A whisper brushed the edge of his consciousness.
Not a sound, exactly. A familiarity. Like hearing a lullaby in a dream, sung by a voice you almost remember.
He opened his eyes. Or thought he did.
There was no room. No walls. Only reflections, countless mirrors, suspended in blackness like windows into other lives.
He stood in one of them. But not alone.
Across from him, in the glass, himself, but older. Taller. Tired. Eyes like bruises blooming beneath skin that had seen too many sleepless nights.
"You're late."
Alpha didn't answer. His throat felt made of sand.
The other Alpha took a step forward, through the mirror. No sound. No crack. No shatter. He just walked into Alpha's world.
Alpha stumbled back. "Who?"
"I'm what's left of what you left behind."
His voice wasn't cruel. Just… hollow. Like a memory replaying itself.
"You're the Echo," Alpha whispered.
A nod. "Part of it. But not all."
Something shifted around them. The mirrors rearranged. In one, Alpha was a child, barefoot in red sand. In another, a soldier, blood on his hands. In a third,.. No. That memory wasn't his.
That was Selene's face, looking down at him, eyes full of guilt.
He looked away.
"What is this place?"
The Echo touched one of the mirrors. "It's where we meet. Not just you and me, all the selves. The ones that could've been. The ones that never were."
"You're not real."
The Echo tilted his head. "Then why are you bleeding from memories that never happened?"
Alpha blinked,...His palms. Scratched. Torn. His chest, bruised from a blade strike he never took.
The Echo stepped closer. "We've done this before. Died here before. A thousand times. And each time, you choose to forget. You run."
Alpha backed away.
"No," he breathed.
"I don't want your body. I want your truth. You've never wanted to know what was behind the Rite. Not really."
One mirror cracked.
Inside it, Alpha saw a memory: Selene. Crying. A dagger in her hand.
"You have to kill me," her younger self whispered. "Before it's too late."
Another mirror shattered.
A vision of Vanitas, eyes filled with madness. "One of us had to die. Only one could stay real."
Alpha clutched his head. The noise. The visions. The thoughts ,not his thoughts.
"Stop, please"
The Echo knelt beside him.
"You're not breaking," he said gently. "You're remembering."
The world flickered.
Flash...
Alpha's hands buried in earth, dragging a body.
Selene's voice: "Don't let it become you. Don't let it speak."
Flash...
He was speaking to a boy with no name, who knew too much.
Flash..
His own voice, whispering: "I am the door that opens. And I never closed it."
When Alpha looked up, the Echo was gone.
But in his place stood something… else.
Not a reflection. Not quite. A being made of broken mirrors and whispers. Alpha's face, twisted by memory.
It reached for him. And Alpha, finally, reached back.
His fingertips brushed the surface of the Echo's hand.
It wasn't cold. It wasn't warm. It was… familiar.
Like touching a scar you don't remember getting.
The being of broken mirrors stared back, Alpha's eyes reflected hundreds of times across its body, each version of him watching with a different expression:
A smiling child.
A broken man.
A killer.
A priest.
A boy who never survived.
And then,
Flash.
He was falling. Not through air, not through space, but through time.
Not time like the world understood it.
Time like memory. Time like pain.
He stood in a white room. Stark. Quiet .A girl sat beside a mirror, humming softly.
Selene.
Young. Barefoot .No scars yet. No tiredness in her gaze.
She turned, startled.
"You shouldn't be here."
Alpha blinked. "Where is?"
But she was gone.
Another pull. Another scene.
Now Vanitas stood on a cliff edge. Bleeding. Laughing.
Opposite him: his Echo, slumped and twitching, dying.
"I thought I'd be free," Vanitas said, not to Alpha, but to the sky. "I thought killing it would make me real."
He looked at Alpha, straight through time, through memory.
"It just made me less."
Alpha gasped.
He was in his own body again, but trembling. The Echo still stood in front of him, waiting.I ts head tilted. Patient.
"You wanted to know," it said.
Alpha clenched his fists. "What am I?"
The Echo stepped forward, touched Alpha's chest with one mirrored finger.
"You are the sum of the choices you haven't made yet. But I have."
Images flooded him.
Killing the boy. Saving him. Burning the scroll. Reading it aloud. Running away. Facing Selene. Kissing her. Letting her die.
Every life. Every path. Every twisted branch of the future. He lived them all, in a heartbeat.
And then,... Silence.
Just his breath. Just his heartbeat. Just his hand, now holding the Echo's.
He looked into its eyes.
And saw his own face.
Tears running down its cheeks.
The Echo whispered:
"You don't have to become me."
Then it let go.
The mirrors fell. Like stars blinking out.
And Alpha was left standing alone. In the dark. But himself.
Far away, A door rattled, Selene sat outside, trembling. The boy clutched her arm.
And from inside the mirror-warded chamber
A single voice said: "…I remember." The chamber was silent, but the silence had weight.Like snow pressing on glass.
Alpha didn't move.
He couldn't.
His limbs felt unreal. His breath wasn't his.He blinked, and in that blink, he saw a thousand other versions of this same moment.
In one, he screamed.
In another, he laughed until blood filled his throat.
In another, he turned the knife on himself.
But here… now… he stood.
Barely.
The Echo was gone.
But its residue clung to him like frostbite.
He touched his chest. No wound.
Then his cheek. Still warm.
But when he closed his eyes, he saw her.
Not Selene.
Not the boy.
The version of him that had chosen differently.
The one who let the scroll burn.The one who left them behind.The one who saved no one, and survived anyway.
That version was smiling.
"You think you're the real one now?" it whispered."You think that makes you whole?"
Alpha fell to his knees.
His head hurt.The floor pulsed.His own thoughts felt like knives in his skull.
knock knock knock
"Alpha."Selene's voice. Tentative. On the other side of the door.
He looked up. The mirrors flickered, just once.Gone.
"I'm here," he said, but his voice cracked like old glass.
She didn't open the door.
Not yet.
Maybe she didn't trust him.
Or maybe, she knew he didn't trust himself.
He stared at his hands.They looked normal.But they remembered murder.
They remembered mercy too, but which came first?
Alpha wasn't sure.
His memories were out of order.Like a shattered scroll, pieces rearranged by something not-quite-human.
Was this what Selene went through?
Was this what she survived?
A voice echoed in his skull.The Echo's voice.But gentler now. A whisper of thought.
"You are not broken. You are many. Learn to be all of them."
He dug his nails into his palm.
Pain. Real. Present.
One anchor.
He stood.
Staggered.
Faced the mirror-warded door.
And spoke, not to Selene, not to the boy, not to anyone else.
"I don't know what I am."
"But I'm still here."
And for now, that was enough.
The door creaked open.
No one said anything.Not Selene. Not the boy. Not him.
They watched him like he might break, like he hadn't already.
He stepped forward. One foot. Then the other.The warded chamber whispered behind him, mirrors still humming faintly.
He wasn't sure if they had sealed the Echo inside.
Or let it walk out with him.
The corridor was dim.Dust in the light.Stone beneath his feet.
He felt the echo of every step.
"Food," someone said. Maybe Selene. Maybe the boy.
He didn't look up.He didn't answer.He just followed the scent of something warm
He sat across from the boy.A bowl of something steaming in front of him. Bread, torn unevenly.
Alpha stared at the food.
It looked real.
But so did the scroll before it bled light.So did the Echo before it smiled.
His hand hovered over the bowl.
He waited for it to ripple. Warp. Burn.
It didn't.
Still, he hesitated.
"You're safe now," the boy whispered. "I think."
Alpha met his eyes.
The boy meant well. His voice was soft. Hopeful.
But he had no idea what Alpha had seen.
How could he?
Selene sat nearby, her arms wrapped around her knees. Watching. Silent.
He thought about asking her.
How long did the hallucinations last?
Did the memories ever stop feeling like yours?
But he didn't. Not yet.
Instead, he dipped the bread. Chewed slowly.Each bite like swallowing rocks.
He couldn't taste anything.
He forced himself to finish it anyway.
One bite.
Then another.
Later, he sat alone in the corner of the quiet room.Wrapped in a blanket that smelled like cold metal and old fire.
He looked at his hands again.
Still no blood.
Still no certainty.
The Echo hadn't spoken again.
But it didn't need to.
It had left something behind.
A crack.
A space.
And in that space… thoughts slithered.
What if he wasn't Alpha?
What if the Echo had been the real one all along?
What if this body was just a dream it was having, trying to wake up?
He closed his eyes. His heart thudded.Soft breath in the dark.
He imagined anchoring himself:
The boy's smile.
Selene's silence.
The sound of footsteps echoing down stone corridors.
He clung to that.Tiny, human things.
Fragile. But his.
For now.