The lights snapped off.
Darkness didn't just fall—it collapsed. Heavy and thick like oil, swallowing every sound. Skye reached out, but the air itself felt warped, like the hallway was stretching, breathing around her.
Then—click.
A single mirror lit up at the end of the corridor.
It flickered.
Skye took a shaky step forward. Then another. Her reflection stared back—but something was off. The mirror Skye was smiling.
She wasn't.
"You're not me," Skye whispered.
The reflection tilted its head.
"No," it said, voice muffled behind glass. "But you were me. Once."
Skye froze.
"You remember me, don't you?" the reflection asked, pressing a palm to the glass. "Before the ring. Before the Key. Before you forgot everything that made you dangerous."
More mirrors around her burst to life like gunshots, each showing a different Skye:
—One sobbing in a white asylum gown.
—One holding a bloody scalpel.
—One kissing someone she couldn't remember.
—One with glowing eyes, mouth stitched shut.
Skye stumbled back. "What is this? A trick?"
"No," the smiling mirror-Skye said softly. "This is your timeline. Every choice you forgot. Every version of you locked behind the Echo Protocol."
Another voice joined in—deeper, velvet-smooth.
"Every failed reset. Every betrayal. Every time you almost remembered who you really are."
Skye spun around.
At the far end of the hall, stepping out from behind a shattered mirror, was a woman in black.
Pale skin. Raven hair. A crimson choker.
Her face was identical to Skye's.
But her eyes… those weren't human.
"Maevra," Skye said, voice shaking.
Maevra smiled like a knife unsheathing. "Took you long enough."
She walked toward Skye slowly, heels echoing like clock ticks. "Did you think this game would last forever? That the ring would keep you safe? That you'd stay lost in your little web of rewrites?"
Skye's fists clenched. "What do you want?"
Maevra circled her like a wolf. "I want you to stop running. To remember. Because when you do, you'll see the truth…"
She leaned in.
"You weren't the hero of this story."
Skye blinked.
The mirrors behind her changed—now showing her in command. Giving orders. Leading soldiers. Pulling the trigger.
Creating Maevra.
"I'm your shadow," Maevra whispered. "Your fail-safe. You built me. And now you want to destroy me because you're afraid of what you might become again."
"I didn't—"
"You did," Maevra cut in. "The Key? The Merchant? The Protocol? They're all yours, Skye. You built this whole labyrinth to forget what you did."
The hallway trembled.
Mirrors cracked.
The ring on Skye's finger burned.
"You've got one more cycle left," Maevra said. "Use it. Find the original memory. The one behind it all."
"And if I don't?"
Maevra smiled that same sharp smile.
"Then I take your place."
She touched the mirror. The glass rippled. Her body melted into reflection—leaving Skye alone.
Alone… but watched.
A new message buzzed onto her ring:
"RUN."
And then the mirrors began to shatter.
One by one.
Behind each? Something with her face—twisted, hungry, broken.
Skye didn't wait to find out what they were.
She ran.