2025-10-23 23:30:01
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Chapter 9 — Ash City
The sky looked sick. Ash hung where clouds should have been, glowing faintly red like the last embers of a dying fire.Bruce stood in the middle of what used to be downtown, buildings warped into glassy skeletons, cars melted into the pavement. The wind moaned through empty towers. You’re home, the relic whispered.He frowned. “Doesn’t look like it.”Home changes when you do.A faint crunch sounded behind him. He spun, hands raised, ready to summon flame if he needed to.A figure moved through the haze, wrapped in a torn coat, gas mask covering their face. “Easy,” they said, voice muffled. “If you’re alive, you’re a miracle.”Bruce stayed silent. “Alive’s a flexible term.”The stranger lowered the mask just enough to speak, dark skin, eyes like dull copper. “Name’s Mira. You don’t look like one of the glassers.”“The what?”She gestured toward a collapsed overpass. In its shadow, half-melted people shimmered faintly, bodies turned to translucent stone mid-motion. “They burned when the
Chapter 8 — The Mirror War
Bruce couldn’t tell whether the first scream came from his throat or the glass. Every mirror around him was alive.Hundreds of versions of himself, rippling in and out of sync, shouting words he didn’t remember saying. “Wake up”“Don’t listen”“You’re killing us”Aimes’s calm voice slid through the chaos. “You see it now, Mr Willis. You’re the fracture holding all worlds apart. Every reflection is one you left unfinished.”Bruce clutched his head. “Make it stop!”“I can’t,” said Aimes. “Only you can. Merge them, and the noise ends.”Lena appeared behind Aimes, her reflection multiplying endlessly. “Don’t trust him, Bruce. Every merge kills another piece of you.”“I’m already pieces!” Bruce shouted. Burn them, whispered the relic. Forge one truth.He raised his hands. Fire curled from his palms, thin at first, then pure white. Each mirrored Bruce flinched.“Stay back,” said one reflection, the version with the fire-eyes from before. “You’re not ready. You’ll erase everything.”Bruce’s
Chapter 7 — The Man Who Never Woke
The first thing Bruce felt was breath. His own. Slow, ragged, real. He opened his eyes to a hospital ceiling, white tiles, humming fluorescent light.He tried to sit up; tubes tugged at his arms. Machines beeped in arrhythmic patterns. He was alive. Maybe.A nurse entered. Smiling, efficient, eyes just slightly off. “Good afternoon, Mr. Willis. You’ve been asleep for a long time.”“How long?” he croaked.“Eighty-four days.”Her voice was calm, but her smile didn’t fade. Not once. “Where’s Lena?”“Resting,” she said. “She visits often.”He frowned. “She’s dead.”“Not anymore.”He stared. “Say that again.”She tilted her head. “Not anymore.”And then the power flickered. The room dimmed for half a heartbeat. In that heartbeat, the nurse’s face split, half flesh, half reflection.When the lights returned, she was normal again, smile intact. Bruce whispered, “Still the maze.”Half right, murmured the relic. You’re between.He froze. “Between what?”Sleep and waking. Mind and body. You fel
Chapter 6 — The Fractured Real
The glass light overhead had barely finished shattering when the office froze mid-motion, Dr Hollis suspended, pen hovering an inch above her clipboard.Bruce stood very still. “Pause button again,” he muttered.No response. Only the faint hum of static, low and living. He took a cautious step forward. The world rippled around his shoe, like stepping into a puddle that wasn’t water. “Okay,” he whispered. “Still dreaming.”Not dreaming, the voice of the relic murmured. Mapping. “Mapping what?” Exits.He almost laughed. “Good. Find one.”The air flickered; Hollis’s head jerked sideways by itself, eyes turning to meet him. Her lips didn’t move when her voice came. “There are no exits, Mr Willis. Only layers.”Bruce swallowed. “Then I’ll peel them.”He pushed past her, his hand passed through her shoulder like smoke, and the wall behind her unfolded into a hallway made of light and concrete at once.Every door looked identical. Each had a number carved backwards. “Which way?” he asked.Fo
Chapter 5 — Echoes of the Firemind
When Bruce opened his eyes, he was lying on a leather couch under soft amber light. For a heartbeat he thought the nightmare was over, until he noticed that the light didn’t have a source.It just existed, glowing from nowhere. He sat up slowly. The air smelled of rain and antiseptic. A hospital? he thought.No machines beeped. No footsteps. Just the faint hum of silence stretched too tight. Then a voice came from behind him. “Welcome back, Mr Willis.”Bruce turned. A woman in a gray suit stood beside a polished desk. Her face was calm, symmetrical, too symmetrical. Her eyes, pale green, never blinked. “Who are you?” he asked.“Dr Sera Hollis,” she said. “Cognitive restoration specialist. You were brought in after an… incident.”He rubbed his temples. “Where’s Lena?”“Lena?” She frowned slightly. “You were alone when the rescue team found you.”“That’s not possible. She, she pulled me out”“You suffered severe delusions from neural overburn. Hallucinations are expected.”Bruce laughed
Chapter 4 — Ashes of the Maker
Smoke hung in the air like breath that refused to fade. Bruce blinked, struggling to focus. The lab had melted into something else, walls rippled like reflections in water, the floor stretching, breathing. Lena was gone. Only he remained.Dr. Victor Aimes stood in the middle of the room, the darkness folding around him like a cloak. His skin shimmered faintly beneath the flickering lights, veins glowing ember-red. His eyes, calm and cold, tracked Bruce like a scalpel poised above a wound. Bruce’s throat was dry. “You’re dead.”Aimes smiled faintly. “Most people are. They just don’t realize it yet.”Bruce’s fists clenched. “What did you do to me?”“I finished what you started.”“I didn’t start anything!”“You did when you touched my relic.”The word my twisted through Bruce’s mind like a knife. “You left that thing in my basement”“Correction,” Aimes said softly. “I buried it. You dug it up.”Bruce took a shaky breath. “Why? Why give me this?”“I didn’t.” Aimes tilted his head. “It c
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