Ha-eun's breath fogged in the cold air, her jacket torn and burned from their last battle. Beside her, Vega tramped forward, her rifle hung over one shoulder, her golden eyes scanning the horizon. The Architect's influence hung heavy here, the atmosphere thick with static that prickled Ha-eun's skin and made her teeth ache.
"This place reeks of the Architect's games," Vega muttered, kicking a shard of glass. It shattered further, the reflection within twisting into a vision of Ha-eun's father crying at a candlelit shrine. "Don't stare. It'll get in your head."
Ha-eun looked away, but the image lingered.
"How long has he been waiting? Does he still have hope?" she thought.
As they wandered through the maze of mirrors, their reflections fractured into a wild array of versions. Some showed Ha-eun as she used to be full of life, her eyes sparkling with laughter, hands stained with ink from those late-night study sessions and other pure horror. The darker reflections twisting into nightmares where she morphed into a Voidborn, her skin peeling back into a monster.
"Great, now I have to worry about more," Ha-eun muttered, smashing a mirror with her boot. The glass let out a high-pitched scream that echoed through the void.
Vega smirked. "I told you not to stare."
The farther they walked, the denser the mirrors became, until they formed a labyrinth of mirrors leaning against walls. The air grew colder, their every breath crystallizing into ice flecks. Strange symbols glowed faintly on the glass, ΔΣ repeated in patterns.
"We're being driven," Vega said, finger hovering over her rifle's trigger. "The Architect loves a good trap."
As if she were announcing something important, the ground began to shake. The mirrors around them wobbled and shifted, forming a narrow corridor leading them straight to a central clearing. Right in the middle, there was a broken spike, its surface buzzing with bioluminescent veins that pulsed like a heartbeat. Someone was waiting beneath it.
"Hello, Ha Eun. I waited so long for you to come to me." Ha Eun and Vega suddenly flinched.
The voice resonated from every direction, echoing throughout the entire area. Vega aimed her rifle at the space, while Ha Eun grabbed her pistol and aimed it at the same spot.
Ha Eun pressed her gun firmer and said, "Who are you? Show yourself!"
"Don't worry, Ha Eun. I'm not here to harm you; I'm only here to talk," the mysterious voice replied.
"I don't trust that. Ever since I crash-landed into this stupid world, everything has been trying to kill me," Ha Eun responded.
" Now if you're now show yourself, I'll blow your skull. " Ha Eun said as she prepared to fire her pistol.
"How sweet," the mysterious voice said. "If that's what you want…"
Ha Eun's breath suddenly caught in her throat. What she saw was pure horror.
Her self.
There's Ha Eun, but she is not the same as the other Ha Eun; she is completely different. It was a pure, horrifying mimicry of Ha-eun. Her face mirrored Ha-eun's own, but stretched and distorted, as though viewed through water. One eye was a hollow socket leaking black ichor; the other glowed violet, a perfect replica of Ha-eun's infected eye. Her body was a patchwork of human flesh and Voidborn shards, obsidian scales grafted to her skin like armor. She smiled, revealing teeth sharpened into needles.
"Little spark," Echo crooned, her voice layered with the Architect's dissonant echo. "You're late."
Ha-eun's grip tightened on her knife. "What the hell are you?"
"My name is Echo. I am you," Echo said with a smile, though it only made her face seem worse.
"I'm not sure about that," she replied, still in shock. "I don't have a face like yours; I have a better face than you."
"Is that so?" the Echo said, sounding unpleasant.
Echo tilted her head, the movement unnervingly insectile. "A gift. A lesson. The Architect thought you might need… motivation."
Vega leveled her rifle. "Motivation to do what? Die faster?"
Echo's violet eye flared. "To surrender."
Echo moved first, a blur of shadow and jagged light. She attacked Ha-eun, claws slashing the air where her throat had been. Ha-eun ducked, rolling behind a mirror, only for Echo to shatter it with a backhanded strike. Shards of glass rained down, each fragment reflecting Echo's snarling face.
"You said you wouldn't kill me?" Ha Eun screamed at Echo.
"Don't worry, honey," Echo said." I don't kill you, I only dismantle your limbs one by one. "
"f*ck you " Ha Eun said while dodging Echo's attack, landing on her.
Vega fired, her energy rounds tearing through Echo's shoulder. The creature hissed, its body sizzling where the shots struck, but the wound knitted itself shut within seconds.
"Aim for the core!" Vega barked.
"Where?!" Ha-eun shouted, dodging another swipe.
Echo laughed, leaping onto a floating pillar. "You'll have to earn that answer."
The spire above pulsed, its veins brightening. The labyrinth shifted again, mirrors folding inward to cage Ha-eun and Vega. Echo vanished into the reflections, her laughter echoing from all directions.
Ha-eun's breaths came in ragged gasps, her muscles burning. Every mirror showed a version of her failure: her father's hollow eyes, Vega's corpse rotting in the void, Earth consumed by the Architect's vines.
This isn't real. None of this is real.
But doubt crept in anyway, cold and insidious. What if she couldn't win? What if this was all she would ever be, "a broken thing fighting a war she didn't understand?" Ha En hesitated for a moment.
Echo materialized behind her, claws slicing through her jacket. Ha-eun cried out, blood welling hot and stinging.
"Weak," Echo taunted. "The Architect's true heir would never bleed so easily."
Ha-eun rolled, driving her knife into Echo's ribs. The blade sparked against Voidborn scales. "I'm nobody's heir."
Vega climbed a floating ruin, her rifle spitting blue fire at the spire's pulsating veins. "Ha-eun! The core's in the spire! Bring it down!"
Echo shrieked, abandoning Ha-eun to grab at Vega. "You ruin everything!"
Ha-eun didn't hesitate. She sprinted for the spire, glass slicing her palms as she climbed. The veins resisted, lashing at her like serpents, but she drove her knife into the structure's base. The spire shuddered, cracks spiderwebbing upward.
Echo slammed Vega into the ground and turned, her violet eye wide. "No!"
Ha-eun twisted the knife. "Burn."
The spire exploded, a shockwave of light and sound shredding the labyrinth. Echo dissolved into ash, her final scream merging with the Architect's roar of fury.
Ha-eun collapsed, her vision blurring. Vega dragged her upright, blood streaking her face. "Up, kid. We're not done yet."
The void trembled. Above them, the Architect's fractal form materialized, its edges devouring the remnants of the mirror field.
"YOU WILL REGRET THIS," it thundered.
Ha-eun grinned, teeth stained in blood. "I already regretted it a long time ago."