I jolted awake, my heart racing as I realized everything around me was shrouded in black — not a single trace of light. The silence was absolute, oppressive. Even the sound of my own breathing felt unnatural in that place.
"Huh? When did I fall asleep? How much time has passed...? Where am I?..." I thought, trying to contain the rising panic.
My senses were in disarray. The air felt dense, almost sticky, like every particle was soaked in some ancient… forgotten… forbidden magic.
"I had just stepped through the mirror… what happened?"
Slowly, I raised one hand while the other still clung tightly to the heavy sword pressed against my body. I took a few uncertain steps, the sound of my own movements swallowed by the darkness.
— "Light," — I whispered, summoning magic with a subtle flick of my fingers.
Nothing.
Not a spark. Not a flicker.
The mana... didn't answer. As if it had been ripped from me. As if it had never existed in this place.
With my efforts proving futile, I crouched down, placing a hand on what I thought was the floor — or where the floor should have been. I let it move lower, toward my feet, inching down...
But it touched nothing. The space where the ground should've been… was empty. Before I could react, my body tilted forward, gravity taking over. A moment of imbalance. A breath caught in my throat.
And then, I fell.
"What?! But I was standing on solid ground just a second ago!" I muttered, eyes wide as the world around me spiraled into an endless descent.
My hands clenched harder around the sword, arms rigid with tension. The wind — or something like it — began to whip against my face, cold and sharp, as if slicing through to my soul.
But still... there was no light. Only the fall.
Only the muffled sound of the void. I finally closed my eyes and gave in.
✦ ✦ ✦
When I opened them again, the scene had changed.
I was no longer falling — no longer floating in the void. Now, my feet were firmly planted on a cold, velvety carpet that stretched across a vast and silent room. The light there was soft, with no clear source, hovering in the air like luminous mist, casting slow-moving shadows across the pearlescent walls.
The space was elegant, old, yet held something unnatural — like it had been preserved outside of time, untouched by reality.
Total silence. No creaking, no breath of air. Not even the sound of my own breathing seemed to belong in that place.
I was alone. Before me, a mirror framed in tarnished silver reflected my image... or what was left of it.
My face looked younger, far more childlike than it should have been, but something was deeply wrong. My eyes were sunken, dark circles beneath them, dry tear streaks carved down my face like scars. My gaze was hollow. Far too weary for someone so young.
But it was when I looked closer that something hit me like a rush of icy wind.
That wasn't a mirror. The glass before me didn't reflect — it revealed. And what it revealed… was that it wasn't a mirror at all, but the lid of a coffin.
A simple, solemn coffin. Made of the same dark wood as the furniture around it, the lid lay wide open, exposing the interior like an open wound. Inside, lying with hands folded over her chest, was a woman.
Warm brown skin, long curly hair cascading around her face, arranged with ceremonial care. Her features were delicate, and even in stillness, a faint smile lingered on her lips, as if trying to soothe me. But her skin was pale, with a bluish tint beneath her eyes.
"Mom…" I whispered. The word slipped out before I could stop it. A hot tear traced down my face and hit the floor — a soft, final sound, like a seal being pressed shut.
Then, something changed.
A cold breeze brushed the back of my neck—too gentle, too out of place for a sealed room like this.
"Guilt…"
The word came as a whisper, as though it had been breathed directly into my mind.
My body tensed. I turned my head, trying to locate the source of the voice—but there was nothing. Just the same untouched room. The same silence.
"Alexander…"
This time, the sound was clearer. My name resonated through the room without echo, as if the walls swallowed it whole.
"Why, Alexander?"
My stomach twisted. The color drained from my face.
I knew that voice.
But it was… distorted. Almost human, almost familiar. But not quite.
'What's happening?' I thought, heart pounding, snapping me out of the trance. I stepped back.
"ALEXANDER!"
I turned instinctively. The coffin lid was now wide open. I rushed to it and, with trembling hands, looked inside.
It was empty.
The air thickened suddenly. Something was watching me.
A shiver crawled down my spine. And then I felt it—a light touch on my left shoulder.
I turned slowly, my throat dry, fingers gripping the sword's hilt I hadn't even remembered I was holding.
Behind me, she stood. The woman from the coffin. Upright.
The smile on her face was gone. Her eyes were now open—glassy blue, unmoving—and her expression held a sorrow so profound it bordered on cruelty.
"Alexander…" she whispered, so close I could feel her icy breath against my face. "Why didn't you listen?"
Her fingers tightened around my shoulder with inhuman strength. I was spun around roughly. She was inches from me.
"Choices… always come at a cost," she whispered, her voice cracked, as if each syllable was forced through ancient tears.
And then, she screamed.
"IT'S YOUR FAULT, ALEXANDER!"
The pain in her voice cut deeper than any blade. Her face twisted—not into a grotesque monster's, but into something breaking from the inside. Her skin contorted, her eyes opened far too wide, her features distorted between anguish and rage. It was too human. And that made it worse.
I stumbled back, misstepping. My back slammed against the coffin's edge with a dull thud. I looked around in panic—my sword was gone.
"Why did you let me go, Alexander?"
Her voice trembled, a whisper laced with desperation. Every word that left her lips was a dagger to my chest, slicing through my consciousness. A few meters away, I spotted the sword—the same one Galdric had given me—now glowing faintly in the shadows.
Her hand pulled back, preparing for a brutal strike. In a flash, she lunged. I scrambled to the side, clumsily dodging, and bolted for the sword. Every step was a race against the inevitable, a frantic attempt to reclaim something—anything—that could save me.
Finally, I reached it and tried to lift it. "Shit…" I muttered; but the sword didn't budge—I had forgotten just how heavy it was. I turned at once, and to my shock, the spirit's arm was already reaching for me.
"Shit, what is this—did she turn into Piccolo?" My mind was spiraling.
I kept dodging, but her movements were strange—illusory, unpredictable like shifting shadows. In a moment of desperation, I tried to grab the sword again, but the ghostly figure was faster: she seized me by the neck while I, hands clenched tight, still struggled to lift the weapon.
When I met her eyes, the sword suddenly gleamed, its light triggering a visceral reaction in the spirit. In one swift motion, she hurled me backward. My back hit the coffin hard, and the sword slipped from my grasp, skittering across the cold, silent floor.
Her eyes pierced through me — split between fury and a sorrow so deep, it felt like it was trying to tear my soul out. There was a glistening sheen in them, as if tears could no longer form, but the pain remained, screaming silently inside me.
And as she spoke, memories erupted in my mind. Muffled screams. Eyes shutting. My hands—useless.
"Stop, stop, stop..." I whispered to myself.
I squeezed my eyes shut, drawing a deep breath.
'This is an illusion…' I told myself, once.
'This is an illusion.' Twice.
'This is an illusion.' A third time.
'This is an illusion.' A fourth.
… I repeated it so many times I lost count. Each repetition was a hammer swing, trying to shatter the chains of guilt.
And in the silence that followed, something shifted.
I opened my eyes again. She was still there—but trembling. Like mist about to dissolve in sunlight.
"You're not real!" I shouted, with every ounce of strength I had left. "DISAPPEAR!"
The words hit the spirit like a gunshot. She froze, face twisted in disbelief, and then slowly… began to fade. Her form blurred, losing shape. The coffin behind her cracked, then shattered into ethereal splinters. The light in the room flickered erratically, as though reality itself struggled to determine what was true.
She reached toward me—pleading, maybe for help, maybe for forgiveness—but her eyes...
They no longer saw me. They looked at someone else entirely.
'Sorry… but I'm not the Alexander you think I am.' I didn't speak it aloud. I only thought it. But that was enough.
The world around me shivered, like a reflection fractured by a stone.
The pain was real. The memory, too. But the burden… it no longer belonged to just the version of me in this world.
The room finally fell apart, melting away like paint in the rain. I stood tall in the gray void left behind. I breathed. For the first time, as myself.
"Having two souls in one does have its perks," I murmured with a weary sigh.
In the silent gloom that remained, only one echo persisted — not of guilt, but of acceptance. And then… I took the first step forward. At the same time, I felt my heart grow lighter.
A smile crept across my face. 'We're one, aren't we? Your problems are my problems, and my problems are yours.' I thought, as I placed a hand over my chest, feeling the warm, comforting pulse beneath it.