I didn't eat that morning.
Didn't need to.
My stomach was knotted, not from hunger but from something deeper.
The kind of weight you carry not in your gut, but in your soul.
I stared at the space in my apartment where the key had been.
Still gone.
But I felt it.
Inside.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Like it had been embedded under my ribs, next to my heart.
A whisper in metal form.
"Unlock it."
I sat on the floor.
Crossed my legs.
Closed my eyes.
And listened.
Beneath the hum of the refrigerator, beneath the traffic outside, beneath my breath—
There it was.
The door.
It wasn't a physical space.
Not really.
But as I slipped deeper into stillness, into the folds of my own mind, it began to take form.
A hallway.
Stone walls.
Endless black ahead.
And a single wooden door glowing faintly with golden lines.
The key appeared in my hand.
I didn't question it.
Just stepped forward.
Each footfall echoed louder than it should've.
Because this wasn't about ghosts anymore.
This was about truth.
About me.
The core version I'd buried under trauma, survival, and self-hate.
I reached the door.
Ran my fingers along its surface.
It was warm.
Like skin.
It breathed.
There were no markings—no name, no symbol.
But I knew.
This was the contract I had signed long before I ever entered that cursed apartment.
The one I made with myself.
I slid the key into the lock.
It turned without resistance.
And the door opened.
Behind it: a room full of mirrors.
Hundreds of them.
Different sizes, different shapes.
Some cracked.Some whole.Some warped.Some perfectly clean.
And in each one—a version of me.
Laughing. Crying. Screaming. Bleeding. Numb.
I walked between them, staring into my own faces.
So many lives lived inside a single man.
So many emotions denied, avoided, destroyed.
But they were still there.
Because nothing truly disappears when you pretend it doesn't exist.
In the center of the room was a chair.
And in that chair sat me.
Older.
Tired.
But… wise.
His eyes opened when I approached.
"I've been waiting."
"Who are you?" I asked.
He smiled gently.
"I'm who you become when you stop running."
I swallowed hard.
This wasn't a ghost.
Wasn't a memory.
This was integration.
"You've carried so many pieces," he said. "But none of them were the whole you."
"I'm not sure I can handle it."
"You already are."
He stood.
Reached out.
Touched my chest with his palm.
And suddenly—
The mirrors shattered.
All of them.
A thousand shards of myself flew into the air like glass birds.
They spun around me.
Piercing. Blinding. Beautiful.
Then one by one, they embedded themselves into me.
Not violently.
Perfectly.
Fitting into the scars. The hollow spots. The forgotten edges.
I dropped to my knees.
Convulsing.
Not from pain.
From becoming.
When it was over, I stood up.
Different.
Whole.
And the room was empty.
No mirrors.No versions.Just me.
Then the voice spoke again—not from the older me, but from within.
"You are the contract now."
I opened my eyes.
Back in my apartment.
On the floor.
Heart racing.
Breath shallow.
But I felt… alive.
Fully.
I stood.
Walked to the mirror on my wall.
For the first time in years, I didn't look away.
I saw me.
Not the curated version. Not the survivor. Not the broken man trying to seem whole.
Just Elias.
And that was enough.
Then something strange happened.
I turned away.
But the reflection didn't.
It kept staring.
Smiling.
Then it winked.
I turned back.
The mirror was normal.
No tricks.
No spirits.
Just… one final reminder.
Even when whole, I would always carry the echo of the place I'd been.
The apartment.
The versions.
The shadows.
But now, I was the one in control.