The resonance came at 3:12 AM.
Aren sat upright, heart hammering. No alarm. No warning. Just the sensation of something folding inside out—like the universe blinked, and it forgot which version of reality it was showing.
The room was dim, only lit by the glitching cyan runes pulsing across his ceiling. Runes he never remembered carving.
He got up, bare feet quiet on the apartment floor. The city outside his window—Caroline's Veil—was still buzzing, but the sound felt... distant. Muted. Like it was wrapped in velvet. Or drowning.
He went to the mirror. His reflection blinked a full second late.
"What the hell..."
Then the air split like wet paper.
No light, no explosion. Just a moment where something was—wrong. Spatial coordinates rewrote themselves. Aren's knees buckled. Blood trickled from his left nostril.
The mirror darkened.
Aren stepped back instinctively. Not because of fear. But because his instincts—ones he hadn't earned, ones the Resonance had buried deep—flared.
The thing in the mirror wasn't him.
It looked like him. Moved like him. But there was an uncanny hollowness in its eyes. Not dead. Not possessed. Just—forgotten. Like a memory of a person who never truly lived.
And it looked at him.
No, through him.
Then it spoke.
"You took the wrong branch."
Aren's throat was dry. "What?"
The mirror-version tilted its head. Its voice was low, almost disinterested.
"But who are you supposed to be?"
The words were simple.
But Aren felt something cold coil around his spine. He knew that phrase. It was a resonance marker. One used in the deeper edict systems to initiate identity instability.
He swallowed, his voice breaking. "I'm... me. Aren Kai."
The mirror flickered.
"No," the other Aren said. "You're something wearing him."
And then it smiled.
Aren screamed and hurled a chair at the mirror.
It shattered.
But there was no glass. No shards. Just a void—black and shifting like oil—that receded back into flat silver.
Then silence.
Except for one thing.
A new mark, burned into the floorboards where he stood:
✾ 4TH FOLD TRIGGERED
He barely slept.
By morning, the world hadn't changed. No apocalypse. No collapsing sky.
But the birds outside weren't singing.
Because there were no birds.
Not a single one.
He checked the entire block. Rooftops. Skies. Wires. Not one crow, pigeon, or sparrow.
He checked his feed. Most people hadn't noticed.
Except one account. A locked, anonymous one.
@ParallaxWitness
"They're gone. Resonance is accelerating. The Reflected are awakening."
Aren stared.
Then the next message popped up.
@ParallaxWitness: Did the Mirror speak to you too?
He didn't reply.
He just turned his phone off.
Because suddenly, every reflection he passed—windows, screens, water—
was lagging.