The box remained buried.
But ever since I dug it up once, its presence weighed on my back.
There was something inside me... or maybe outside. Something that settled into my thoughts as if they were its own. As if I were merely renting this consciousness from something older.
And hungrier.
—
"You didn't open the box," Sera said, stirring the ashes with a stick.
"No."
"Afraid of what's inside?"
"No… afraid of recognizing it."
Silence. Just the crackling.
Then a line that didn't quite sound like hers:
—What if you already opened it in another future… and you're just reliving the fear?
I looked at her.
Her eyes didn't seem entirely hers.
Or maybe mine were seeing more than they should.
—
That night, the sky held a fourth moon.
It wasn't white.
It was black, fractured, like a stone floating between cracks.
And no one else saw it.
—
I left the camp, journal in hand.
The compass spun wildly, as if mocking my sense of direction.
Still, I knew where to go.
The forest opened before me.
A clearing not found on any map.
At its center: a hooded figure, back turned.
He didn't speak.
Didn't breathe.
But when I stepped forward, my shadow detached from my feet… and walked toward him.
—
The figure raised his face.
It was me.
But not like a mirror.
It was… an improved version. Or a worse one. Thinner, with sunken eyes, yet filled with purpose.
"So this is you," he said. "The one who hesitates. The one who avoids."
"Who are you?"
"The one who didn't forget. The one who embraced the full eclipse."
—
The conversation was silent, yet thunderous in my mind.
> "You didn't come to break the system."
"You came to replace it."
> "You're not here to save the extras."
"You want the world to fear them."
I tried to shout no, that it wasn't true.
But my lips didn't move.
Because a part of me wanted it.
—
When I woke, I was alone again.
The box was in front of me.
Open.
And inside:
A mirror.
With no reflection.