Rhea stayed where she was long after the echoes died.
Her knees were buried in shattered glass, the sharp edges pressing into her skin, but pain felt distant—muted, unimportant. The studio had fallen into an unnatural stillness, the kind that didn't feel peaceful but expectant, like a held breath waiting to break.
The mirror shards lay scattered across the floor, no longer glowing, no longer whispering. Yet Rhea knew better than to trust their silence. Silence had never meant safety in this place. Silence was where things gathered strength.
Her chest rose and fell unevenly. Each breath scraped her lungs raw, as though the air itself resisted entering her body. When she tried to stand, her legs trembled violently, nearly giving out beneath her weight. Thin streams of blood followed her movements, painting faint lines across the concrete floor—fragile, temporary proof that she was still real.
"She remembers."
The Collector's words echoed again, slow and deliberate, embedding themselves deeper with every repetition. They didn't fade like sound should. They lingered, pressing against her thoughts, reshaping them.
It wasn't accusation.
It wasn't triumph.
It was recognition.
Rhea pressed her back against the wall, sliding down until she was sitting again, heart pounding so hard it made her dizzy. Her pulse roared in her ears, drowning out everything else. The studio lights flickered overhead, their weak glow stretching shadows unnaturally long. Those shadows leaned inward, bending toward her as if pulled by something unseen.
She felt watched.
Not by eyes.
Not by faces.
By memory.
Every promise she had made.
Every name she had spoken.
Every reflection she had looked at and refused to forget.
Her phone lay near the overturned tripod. For several long seconds, she only stared at it. Picking it up felt dangerous—like opening another door. But isolation pressed against her chest, heavier than fear.
She reached for it.
The glass was warm against her palm, uncomfortably so, like skin that had been held too long. Notifications stacked endlessly across the screen—messages from strangers, alerts from news channels, voice notes she couldn't bring herself to open.
Every message carried the same fear, phrased in a hundred different ways.
My reflection moved.
The mirror whispered my name.
Something is breathing behind the glass.
Her throat tightened until swallowing hurt. Panic swelled in her chest, sharp and choking.
The curse hadn't ended inside the Hall of Echoes.
It had traveled outward—through screens, through stories, through people talking and watching and remembering. Through fear shared too quickly to be stopped.
To be seen.
The red recording light on her camera blinked weakly from the floor.
Still on.
Rhea's stomach dropped.
A cold realization settled into her bones.
They didn't just want escape.
They wanted witnesses.
They wanted to exist where people could look at them, name them, talk about them. They wanted attention, because attention meant life.
Her phone vibrated sharply, the sudden movement making her flinch hard enough that she nearly dropped it.
Aarav.
She answered without thinking, as if hearing a familiar voice might anchor her to something solid.
"Rhea," his voice came through immediately, strained and breathless. "You're alive. Thank God, you're alive."
Alive didn't feel accurate.
It felt borrowed.
Temporary.
"It's happening everywhere," he continued rapidly. "Mirrors cracking from the inside. People seeing faces in phone screens when they're off. Hospitals are reporting panic attacks—patients refusing to look at their own reflections. Some won't even sit near windows."
Rhea closed her eyes, her grip tightening around the phone.
"I opened the way," she whispered. "It followed me out."
A pause stretched between them, heavy and fragile. When Aarav spoke again, his voice was quieter, careful, as if afraid the wrong word might shatter something already breaking.
"Then tell me how we stop it."
Her gaze drifted toward the largest mirror shard lying near the center of the room. Unlike the others, it hadn't dulled completely. Its surface shimmered faintly, rippling like disturbed water. For a moment, she thought she saw movement beneath it—something shifting, waiting.
She felt its pull even from a distance.
"They don't exist on their own," she said slowly, choosing each word with care. "They survive through attention. Through memory. Through being seen. Every person who looks strengthens them. Every person who talks about them gives them shape."
"Then we stop people from looking," Aarav said urgently. "We shut it all down. Warnings, broadcasts—anything."
Rhea shook her head, tears blurring her vision.
"It's too late for that."
Fear had already spread faster than silence ever could.
The Collector hadn't lied. She had carried them with her—inside her voice, her thoughts, the promises she made to remember them. She had given them exactly what they needed.
"If they need an anchor," she said, barely above a whisper, "then they need someone remembered. Someone constant."
Aarav's breathing turned shallow. "Rhea… what are you saying?"
She crossed the floor slowly and picked up the shard.
It was warm in her hand. Familiar. Almost gentle, as if it recognized her. The surface reflected her face back at her—but softer, quieter, already fading at the edges.
"I can end it," she said. "But I have to be the last reflection they hold."
"No," Aarav said immediately. "There has to be another way."
She didn't answer right away.
Instead, she remembered being seven years old, standing on a small stool in front of the bathroom mirror. Her mother's hands moved carefully through her hair, braiding it slowly while Rhea watched their reflections side by side. She remembered how safe she had felt then—how solid the world seemed when someone saw you and stayed.
That was what the mirrors wanted.
To be seen.
To be held in memory.
To never disappear.
"And what does it cost?" Aarav asked quietly, already knowing the answer.
Rhea closed her eyes.
"To be forgotten."
The line went silent.
And for the first time since the curse began, Rhea felt something close to certainty.
---
To be continue....