Light poured through the door like a living river.
Kael stepped forward, feeling his body disintegrate into particles, each piece of him drawn toward the glow.
For an instant, he thought he heard the echo of the academy bell — slow, distant — and then nothing.
Silence.
Then breath.
A sound — steady, mechanical, too familiar.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
He gasped, lungs burning as if they'd been frozen in time. The light faded, replaced by the sterile white of a hospital ceiling.
His chest heaved. His skin prickled with cold.
Tubes ran into his arm; the monitor beside him spiked erratically.
He was awake.
"Vitals stabilizing!" a nurse shouted. "He's conscious!"
Kael blinked, disoriented. The ceiling lights blurred. Figures moved around him — doctors, nurses, a woman sobbing at his side.
"Kael," she whispered through trembling lips. "Kael, can you hear me?"
He turned toward her voice and saw his mother. Her eyes were swollen from sleepless nights, her hand gripping his tightly as if afraid he'd vanish again.
"I…" His voice was a rasp. "How long… was I gone?"
Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Six months, baby. You've been gone for six months."
Six months.
The words hit him like thunder.
He tried to speak again, but pain lanced through his skull — memories flooding back in fragments. The academy. The mirror. The reflection.
The dagger.
He looked down. His hand was empty.
But faintly — just beneath the skin of his palm — a pattern of glowing blue runes shimmered and faded.
No one else seemed to notice.
---
The days that followed blurred together.
Doctors called it a miracle. His brain activity had returned "inexplicably stable."
They called it awakening.
Kael called it something else.
Each night, when he closed his eyes, he still heard the bell. Sometimes he woke to see reflections in the window that didn't match his movements — the shadow of a hand lifting seconds after his own.
The world outside felt wrong, too perfect.
Every face smiled a little too long. Every clock ticked a beat too slow.
Even his mother's eyes seemed dimmer, her voice echoing slightly — like a recording.
One evening, when the ward had gone quiet, Kael decided to test it.
He reached for the glass of water beside his bed. His reflection met his gaze from the window opposite the bed.
Then — as he lifted the cup — the reflection didn't move.
It stared at him, still, smiling faintly.
Kael froze. "You're not real," he whispered.
The reflection tilted its head. "Neither are you."
The glass slipped from his hand and shattered. The reflection blinked out.
The nurse rushed in moments later, scolding him gently as she cleaned the spill.
But Kael couldn't stop shaking.
---
On the third night, he dreamed of the academy again.
This time, it was whole — no ruins, no fog — just corridors lit with warm light.
He walked down the main hall and stopped at the Grand Mirror.
Except now, instead of his reflection, he saw his hospital room. Himself asleep on the bed.
And standing beside it — the reflection.
Kael's breath hitched. "No. You can't be—"
"I told you," the reflection said, voice calm and steady. "When the dream dies, the traveler wakes. But which one of us woke up, Kael?"
Kael's heart pounded. "You're in my world. You can't—"
The reflection smiled. "I didn't come through the mirror. You did."
Kael's eyes widened.
The realization hit him like ice.
He had stepped through the door of light — leaving his body behind.
The reflection chuckled softly. "You fought me, you shattered the veil, and you thought you won. But what if the wrong Kael opened his eyes?"
The dream collapsed into darkness.
---
He woke with a scream, drenched in sweat.
The heart monitor shrieked in alarm. Nurses rushed in, soothing him, adjusting his IVs.
But as they spoke, Kael noticed something impossible.
Their voices were delayed — by a fraction of a second, as if the world was buffering around him.
And when they turned away, their eyes glowed faintly blue in the reflection of the monitor.
His chest went cold.
That night, when everyone had gone, Kael slipped out of bed. His legs trembled, weak from disuse, but he forced himself to stand.
The hallway lights flickered as he moved, echoing each step like thunder.
At the far end of the corridor was the observation room — a wall of glass that overlooked the city.
Kael pressed his palm to the glass.
The runes beneath his skin glowed again, spreading up his wrist like veins of light.
And for a heartbeat, the reflection in the window shifted — showing not the city, but the ruins of Arkanveil, endless and silent under a colorless sky.
He staggered back.
Then a voice spoke from behind him.
"Still trying to figure out where you belong?"
Kael turned sharply.
A man stood there — tall, wearing a long gray coat, eyes silver like polished steel. He looked familiar in a way that made Kael's stomach twist.
"Who are you?"
The man smiled. "Name's Seran."
Kael's eyes widened. "That's impossible. Seran was—"
"A myth? A dead archmage?" The man shrugged. "Depends which version of reality you're in."
Kael backed away. "You're not supposed to exist here."
"Neither are you," Seran replied, voice calm. "You brought something from the dream. That mark on your hand? It's a breach. This world isn't stable anymore."
Kael looked at his glowing palm. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
Seran's expression hardened. "You have two choices. Re-enter the coma and seal the breach… or watch both worlds collapse into each other."
Kael's throat tightened. "And if I go back?"
"You might not come out again."
---
For the next few hours, Kael sat in his dark room, the city lights outside pulsing like a heartbeat.
He thought of his mother — her hand, her tears, her hope.
Was she even real? Or just another echo built to keep him calm inside a fabricated world?
He stared at his reflection in the dark window.
It stared back, eyes faintly glowing blue.
"What would you do?" he whispered.
The reflection smiled. "I'd finish what we started."
He clenched his fist. The dagger mark burned hotter. The reflection raised its own hand — and in its palm, the Crimson Dagger of Aetherion materialized, glowing like molten glass.
Then the reflection stepped toward him.
The glass between them rippled like water.
Kael stood frozen as his reflection's voice merged with his own:
"Let's see which one of us belongs in this world."
The window exploded inward. Kael fell backward as shards of light rained around him.
When he looked up, his reflection stood over him — identical, except for the faint blue veins tracing its skin.
"You've already had your turn," it said coldly. "Time for mine."
Kael grabbed a shard of glass and slashed upward. The reflection caught his wrist effortlessly.
Pain shot through his arm — not just physical, but mental, as if memories were being torn from him.
"Stop fighting," it hissed. "You're just code now, Kael. A memory trying to stay alive."
"No," Kael gasped. "I'm real."
The reflection raised the dagger high — and then froze.
Something flickered in its eyes.
Kael saw it — confusion. Fear.
He realized the reflection was hesitating, as if hearing something distant.
A heartbeat.
A woman's voice.
"Kael… please… wake up…"
His mother.
The reflection blinked. "What… is that?"
Kael's voice cracked. "That's her. The reason you'll never win."
He grabbed the reflection's wrist and drove the glowing shard into its chest. Light burst outward, swallowing them both.
---
When the world steadied again, Kael was standing in silence.
No hospital. No city.
Just endless white.
The dagger lay before him, pulsing weakly.
A voice echoed through the void — familiar, gentle.
> "You made the right choice."
Kael turned. Seran stood there again, though her form now shimmered like light itself.
"Is it over?" Kael asked.
She smiled faintly. "For one of you."
Kael frowned. "What do you mean?"
She nodded toward the dagger. Inside its surface, faintly visible, was another Kael — trapped, frozen in mid-breath.
Kael stared in horror. "He's—"
"The part of you that couldn't let go," Seran said softly. "Every traveler leaves something behind."
He knelt, touching the dagger gently.
The reflection's eyes opened for a brief moment, meeting his.
Then they closed, and the light went out.
---
Kael stood, breathing slowly.
The mist around him began to fade, replaced by the glow of morning sunlight.
He blinked — and saw the hospital room again.
His mother sleeping by his bed, her hand in his.
The monitor beeped softly, steady and real.
This time, the reflection in the window matched his movements exactly.
Kael smiled weakly.
Maybe he had truly awakened.
Or maybe this was just another layer of the dream.
Either way, he whispered the same words he had spoken before stepping through the mirror:
> "Let's find out which one's real."
And the light flickered once — as if the world was holding its breath.