I rose from the platform like a ghost given shape again.
Up through metal veins and forgotten circuits, through shafts carved into no architecture I could name. There were no doors. No ladders. Just the quiet hum of technology so ancient it had learned how to pray.
When the lift stilled, it opened into a corridor carved in black stone. Smooth. Polished. Silent.
But I could hear something.
Not through my ears — through my skin. A presence brushing past me like a breath on the back of my neck. A murmur just beyond sense.
I walked.
Each step echoed louder than it should have, like my feet disturbed not just air, but time.
The lights overhead flickered with faint pulses, and as I passed beneath them, I noticed something strange.
My shadow didn't follow.
It walked beside me.
At first I thought it was a trick of the light. But when I stopped, it didn't. When I turned, it tilted its head — not in fear or confusion, but recognition.
Like it was waiting for me to notice.
I stepped backward.
So did the shadow.
Only it took one step too many.
I froze.
It smiled.
The hallway opened into a chamber.
Massive. Vaulted. Empty, except for a single, enormous mirror.
It stood taller than any man, framed in gold runes and coiled metal serpents that seemed to writhe ever so slightly when I looked too long.
The surface shimmered. Silver-black. Unmoving.
And yet...
I stepped closer.
My reflection appeared. But it wasn't me.
Not exactly.
The figure had my face. My eyes.
But not my age. Not my posture. Not my scars.
He stood straighter. Taller. Shoulders wrapped in black royal armor woven with celestial veins, every seam glowing faintly with starlight. His gaze was sharp, unreadable. As if he were measuring me — and already knew the outcome.
I reached out.
He didn't.
I clenched my hand.
He watched.
Then he spoke.
"So… this is the one they resurrected."
The voice didn't come from the mirror.
It came from inside my head.
Clear. Cold. And far too familiar.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My throat had closed around something wordless.
"Thirteenth iteration," he continued, eyes narrowing slightly. "How many times must we die before you learn to stop chasing the throne?"
I swallowed hard. "Who are you?"
His lip curled. Almost a smirk. Almost pity.
"The one who made the mistake you're about to."
"I don't understand."
"You will. Or you won't. That's the curse of memory stitched from splinters."
The mirror rippled like heat over metal.
I saw flashes now — bleeding through the glass like cracks in reality.
A version of me on a battlefield, sword raised toward a god that bled starlight.
A version of me held in someone's arms, blood pouring from my chest, whispering, "This isn't the end."
A version of me atop a throne of bone and light, alone, weeping — crowned and cursed all at once.
Every version had the same face.
Every version had the same eyes.
Mine.
And his.
"I'm what's left," the reflection whispered, "after the world breaks you. And you choose to stay broken."
"Why are you here?"
"To watch you fail."
"Helpful."
"I'm not here to help. I'm here to remind you."
"Of what?"
"That power is a wound. And kings are corpses that keep breathing."
My hands trembled.
I hated him.
Not because he was cruel.
But because he felt true.
The reflection stepped closer — not with feet, but with thought. The glass bent outward toward me.
"I walked the same path," he said. "Made the same promises. Loved the same girl. Buried the same friends. Thought I could rewrite destiny."
"And?"
"I did." He smiled. "But destiny rewrites back."
The chamber grew colder. Not around me — inside me.
I could feel something waking in my spine, like a chain unraveling from within.
The mirror pulsed.
"There will come a moment," he said, "when the throne calls you. When you think you can take it."
"And I can't?"
"You can," he said. "But if you do… you won't be you anymore."
"Who will I be?"
He stepped to the very edge of the glass now.
And whispered:
"Me."
A crack split the mirror.
Small.
Hairline.
Barely there.
But I felt it in my chest.
Like the start of a fracture that would never heal.
I stumbled back, breath ragged.
The reflection remained still. Regal. Damned.
"Do yourself a mercy," he said. "Die now. Before you become the thing that survives everything."
And then he was gone.
Just… gone.
The mirror returned to stillness.
But my reflection didn't.
Because I wasn't standing still.
I was shaking.
Tears I didn't understand blurred my vision. Hands curled into fists.
I didn't want to become him.
I didn't want that throne.
I didn't want a destiny soaked in echoes and ruin.
And yet…
Somewhere inside me, something whispered:
You always did.
Behind me, in the silence, a voice I hadn't heard before murmured softly:
"He's not the only one watching."