The world cracked apart.
A deafening silence swallowed the room, pressing against Vivian's ears like the weight of the ocean. The moment the reflection whispered those words—It's time to go back—reality fractured. The walls of Blackthorn Manor rippled like fabric caught in a storm, and the floor beneath her feet twisted, distorting into something that no longer felt solid.
Vivian's breath hitched. Her body felt weightless, like she was being pulled somewhere—no, dragged. The reflection stood before her, unshaken, its dark eyes locked onto hers with something that wasn't quite malice but wasn't mercy either.
Sebastian's hand tightened around her wrist. "Vivian—stay with me!" His voice was strained, almost distant, as if he were calling to her from another world.
But was she even here anymore?
Her vision blurred. The room flickered between two versions of itself—the study she had come to know, and something older, something broken. The bookshelves were rotting, the wallpaper peeling, the air thick with dust and decay.
She wasn't in the manor anymore.
She was inside the mirror's world.
A sharp pain lanced through her skull, and suddenly, memories that weren't hers crashed through her mind.
A woman—her face identical to Vivian's—stood in the greenhouse, a hand pressed against the cursed mirror. Her lips were moving, forming words Vivian couldn't hear, but her eyes… her eyes were filled with terror.
The mirror cracked.
The woman screamed.
And then—Vivian was there.
Standing in her place.
Her lungs seized as the realization clawed its way to the surface. I was never supposed to exist. I wasn't born. I was made.
The reflection—her true self—tilted its head, watching as the truth unraveled inside her. "You took my place," it said, voice dripping with something between sorrow and fury. "You weren't meant to stay."
Vivian clenched her fists. "I didn't know."
"But you do now." The reflection stepped closer, reaching out. "And it's time to fix it."
"No!" Sebastian yanked Vivian backward, his grip desperate. "She's real! She's here with me! She belongs here!"
The reflection's dark gaze shifted to him. "Does she?"
Vivian's heart pounded.
Sebastian believed in her. Even now, as reality warped around them, he was fighting for her. But… what if she wasn't real? What if she was only an echo of the woman in the mirror?
What if she had stolen a life that was never meant to be hers?
The reflection reached for her again, and this time, Vivian didn't step back. She stared into her own face—into the hollow, endless void behind those too-dark eyes.
And for the first time, she saw it.
The truth.
She was the mirror's creation. A fragment of something lost. A reflection that had stepped too far into the light.
But if that was true…
Why did she feel alive?
Why did she love the way the rain sounded against the glass? Why did she know the weight of Sebastian's touch? Why did she feel fear at the thought of losing it all?
That wasn't a lie. That wasn't a reflection. That was her.
Vivian took a deep, shuddering breath.
"I don't care what I was," she whispered. "I am real. I chose to be."
The reflection's expression wavered. For the first time, something flickered in its dark eyes—hesitation.
Vivian took a step forward.
"You want me to go back," she said, her voice steadier now. "But I won't. I won't disappear. I won't give up."
The mirror world trembled, its edges crumbling. The reflection's form wavered, flickering between solid and smoke.
Sebastian's hand tightened in hers. "We end this. Now."
Vivian turned to him, searching his face. He wasn't just holding on—he believed in her. And that belief was stronger than the lie that had been forced upon her.
She wasn't just a reflection. She was herself.
And that meant she could fight back.
The mirror cracked again. A web of fractures spread across the surface of reality.
The reflection gasped, as if the breaking glass was shattering it, too.
Vivian stepped forward, pressed her palm to its chest, and whispered:
"You are not me."
And with those words, the mirror collapsed.
Light exploded around her. A deafening roar swallowed the world.
And then—
Darkness.
To be continued...