As Alex stepped over the threshold, the darkness swallowed her whole. For a moment, a terrifying endless moment, Alex felt nothing. No ground beneath her feet, no air in her lungs, no sense of her own body. Just void. She wondered if this was what death was like.
Suddenly light exploded around her, harsh and blinding. She stumbled, catching herself on hands and knees. Stone, cold and smooth bit beneath her palms. She blinked away the afterthoughts of death and looked up. She was in a maze of mirrors. They were everywhere. The arena was circular, maybe fifty feet across, its walls a seamless expanse of reflective surfaces that stretched up into shadow. The floor was polished black stone, mirror-smooth, doubling the effect. Everywhere Alex looked, she should have seen herself reflected infinitely, the hall of mirrors effect should have been dizzying. But the mirrors were empty.
She stood slowly, turning in a circle. Her reflection should have been there, dozens of her, hundreds, all moving in sync. Instead, she saw only the arena itself reflected back, the black stone and the silver walls. An empty stage.
She lifted her hand, waved it. Nothing. Not even a shimmer where her reflection should be.
"Hello?" Her voice echoed strangely, as if the mirrors were swallowing the sound. "Is anyone—"
Movement in the corner of her eye.
She spun, and her breath caught.
Three figures materialized from the mirrors themselves, stepping out of the reflective surfaces like they were walking through water. They solidified, became real, solid.
Ethan. Mia. Sam.
Relief flooded through her. "Oh thank god, I thought I was—"
But they weren't looking at her.
Shadow-Ethan turned to Shadow-Mia, his expression worried. "Where's Alex? We need someone who can actually fight."
"Does it matter?" Shadow-Mia's voice was cold, dismissive. "She's never there when it counts anyway."
"She's probably hiding somewhere," Shadow-Sam added, looking around the arena, looking right through where Alex stood. "That's what she does, right? Hides behind her computer, behind her plans. Never actually shows up."
"I'm right here!" Alex shouted, stepping toward them. "I'm right here!" They didn't react. Didn't even blink.
Shadow-Ethan sighed. "We should have chosen someone else. Someone braver. I told you it should have been me."
"We should have sent in someone who matters," Shadow-Mia agreed.
The words hit like a physical blow. Alex felt her chest tighten, her breath coming shorter. This wasn't real. These weren't her friends. They were shadows, manifestations, game mechanics designed to, break her.
A weapon materialized in her hand, a short sword, its blade dull and gray, barely more substantial than smoke. She gripped it, feeling its weight, and lunged at Shadow-Ethan. The blade passed through him like he was made of mist.
He kept talking, oblivious. "Alex is just... background noise, you know? She's there, but she's not really there. Who cares about her?"
"I'm HERE!" Alex swung again, harder. The blade whistled through empty air, through Shadow-Sam's torso. Nothing. "Look at me! I'm RIGHT HERE!"
They just kept talking, kept looking through her, around her, never at her. Then she understood. She was invisible. Incorporeal. A ghost in her own trial. Sekhmet's voice echoed through the arena, coming from everywhere and nowhere, resonating in Alex's bones.
"To be seen, you must first be heard. Speak your truth, little hacker. The lies you tell yourself are what make you invisible. Shed them. Bleed them out. Only truth will give you form. Speak the truth before you become a ghost forever"
"Truth?" Alex's voice cracked. "What truth?"
"The ones that matter to you most."
The shadows began to move, circling each other, their conversation continuing like a play she wasn't part of.
"Remember when Alex said she'd handle the firewall breach?" Shadow-Sam laughed bitterly. "She couldn't even get past the first layer. I had to fix it."
"She's always been like that," Shadow-Mia said. "All talk, no follow-through."
"I fixed it!" Alex screamed at them. "I stayed up for thirty-six hours and I FIXED IT!" But her voice was fading, becoming quieter, less substantial. She was disappearing.
"Lies," Sekhmet whispered. "You know the truth. Say it."
Alex's throat closed. She couldn't, but the shadows were fading now, becoming translucent and she was fading with them. She looked down at her hands and saw the arena floor through her palms. She was running out of time.
"I..." The word tore out of her. "I'm scared I'm not good enough."
The moment she spoke, something shifted. Her sword solidified slightly, the blade catching light. The shadows froze mid-gesture, heads tilting as if they'd heard something distant.
"More."
Alex's eyes burned. "I'm scared that... that no one would notice if I disappeared. That I could vanish right now and life would just... go on without me."
Her hands became solid again. The sword grew heavier, its edge sharper. The shadows turned, not quite looking at her, but sensing something.
"Deeper."
"I'm not my mom's first choice. I'm no ones first choice," Alex gasped out, and the words felt like ripping open an old wound. "My brother died when I was six. She never got over it. She looks at me sometimes and I can see it in her eyes—I'm not the child she wanted to live. I'm the one she wished had died."
Power surged through her, hot and electric. Her entire body solidified, became real, substantial. The sword blazed with sudden light, blue-white and fierce. Shadow-Ethan turned toward her, his eyes finally focusing but he didn't look friendly. He looked angry.
"There you are," he said coldly. "Hiding as always. Wanting to be more important than you are."
They attacked. All three of them lunged at once, their hands becoming claws, their faces twisting into something inhuman. Alex barely got her sword up in time to block Shadow-Mia's strike, the impact jarring up her arms. Sending painful vibrations through to her core. She was solid now, which meant they could hurt her.
Shadow-Sam came from the side, fast, faster than Sam had ever moved in real life. Alex twisted, slashed, felt her blade connect. The shadow screamed and dissolved into smoke, but two more replaced it, both false angry Sam, both reaching for her throat.
"Truth!" Sekhmet's voice boomed. "Speak or fade!"
Alex ducked under grasping hands, rolled, came up swinging. "I hate that I'm invisible! I hate that I have to fight to be seen!" The words gave her strength. Her next strike cleaved through both Shadow-Sam's, and they burst apart like ink in water but more were forming. Shadow-Ethan multiplied, four of him now, circling her with predatory grace. Shadow-Mia's emerged from the mirrors, a dozen of them, all wearing that golden filigree, all beautiful and beloved and everything Alex wasn't.
"Look at her," one Shadow-Mia laughed. "Trying so hard. It's almost sad."
"She thinks she matters," another added.
"She thinks anyone cares," a third concluded.
"She thinks she deserves anything at all," the forth ones truth sent Alex's vision blurry. She was crying, she realized distantly. Tears running down her face while she fought, while she swung her sword at shadows that spoke her worst fears in the voices of her friends.
"I'm not special!" she shouted, and the admission felt like swallowing glass. Her sword flared brighter. "I'm not the smartest or the strongest or the prettiest! I'm just... average! Absolutely forgettable!" Three Shadow-Mias dissolved. But more kept coming.
An Ethan-shadow grabbed her from behind, its grip ice-cold. "Why would anyone choose you? How could anyone love you?"
"I don't know!" Alex drove her elbow back, spun, slashed. The shadow fell away. "I don't know why anyone would choose me! I'm nobody's first choice! I'm the backup plan! I'm his—" She choked on the words, couldn't finish. Not yet. That truth was too close, too raw.
Shadow-Ethan reformed in front of her, and this one looked exactly like the real thing. Same concerned eyes, same slight smile, same way he tilted his head when he was thinking.
"You're right," he said gently, which was somehow worse than the cruelty. "You are the backup plan. You always have been."
"Stop," Alex whispered.
"Sam doesn't love you," Shadow-Ethan continued. "He's with you because he can't have—"
"STOP!"
She swung wildly, desperately. The shadow caught her blade with his bare hand, stopped it cold.
"And me?" His smile turned sad. "You think I don't know? You think I haven't seen the way you look at me?"
Alex's heart hammered against her ribs. "You're not real. You're not him."
"I'm what you think I am," the shadow said. "I'm your fear made manifest. So tell me, Alex, what am I going to say next?"
She knew. God, she knew exactly what he would say because she'd imagined it a thousand times in her worst moments.
"You think I could ever choose you over Mia?" Shadow-Ethan's voice was pitying. "You think you're even in the same league?"
The words landed like body blows. Alex staggered back, her sword dipping.
"Truth," Sekhmet commanded. "Or die invisible."
Alex looked down at her hands. They were starting to fade again, becoming transparent. The sword was dimming. She had to speak. Had to bleed the truth.
"Sometimes..." Her voice broke. She forced herself to continue. "Sometimes I wish I was Mia." The arena shuddered. Every shadow froze. "I wish I was her," Alex said louder, and the confession poured out like poison from a lanced wound. "I wish I had her confidence, her face, her life. I wish Sam and Ethan would look at me the way they look at her when they think no one's watching!"
Her sword erupted with light, blazing so bright it cast sharp shadows across the mirror-walls.
"I wish everyone would stop choosing her over me!" Alex was screaming now, swinging her sword in wide arcs, cutting through shadow after shadow as they lunged for her. "I'm tired of being second best! I'm tired of being forgotten! I'm tired of watching everyone I care about look right past me to find her!"
The shadows were falling faster now, dissolving into smoke with each strike but they kept coming, endless, relentless.
A Shadow-Mia grabbed her hair, yanking her head back. "That's because I'm better than you."
"I KNOW!" Alex drove her sword backwards, felt it connect. "I know Mia's better! She's smarter and prettier and braver and I KNOW THAT! I've always known that!" The Shadow-Mia dissolved, but the words hung in the air.
Alex stood in the center of the arena, surrounded by circling shadows, gasping for breath. Her sword was bright as a star now, pulsing in rhythm with her racing heart but she was tiring. There were too many. For every shadow she cut down, two more emerged from the mirrors.
She couldn't win. Not like this.
"The final truth," Sekhmet's voice was almost gentle. "The one you guard most carefully. Speak it, and you will have the strength to end this."
Alex knew what she wanted. The words that would make her invincible, that would give her the power to destroy every shadow in this arena. I'm in love with Ethan and I'm Sam's second choice.
But she couldn't. Not yet. Not when her friends could hear, because suddenly she was certain they could hear. Every word she'd spoken had been broadcast outside these walls, and they were listening. Sam was listening. Ethan was listening. If she said it now, everything would change. Everything would break.
"I can't," she whispered.
"Then you will fail," Sekhmet replied. "And you will all begin again."
The shadows closed in, a tide of familiar faces twisted with contempt. Alex raised her sword, but her arms were shaking. She was so tired. So tired of fighting, of hiding, of being invisible. Maybe it would be easier to just... give up. Flash red. Go home. Face the consequences. At least then she wouldn't have to speak the painful truth.
No. The thought crystallized with sudden, fierce clarity. She'd been giving up her whole life. Giving up on being seen, on being chosen, on being brave enough to want things out loud. She'd been invisible because she'd made herself invisible, because being seen meant risking rejection. She was too much of a coward to risk it but not anymore.
Alex planted her feet, raised her sword, and spoke a different truth. Not the one Sekhmet wanted, but the one she needed. One that was even more powerful, and more honest than any truth before.
"I'm tired of being invisible," she said, and her voice was steady now, certain. "I'm tired of hiding. I'm tired of being afraid that if people see the real me, they'll decide I'm not worth keeping." The sword pulsed brighter. "I don't know if I'm enough," she continued, cutting down a Shadow-Sam that got too close. "I don't know if I'm special or important or worth choosing. But I'm tired of letting everyone else decide my worth."
Another shadow fell. "I deserve to be seen!" Alex's voice rose, powerful and fierce. "I deserve to matter! Not because I'm the smartest or the prettiest or the most special, or a try hard but because I'm HERE! Because I'm trying! Because I refuse to be invisible anymore! I refuse to let anyone else define my worth" The sword exploded with light, blinding and pure. The shadows screamed, recoiling, but Alex pressed forward, striking with newfound strength.
"I'm done being the backup plan!" She cut through a cluster of Shadow-Ethans. "I'm done being the second choice!" A wall of Shadow-Mias dissolved before her blade. "I'm done pretending I don't want to be CHOSEN!" The last shadow fell.
Silence crashed over the arena. Alex stood alone, gasping, her sword still blazing in her hand. The mirrors showed only emptiness, no reflections, no shadows, nothing.
Then, slowly, a figure appeared in the glass. Her reflection. She barely recognized herself. Wild-eyed, tear-stained, fierce. Not invisible anymore. Not a ghost. Solid and real and present.
The bronze doors swung open. Sekhmet stood in the doorway, and for the first time, something like approval flickered across her feline features.
"You pass," the goddess said simply. "Welcome back to the world of the seen, little hacker."
Alex stumbled through the doorway on shaking legs, her sword dissolving into light as she crossed the threshold. Her friends were waiting...
and from the looks on their faces, they'd heard every single word.