Chapter Sixteen: Breaking the Light
The sound of the glass echoed like a heavy, grieving moan reverberating through the empty room.
The mother sat before the mirror, her breaths shallow and shaky,
the room dark except for the cold flashes of light pulsing from within the glass.
Nour's hand had emerged all the way to the wrist,
and the vapor rising from the mirror's surface began coating the walls like living gray smoke.
Suddenly, Nour opened her eyes from inside the glass —
but they were no longer the same… one half gray, the other her original color.
Her voice came distorted, as if speaking from the depths of water:
"Mom… don't touch me… not yet."
The mother stumbled backward, crying.
"Nour? Is that really you?"
"Only half of me… the other half is still there… with Neyar."
Inside, Neyar stood amidst a vortex of fractured mirrors.
Faces were beginning to shatter like broken glass, red light spreading through every crack.
The ancient entity's voice rose from the depths — a chorus of a thousand mouths speaking at once:
"The balance is broken… the light has escaped before the shadow was chosen."
Neyar shouted:
"I chose!"
"You do not choose.
You were created to guard.
But you broke the mirror… for a human girl."
The ground beneath him melted like mercury,
and his reflection appeared before him — its features tilting toward shadow.
"When a mirror falls in love with its reflection… the world collapses."
Outside the glass, the reflected Nour — now living beyond the mirror —
began to change.
At first she looked identical to the real Nour,
but something in her eyes had turned dark,
and in her smile… a hint of something not human.
The mother sank to the floor in tears
as the other Nour approached her slowly and said with a soft voice:
"Mom… you finally see me."
"Who are you?!"
"I am what Nour hid from you…
I am the part you never allowed to live."
The mother backed away, heart pounding violently.
"Go away… stay away from me!"
The reflection laughed softly, stepping closer,
her fingertips brushing the mother's cheek:
"Why are you afraid? I am your daughter too…
just more honest than she is."
Deep inside the mirror world, Nour was running through the shadows, searching for Neyar.
The air rang with the groans of countless trapped souls,
but she pushed forward until she finally found him —
standing before a massive mirror that was slowly crumbling,
his face pale, black blood streaming from his eyes.
"Neyar!"
"Don't come closer… the mirrors are breaking.
The worlds are starting to merge."
"We have to get out together!"
> "If you leave now… you will leave with the shadow."
She looked around — thousands of mirrors were collapsing,
each one showing a different version of her smiling:
sad, mocking, fearful, furious.
"Who am I, Neyar?"
"You are both… the original and the reflection, the light and the shadow.
But now you must choose which one will remain."
In the real world, the mirrors throughout the house began rising
as if awakening from a long sleep.
Each one showed two faces instead of one.
The mother screamed while the reflection laughed.
Inside, Neyar reached out toward Nour
as the ancient creature whispered from all directions:
"Choose, daughter of light…
You will decide the fate of the mirror."
Nour lifted her head, tears turning into streaks of glowing light.
"I choose to be myself… not a reflection, not a shadow."
She raised her hands and slammed them against the glass with all her strength.
The explosion of light was deafening —
it surged in every direction,
and all the mirrors in the house shattered at the same moment.
Silence.
Smoke filled the room.
The mother lay on the floor, crying and calling her daughter's name.
When the dust finally settled,
she saw a figure slowly emerging from the broken glass.
It was Nour —
but her face was different.
One eye gray, the other its old warm brown.
Half her face was hers, the other half cold like a mirror.
She stood with difficulty, breathing unevenly,
then looked at her mother and whispered:
"I… came back."
But behind her, in the fractured shards of glass,
her reflection smiled faintly…
then moved on its own.