The night pressed heavily, wind howling outside like a dark tide.Ethan leaned back in his dorm chair, his eyelids growing heavy. Days of exhaustion and suppression had left him barely able to stay awake. Just as his vision blurred, he suddenly felt an icy pull, as if his soul was being ripped from his body.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself in an unfamiliar corridor.
The hallway was long and pitch-dark, its walls not made of brick or stone but of silent mirrors.Countless reflections of Ethan stared back at him—not just one, but hundreds. All of them bowed their heads, silent, as if awaiting some unspeakable judgment.
A chill ran through him. Instinctively, he took a step back—but found no floor beneath his feet. He floated in endless void, standing only on this corridor pieced together by mirrors.
"Is this… a dream?" Ethan murmured, but there was no answer.Instead, the reflections all raised their heads in unison.
Their eyes were icy and vacant, lips moving soundlessly. Words seemed to hum into the air, low and resonant:—"Traitor."—"Brother."—"Fate."
The voices drilled into his bones, making it hard to breathe.
He quickened his pace, desperate to escape this strange realm. Yet the further he went, the stranger the reflections became.Some mirrors showed him chasing Ronan with a knife;some showed him standing shoulder to shoulder with Ronan against a shapeless black tide;and in one mirror, he knelt in a pool of blood, palms drenched in crimson, while countless screams echoed around him.
"This isn't real!" Ethan slammed his fist against the glass.Cracks spread with a sharp shattering sound.
But as the shards fell, he saw beyond the mirror—Ronan standing there, silent, a smile both familiar and alien on his face.
"Ethan."The voice was clear, piercing the boundary between dream and reality."You've finally begun to doubt."
Ethan froze, throat dry."Y-You… you're still alive?"
Ronan did not answer directly. He reached out his hand, its edges flickering with misty light, as if torn between two worlds.
"What you see as truth is merely a reflection of illusions," Ronan said softly."And illusions… are the root of reality itself."
As he spoke, all the mirrors trembled, the glass rippling like water.The "Ethan reflections" began to step out, one by one, forming a bizarre procession.Their faces were expressionless, movements synchronized, eyes fixed firmly on Ethan in the center.
He drew his gun and pulled the trigger.The shot echoed in the void, yet no bullet emerged. Black smoke spilled from the barrel, instantly swallowed by the mirror figures.
The reflections advanced step by step, as if intent on dragging him into the abyss of countless illusions.
"Ethan."Ronan's voice rang again. This time, his own figure slowly emerged from the mirror, merging with the approaching reflections."What do you truly believe? What you see before your eyes, or me?"
Ethan's heart pounded violently, his fingers trembling, barely able to maintain control of himself.
Suddenly, a violent tremor shook the entire corridor.His vision went black. When he opened his eyes again, he was back in his dorm.The candle still flickered, the wind still howled outside. As if nothing had happened.
Yet when he looked down, he noticed a shard of broken mirror on the desk, reflecting his weary face.Etched faintly on its surface was a familiar name:
Ronan Viel.
Ethan's breath caught.He could no longer be certain—had it all been a dream, or another side of reality itself?