Two Days Later — Edge District, Elowen
It rained ash.
Not the kind that burned — the kind that whispered, like the remnants of a dream that refused to end. Elowen hadn't recovered from the collapse of the Mirror Tower. No one really had.
But Skye was still breathing.
Barely.
She sat on a rooftop, staring into the void where the skyline used to be. Her fingers twitched — not from fear, not from adrenaline. From something deeper. Like her body was… rebooting.
> "What did I lose?" she whispered.
Behind her, Nova lit a flare and dropped it into the chasm.
> "Wrong question," she said. "It's what woke up in you that scares me."
---
Echoes of the Core
The Watcher was gone.
Or… fragmented.
Its code had leaked into every remaining piece of mirrored tech in Elowen. Doors opened at odd hours. Phones dialed by themselves. Some people swore they saw themselves moving in reverse in their reflections.
A sickness in the system.
And people had started whispering a new word in the streets:
> "The Ghost Protocol."
Rumor said it wasn't just about corrupted code. It was about a soul — Skye's — caught between two planes of existence. Living, but altered. Human, but laced with mirror residue.
And it was spreading.
---
Skye's Dreamscape
That night, Skye didn't sleep.
She drifted.
In the dream, she stood in a vast hallway of glass panels, each one glowing faintly. She saw herself — past, present, possible future. In one mirror she was a tyrant. In another, a martyr. In another, just… gone.
And then she saw Maevra.
Sitting in silence. Staring at nothing.
Not fighting.
Not speaking.
Just… waiting.
> "You're not dead," Skye said.
> "Neither are you," Maevra replied. "But parts of us… have cracked."
Skye stepped forward. "Then let's finish it."
Maevra smiled faintly.
> "There's nothing to finish, Skye. Just things to accept."
Skye reached out to touch the mirror — but her hand passed through it.
And she woke up with blood on her fingertips.
---
Meanwhile — Nova's Discovery
Nova had been digging into pre-Mirror Tower logs. Surveillance, server records, even old blueprints.
She found something. Buried deep under false filenames.
Project: GHOST
> Subject Zero: Maevra.
Subject One: Skye.
Only one file was unlocked:
> "IF ONE FALLS, THE OTHER AWAKENS."
And underneath that line — a corrupted audio message:
> "They're not sisters. Not clones. They're... echoes. Designed to balance the mirror."
Nova blinked. "Echoes? What the hell did they do to her?"
She backed away from the screen.
But it didn't shut off.
Instead, it played one final line:
> "And when the mirror breaks… the ghost walks free."
---
Skye Wanders
Skye wandered Elowen that night. She didn't know what she was looking for — maybe herself, maybe proof she hadn't vanished into Maevra's shadow.
She stopped at a broken café window.
Looked at her reflection.
Nothing.
Then — a flicker.
Not Maevra. Not herself.
But someone else entirely.
A new shape.
Female. Tall. Blank eyes. Code dripping from her jaw like oil.
And behind her?
Every person Skye passed that day — frozen behind glass. Trapped in mirrored moments.
One by one.
A system rewriting reality.
And Skye was the trigger.
---
Nova's Urgency
Nova found her near dawn, standing in the middle of the street, barefoot, surrounded by reflections that didn't match the real world.
> "Skye. We need to leave. Now."
Skye didn't look at her.
> "What if I broke the world, Nova?"
Nova grabbed her wrist.
> "Then let's fix it before it fixes you out of existence."
Skye turned, finally meeting Nova's eyes.
> "I think… Maevra was the problem. But I might be the consequence."
---
Back in the Shadows
In an abandoned code node beneath the city, the residual data from the Mirror Network pulsed like a heartbeat.
Maevra's voice — or what was left of it — whispered through the code.
> "One becomes two. Two becomes one.
But what comes after… is no longer either."
And in the center of the room, a new figure stirred.
Not Skye.
Not Maevra.
Someone… new.