He didn't remember falling asleep.
Maybe he hadn't.
But he was somewhere else now.
Not the chamber. Not the hallway. Not the quiet room with the cold metal blanket.
This place hummed.
Softly.
Like breath on the back of his neck.
He stood in a circular room, mirrored from floor to ceiling. No windows. No doors. Just his reflection, repeated into infinity. Too many of him.
Some of them blinked when he didn't.
He didn't move.
Neither did the one standing beside him.
It wore his face. His posture. His same ragged expression.
But its eyes were too calm.
Too knowing.
"Still pretending it's your life?" the Echo asked softly, voice like cracked glass wrapped in silk.
Alpha didn't answer.
"You ate. You walked. You breathed. All without knowing if you were real."
The reflection smiled. Not cruelly. Almost…sadly.
"You're wondering, right now, whether you're dreaming this, or dreaming them."
Alpha swallowed.
The air felt thick.
Like breathing through water.
"Why do you sound like me?" he asked.
"Because I was you," the Echo said. "Before the Rite. Before the split. Before Selene lied."
The name hit like a drop of ink in water.
Selene.
The Echo stepped forward.
The other reflections didn't move. Just watched.
"I remember what she did," it whispered. "Do you?"
Alpha's heart thudded, slow and hard.
Images flashed: A blade. A scream not his. A mirror cracking, but not breaking.
"No," he muttered. "I don't"
"You will."
The Echo reached out.
Not to strike.
To offer its hand.
"I'm not your enemy," it said. "I'm your continuity."
Alpha stared.
His hand twitched.
Somewhere far away, he felt a different version of himself gripping a blanket.
Trying not to drown in his own breath.
"I'm not ready," he whispered.
The Echo smiled again. "No one ever is."
Then, a crack. The room shattered.
He fell.
Through memory.
Through mirror.
Through something deeper than sleep.
And somewhere on the edge of that void…
Selene was calling his name.
Selene's POV
He hadn't moved in hours.
Not truly.
He sat wrapped in the old fire-blanket, knees drawn up, hands limp in his lap, eyes open, but not seeing.
Selene watched him from the edge of the room, her back to the cold stone wall. The boy sat beside her, fidgeting with a loose thread in his sleeve. The room was quiet, save for the occasional snap of the old wood in the hearth.
"He's dreaming again," the boy whispered.
She didn't answer.
She could feel it, too.
Alpha wasn't here.
Not really.
The Rite had taken him to the threshold. The Echo had pulled him beyond it. And now, he floated somewhere between self and shadow, caught in the gravity of a reflection that wanted to become real.
Selene pressed her palms into her eyes.
She remembered the feeling.
The first time it happened to her, she had screamed so loud she tore her throat raw. No one had come.
The second time, she tried to claw the memories out, hers, the Echo's, the ones that didn't fit anywhere.
She still had the scars.
"Should we wake him?" the boy asked.
His voice cracked a little. Like he knew the answer and hated it.
Selene opened her eyes slowly. Looked at Alpha.
His breath was steady.
Too steady.
Like a body left on autopilot.
"No," she said. "If we do it wrong, we might bring it back instead."
The boy's lips parted in horror.
"You mean" She nodded.
"Yes. Him, but… not him."
The Echo was always waiting for that chance. To slip in while the soul was adrift. To wear the skin like it belonged to it. And once it took root…
The boy shivered. "Then what do we do?"
Selene looked toward the satchel near the hearth. Half-burnt scrolls. Charcoal rubbings of mirror-wards. Old things. Forbidden things.
She stood slowly. Knees stiff from too much sitting.
"I can go after him," she said, barely above a whisper.
The boy stared up at her. "But if you lose yourself"
"Then you make sure it's me who wakes up."
A quiet beat passed.
He didn't nod. Didn't argue.
He just swallowed, nodded once, and handed her the old blade.
The one etched with mirrored runes.
Selene held it in both hands.
Her palms ached.
She walked toward Alpha, who sat like a statue dreaming of oceans.
And just before she crossed the ward-line chalked around him, she whispered.
"I'm coming, Alpha. Just… don't give it your name."
Crossing the ward was like stepping into cold honey.
The air thickened, clinging to her skin and lungs, whispering secrets that had no source. Her foot touched the floor beside Alpha's, and the world flexed. Sound went flat. Light bent sideways.
He didn't react.
Not even a flinch.
She knelt slowly, blade in hand, heart thudding a warning she ignored.
"Alpha," she whispered.
No answer.
Just the sound of silence straining to hold its breath.
She pressed the blade to her palm, let it bite deep, just enough.
A drop of blood hissed against the runes, and the mirror-etched sigils blinked awake, swirling light into the floor. The room wavered, peeled back. The chamber blurred, and Selene fell.
Not in body.
Inwards.
The dreamscape was nothing like hers had been.
It was cleaner. Colder. Sharper around the edges, like glass pretending to be real.
She landed barefoot on marble that stretched out into infinity, lit by a sky that bled silver and indigo. Echo-worlds always mimicked the heart of the soul they clung to. This one… was too neat.
Too hollow.
She walked.
The sky pulsed.
She heard her own footsteps before she felt them.
Then, him.
Alpha.
Or someone wearing his shape.
He stood at the far end of the marble plain, facing a mirror so large it swallowed the horizon. In its surface, she saw… things. Twisting. Shifting. Memories.
A boy crying in an alley. A hand reaching out. Blood on a scroll. A woman screaming his name. And beneath it all, a second Alpha, standing just behind the first. Smiling.
Selene's breath caught.
"Alpha," she called out.
He turned. His eyes were wrong. Too deep. Like staring through ice.
"Do you remember me?" she asked, stepping closer.
He blinked slowly. The smile on the mirror-Alpha widened.
"I remember pain," he said.
She stopped short.
"I remember being made of pieces. And you—" He tilted his head, voice dripping quiet venom. "You taught me that some pieces can be carved out."
It wasn't Alpha.
Not entirely.
Selene tightened her grip on the blade. Her voice shook, but she forced it steady.
"I came to pull you out. The real you."
His lips twitched. Not quite a smile. Not quite a snarl.
"Then where do I go, Selene? If I'm not the real one?"
Behind him, the mirror warped. A thousand Alphas blinked in and out, living lives that were his, but not. Twinned memories. Stolen pain. Fabricated joy.
She stepped forward.
"I don't care which one of you is real," she said. "I care which one fights to stay."
He looked down at his hands. Confused. As if trying to feel which soul he wore.
And for just a moment, the mirror behind him cracked.
A fissure across a thousand false lives.
And the Alpha she knew, her Alpha, flinched.
Like breathing through water.
Selene dropped the blade.
Stepped forward.
And whispered, "Come back."
Selene blinked.
Stone ceiling. Pale light. The warmth of a nearby body, too close to be safe, too familiar to pull away from.
Alpha.
His back was to her. Breathing slow. Steady. Like sleep.
She didn't move. Not at first.
The Rite was over. The mirror-warded chamber had gone silent hours ago. They'd found him collapsed, whispering things no one could understand. Not even the boy.
She should be relieved.
But her heart wouldn't settle.
Because something about the way he lay there, too still, too quiet, felt wrong.
Selene swallowed hard.
What if…?
She pushed the thought aside and reached out. Just lightly. Her fingers touched his shoulder.
He tensed.
Then, slowly, he rolled to face her.
His eyes were open.
Too open.
Not alarmed. Not surprised. Just watching her. Like she was a memory he'd been waiting to catch again.
"Selene," he said, voice soft, like it had just remembered how to shape her name.
She forced a smile. "You're awake."
He blinked slowly, studying her face. "I never really slept."
A pause. Too long. A beat missed.
She tried to breathe past it. "Do you remember… what happened?"
"I remember… echoes," he said. "And mirrors that whispered things I forgot I knew. And a boy with too much fear in his eyes."
Her chest tightened.
Those were Alpha's memories.
Or… the Echo's.
He sat up. Stretched slowly, like his body was new. Like he was still figuring out how much of it belonged to him.
Selene stayed where she was. Watching.
Waiting.
He looked down at his hands. Flexed them. Then glanced at her.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
And gods, she wished he hadn't.
Because she didn't know.
Because the Echo had been clever. Soft. Too familiar with Alpha's thoughts. And what lay before her now, this quiet, reflective version, was too calm.
Too composed. Too… whole.
Alpha had cracked before. Splintered. Bled memories that weren't his. But this? This one was smooth around the edges. Worn in all the right places.
Like it had been waiting to take the lead.
She reached toward him anyway. Her fingers brushed his.
"Of course I do," she lied.
And smiled.
And prayed.
That if he wasn't Alpha…He wouldn't realize she could tell.