Rift itself. Its voice slithered along the walls, low and intimate, as though it was speaking directly into Maya's blood.
You see us now. You see what we are. We are not outside—we are within.
Maya staggered, clutching her head. The glow in her veins flared, hot and burning.
Alexander caught her by the arm. "Maya—stay with me."
But the reflection writhed harder, the trapped crewman's mouth opening in a scream they couldn't hear. Another tank rippled. Then another. One by one, the rows of water became dark mirrors, and in each one shadows stirred—dozens of shapes, some human, some not.
The bay filled with cold, not from any broken system but from something deeper, an absence of warmth that crawled under her skin.
"We need to get him out," Maya said, her voice shaking. "If we leave him—"
She didn't finish. The reflection in the tank changed. The crewman's face warped, melted into something grotesque, and when it turned its head toward them, its mouth curved into the same smile she'd seen in the mirror of her quarters.
Alexander fired. The bolt seared into the tank, shattering it in a burst of steaming water. Plants toppled, alarms blared—but the reflection was gone. Only empty water spilled across the floor, no body, no man, nothing.
The crewman who'd screamed earlier fell to his knees. "He's gone," he whispered, hollow. "It swallowed him whole."
Maya's veins burned brighter. She swore she felt something brush her skin, like fingers trying to pry her open from the inside. She bit back a sob. "It's using reflections. Any surface. It's pulling them through."
Alexander's jaw tightened. "Then we eliminate the surfaces. Drain every tank. Blacken every mirror. Anything it can crawl through, we take away."
"It won't be enough," Maya whispered. "If it's already inside the station, it doesn't need doors anymore. It has me."
Her voice cracked on the last word, and the silence that followed was almost worse than the Rift's whispers.
Alexander turned, grabbing her shoulders, his eyes fierce. "You listen to me. You are not theirs. I don't care what light burns under your skin, I don't care what whispers crawl in your head. You are Maya, and I will not lose you."
For one terrible moment she wanted to believe him. She wanted to let his certainty anchor her, to lean into him and forget the golden veins, the shadows, the mirrors.
But behind his words, the Rift purred. You will lose her. We already have her. She is ours.
And deep down, Maya feared it was right.
The alarms cut through the silence, blaring from every corridor. The station-wide broadcast system crackled with panic. "Multiple breaches reported—engineering, medical, crew quarters. Reflections unstable. They're everywhere—" The transmission ended in static.
Alexander swore under his breath. "It's spreading."
He grabbed Maya's hand—not out of command, not out of desperation, but something deeper. The kind of instinct born not from duty but from love unspoken.
"We fight this," he said. "Together."
Her grip tightened against his, even as her veins glowed brighter than ever, golden fire threading her skin.
Together. For now.
But in the back of her mind, as the Rift's laughter echoed through the shattered hydroponics bay, she couldn't shake the chilling thought—
What if fighting it means destroying me?
Scene Four – The Trial of Trust
The council chamber was colder than Maya remembered.
She stood at its center, every pair of eyes fixed on her like blades. The polished metal walls reflected slivers of light, warped and sharp, reminding her of the hydroponics bay—reminding her of the faces screaming in the glass. She tried not to flinch when she caught her own reflection in the surface.
Alexander stood to her right, shoulders squared, jaw like steel. He looked like command embodied, but she could feel the tension radiating off him, the way his fingers flexed as if fighting the urge to take her hand.
The councilors sat in their crescent of elevated seats, robes stark against the shadows. At the center was High Councilor Veyra, a woman with eyes so cold they seemed carved from the void itself. She tapped her stylus against a datapad, the sound echoing through the chamber like a hammer.
"You brought her here, Alexander," Veyra said, her voice smooth, cutting. "You brought this among us. Now people vanish into their own reflections. Entire families fear to drink from a glass. Do you deny the connection?"
Maya's veins glowed faintly, betraying her before she could speak. A golden pulse beneath her skin, like fire chained in blood. Whispers rippled through the chamber.
"She's marked.""She draws it closer.""She's the Rift's mouth."
The words stung, not because they were cruel, but because a part of her feared they were true.
Alexander's voice cut through the murmurs. "Enough. Maya is not the Rift. She's fought beside us. She saved this colony more than once. The fault lies in the Rift itself, not in her existence."
Veyra tilted her head. "And yet the Rift did not speak until she came. It did not manifest until she touched our world." Her gaze slid to Maya. "Tell me, child—what did you bargain? What did you offer it, to walk free when others are consumed?"
Maya swallowed hard. "I never asked for this. The Rift found me. It spoke, and I fought it." Her voice cracked. "But I didn't win."
That admission drew another wave of whispers. The councilors leaned toward one another like vultures scenting weakness.
Veyra's lips curved in the faintest smile. "So you admit it has a hold on you."
"I admit nothing except the truth," Maya snapped, surprising herself. Her hands trembled, but she held her ground. "Yes, it whispers. Yes, it burns in my veins. But I am still me. And I will fight it until I have nothing left."
Her words trembled at the edges, but they carried something fierce, something real. For a moment, even the chamber's chill seemed to hesitate.
Alexander's gaze softened just slightly, pride flickering in his eyes.
But Veyra was unmoved. She tapped her stylus again, a heartbeat of judgment. "The colony cannot afford risk. Already we lose people to the glass. Already fear rots our corridors. And fear, Commander, is a contagion as deadly as any Rift."
She turned to the other councilors. "I call for a vote of containment. The girl is isolated, monitored, until we can determine whether she is vessel or victim."
The chamber erupted. Some councilors shouted agreement, others protest. The voices rose and collided, anger filling the air like static.
Maya's chest tightened. Containment. A gilded word for prison. She glanced at Alexander, searching for his anchor, but his expression was stone—calculating, weighing.
Her heart stung. For one breathless second, she thought he might agree.
Then his voice thundered. "No."
The chamber froze.
Alexander stepped forward, each word measured, deadly. "You will not cage her. You will not brand her as guilty for surviving what none of you could endure. You call her a risk? Fine. But she is my risk. My responsibility. And I'll be damned before I let fear dictate justice."
"Justice?" Veyra hissed. "Or desire?"
That cut deeper than any blade. Whispers surged anew.
Alexander didn't flinch. "Both. She is mine to protect, and I will protect her—because I love her, and because she matters more than your fear."
The words hung in the chamber like fire. For a moment, all sound died. Maya's pulse roared in her ears. Love. He had said it, not as a secret in the dark, not as comfort in the quiet, but as defiance against the world.
Her throat closed, a thousand emotions warring inside her. Relief, fear, longing, terror.
Veyra's eyes narrowed. "Then you condemn us all with your weakness."
Alexander's gaze hardened. "No. I arm us with hope."
The council descended into chaos again, voices clashing, some siding with Veyra, others with Alexander. Decisions dissolved into shouting, but Maya barely heard them. Her whole world had shrunk to the echo of his words.
Love.
But even as warmth filled her, the Rift's voice coiled inside her mind, cruel and mocking.
He loves what he cannot keep. You will be the knife that cuts his throat. You will watch him break, and when he begs for mercy, you will be the one who answers.
Maya gasped softly, clutching her arms. She wanted to scream, to silence the voice, but she could not—not here, not now.
So she stood, trembling, as the council splintered. Alexander beside her, a wall of steel. The Rift within her, a whisper of ruin.
And between them all, one fragile truth she could not deny.
Love could save them.
Or destroy them faster than the Rift ever could.
Scene Five – When the Glass Breaks
It began with a whisper.
Not in Maya's mind this time, but across the walls of the station itself. The mirrors in the council chamber trembled, their polished surfaces rippling as if struck by an unseen wind. The councilors froze mid-argument, their shouts dissolving into silence.
Then the reflections smiled back.
Every mirrored wall, every surface of steel polished to sheen—each warped copy of their faces moved differently, twisted in impossible grins. Dozens of Alexanders glared out with hollow eyes, dozens of Mayas smirked with cruel hunger.
"No," Maya breathed. Her veins flared with golden fire, so bright now the chamber was bathed in its light.
The Rift's voice spread through the chamber, echoing from glass to glass. You thought me contained. You thought me banished. But I am every shadow, every pane, every place your fragile eyes believe is safe.
One of the mirrors cracked. The reflection of a councilor stepped free, jagged shards clinging to its body, its eyes dripping liquid silver. It lunged.
Chaos erupted. Councilors screamed, guards fired plasma rifles, bolts of light ricocheting off the reflective creatures. But for every shard that fell, another pulled itself free. Dozens, then hundreds, poured from every reflective surface, a swarm of broken selves.
"Maya!" Alexander's voice cut through the chaos. He had drawn his blade—a curved plasma edge that burned white—and he was already at her side, slashing through a creature that lunged with her own twisted face.
Maya's heart pounded. She could feel the Rift pulling, urging her to join the reflections, to step through the glass and surrender. The golden light in her veins pulsed in rhythm with the Rift's hunger.
She clenched her fists. "Not yours," she hissed, then hurled her hand forward. A surge of golden fire erupted, blasting one of the twisted reflections into ash.
The Rift shrieked in her mind. Yes… fight. Burn. Every spark you spill feeds me.
She ignored it. Or tried to.
Around them, the chamber dissolved into a battlefield. Councilors scrambled for cover, guards shouted orders drowned in static, the air thick with the sound of breaking glass and inhuman shrieks. The reflections moved like shadows given flesh, every strike unpredictable, every wound regenerating unless cut down with Maya's fire or Alexander's blade.
"Maya—behind you!"
She spun just in time, but the creature was faster. Her own face, twisted and grinning, leapt from a shattered pane, talons reaching for her throat. Then Alexander was there, his blade cleaving it in half before it touched her.
Their eyes met for a heartbeat in the chaos—his steady and fierce, hers wild with fear and fire.
"Stay with me," he shouted.
"Always," she shouted back.
And then they fought as one.
Maya's fire seared through glass-born monsters, each strike fueled by the golden blaze in her blood. Alexander's blade danced like lightning, cutting through anything that dared come close. They moved together instinctively, backs pressed, a perfect circle of survival amid the storm.
But the Rift was not content with soldiers.
You cannot win, it whispered in every mind. Every glass, every reflection, every shadow belongs to me. Even here, in your hearts.
The mirrors around the chamber groaned, then shattered all at once. From the storm of shards rose a single colossal figure, forged from countless reflections, its body a writhing mosaic of faces—some familiar, some long dead, some impossibly alien. Its voice was thunder and silence all at once.
You are mine, Maya.
The giant swung an arm of fractured glass. Maya raised her hands instinctively, golden fire bursting outward. The impact shook the chamber, walls trembling, ceiling buckling under the strain.
Alexander grabbed her hand, grounding her. "Don't let it pull you in."
"I'm trying—" Her voice cracked. The Rift was clawing at her mind, trying to drag her reflection free. She could see herself in the shards making up the giant's body—dozens of Mayas screaming, pleading, mocking. Each one a piece of her soul.
Tears burned her eyes. "It has me. Alexander, it has me—"
"No," he growled, pulling her closer even as the giant loomed above. "It doesn't. You hear me? You're still here. You're still you. Look at me, Maya."
She looked. Through fire and glass, through fear and chaos, she found his eyes. They were steady, unwavering, a promise carved in flesh and bone.
And for one impossible moment, the Rift's voice faltered.
He cannot save you.
But she believed he could.
Maya screamed, hurling every ounce of light in her body forward. Golden fire roared through the chamber, striking the giant of reflections. Shards exploded outward in a storm of silver and flame. The scream of the Rift shook the chamber like an earthquake, mirrors cracking across every wall.
The giant staggered, split by light, then collapsed into a rain of broken glass.
Silence fell.
The chamber was a ruin—walls scorched, councilors huddled in fear, the floor glittering with shards that no longer moved. Maya collapsed to her knees, trembling, the golden fire fading to faint embers under her skin.
Alexander dropped beside her, wrapping his arms around her before she could fall further. She pressed her face against his shoulder, sobbing with exhaustion.
"It's not gone," she whispered. "I felt it retreat. Not die. Just wait."
"I know," he murmured, holding her tighter. His blade still hummed faintly, ready even in stillness. "But so long as we breathe, so long as you burn, it can't win."
She pulled back enough to see his face. Dust streaked his jaw, blood at his temple, but his eyes—his eyes burned with the same fire she had unleashed.
"You said you loved me," she whispered, voice breaking.
He touched her cheek, thumb brushing away glass dust. "And I'll keep saying it, even when the Rift itself tries to silence me."
Her heart ached with equal parts fear and hope. She leaned into his touch, into the only anchor that held her against the tide.
Around them, the council chamber lay shattered, the colony shaken to its core. But in that wreckage, two hearts had found something the Rift could not yet steal.
A promise.
A love fierce enough to defy even the shadows in the glass.