Leif stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned toward her, adopting a listening posture.
She didn't look at him. She continued walking a couple of steps before stopping as well, her gaze lost on a closed door.
"Our mother was pregnant with twins," she said to the silence. "But when I was born, something... was wrong. A deformity. Our father is a man obsessed with perfection. He saw what I was and considered me a disgrace, and that very night... he abandoned me."
"I died, of course. But resentment kept me trapped in the mirrors. For years, all I could do was watch... Watch my sister have the life that was supposed to be mine.... See our father destroy her. See others bully her. See her... shrink."
She paused, and her voice dropped a tone, becoming more personal.
"Until one day, she saw me. She could see me through the glass. She was scared, sure, but she didn't scream. We started to... talk. I told her everything. She felt pity for me. Worse, she felt guilt."
"So you made a deal...," Leif intervened.
The corner of Airam's lips curved into something that wasn't a smile. "It was her idea. She said she was tired. She didn't want to fight anymore and begged me to take her place.... To do all the things she didn't dare to do. She said I could have her life... and she could finally rest. Hide here and have some peace."
Leif nodded slowly, processing it, "So that's it. The personality change, the aggression. You're her twin..."
"..."
She stared intently at him for two long seconds, the trace of her smile disappearing. Suddenly, she let out a dry chuckle.
"Leif, seriously, don't go into acting."
She said it mercilessly, and Leif's confidence wavered.
"Your acting is worse than the male lead in the drama club. You already knew something was wrong from the start, didn't you?"
Caught, Leif could only let out a sigh, "Was it that obvious?"
"Your gaze," Airam said, taking a step toward him, her voice dropping to an accusing whisper, "It's too aggressive. You don't look at Maria like a partner... you look at her like a hunter looks at prey—"
!
Just as the words settled between them, an extreme cold, deeper than the place itself, burst into the hallway, not from the front, but from behind.
The shadow in the main mirror, at the end of the lobby, had inflated. It was no longer a smudge; it had transformed into a gigantic black claw, made of countless human faces, that lunged at them, aiming directly at Airam's back.
"Watch out!"
The shout was almost an afterthought, because Leif reacted before the sound finished forming.
His eyes shone with a light, and a colossal, invisible force erupted from him, not as an explosion, but as a sudden pressurization of the air.
The gigantic phantasmal claw, lunging with momentum capable of knocking down a building, stopped dead less than a foot from Airam's back.
The air around it warped, and the claw was immobilized, trembling with impotent fury against a barrier it couldn't see. Sharp, furious shrieks emanated from the mass, and the entire mirror world began to shake with its rage.
"Is that all you've got?" Leif turned to look at it with a smile of pure contempt etched on his face.
Slowly, as if he were in no hurry, he raised his right hand and opened his five fingers toward the writhing shadow.
A bluish-white light, so bright it hurt to look at, burst from his palm, becoming a miniature sun in the gloom.
!
For the shadow, that light was not a simple deterrent; it was the worst venom.
The light did not form bonds but spread like a liquid, adhering to and enveloping the creature, squeezing and burning simultaneously.
"AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
An inhuman shriek, a soul-tearing sound, echoed throughout the space.
Trapped by telekinesis and incinerated by the holy light, the demon could do nothing but watch its essence decompose.
Black smoke boiled from its form, and the countless faces of agony that composed its body began to dissolve, their features softening into something akin to peace as they vanished.
The demon roared and cursed, but its threats were drowned out by the crackling of the light.
"..."
Finally, the screams choked and ceased.
The enormous mass of shadows was completely erased, leaving no trace of resentment. In the air, where the center of the creature had been, a rhomboid crystal the size of a fist, brilliant, remained suspended for a moment before beginning to fall slowly.
Leif reached out and caught it easily.
The crystal was cold to the touch, with the texture of the purest glass. He weighed it in his palm for a second, then looked at Airam and shrugged.
"Well, case closed. Now the question is, how do we get out of here?"
But Airam's gaze was no longer on him, nor on the exit. It was fixed on the crystal he held. Her breathing became shallow but rapid, and her eyes shone with a raw, naked desire he had not seen in her before.
She raised her head, her voice trembling with an emotion she could not suppress, "L-Let me absorb it."
"Absorb it?" Leif's question was skeptical, but there was a hint of curiosity in it.
"Yes!" Airam's voice became hard, vibrating with sudden need. "If I absorb it, not only will we be able to get out... I'll be able to control this. I'll be able to enter and leave any mirror at will, untethered."
Leif saw the fire burning in her eyes, recognizing the pure ambition behind her words. It wasn't just the key to their freedom; it was the chance to claim a power she had never had.
Without a second of hesitation, he tossed her the crystal.
"Then what are you waiting for?"
Airam caught it with a swift motion.
The crystal was icy to the touch, but it pulsed in her palm like a living heart, emitting an unnatural glow. Her eyes were fixed on it, a look of ravenous desire she no longer bothered to hide.
Leif simply crossed his arms and leaned against the wall that was still standing, observing her calmly.
"Aren't you afraid I'll lose control?" Airam looked up, her burning gaze fixed on his.
"Afraid?" Leif laughed, "Frankly, my only fear is that this won't be interesting enough. And hey..." He paused, his smile growing sharper. "Even if you crash and burn, I'll be the one to drag you back from the abyss. Count on it."
Airam's heart gave a painful leap and a blush spread across her face.
She quickly looked away, shaking her head to clear it. There was nothing more to say. Her expression hardened, and the fingers holding the crystal closed with a crushing force.
Crack
The crystal shattered in her hand, not into fragments, but into a thousand points of light. These flashes did not scatter, but as if attracted by an irresistible magnet, they changed direction in the air and rushed like a luminous torrent directly toward Airam's chest.
"Agh—!"
A strangled cry of pleasure surged from her as a vast energy hit her like a freight train.
Her body arched, trembling violently as that force tried to tear her soul apart. She clenched her teeth so hard they clicked, and her eyes turned an absolute black.
In the same instant, the mirror world disintegrated. The floor opened up beneath their feet in deep cracks, pieces of the walls peeled off like husks, and the spectral flames illuminating the place flickered, threatening to extinguish and plunge them into nothingness.
The demon's illusory world, now without its core, was collapsing upon itself.
Leif remained in his place, firm as a mountain while a telekinetic barrier glowed around him, diverting the falling debris and creating a small island of calm in the chaos.
He watched Airam, who was trembling and writhing at the epicenter of the power storm, and a genuine look of approval shone in his eyes.
This girl's willpower was much more formidable than he had imagined.
Airam's body lifted from the crumbling floor, and her long wavy hair floated around her, weightless, as the aura emanating from her vibrated violently.
Finally, as if the universe held its breath, all that chaotic light collapsed inward and concentrated inside her.
The world went into absolute silence.
Airam slowly descended, her feet brushing the cracked floor without a sound, and when she opened her eyes, her pupils were no longer simply dark; they seemed to reflect a magnificent cosmos composed of infinite crystal surfaces.
She raised her pale hand, observing something new, and then, gently closed her fist.
Crash
On the other side, a full-length mirror instantly pulverized, turning into a cloud of glass dust that vanished before hitting the floor.
She had succeeded.
She was no longer a ghost tied to a single thicket, but the mistress of the nexus.
"How do you feel?" Leif asked, breaking the reverent silence.
"Better than ever," the corner of her lips curved into a smile of unrestrained confidence. She turned to look at him, her eyes sparkling with dangerous mischief.
"But this place is falling apart. We have to go. Don't let go of me."
Before he could answer, her hand closed over Leif's arm, and she simply leaped toward the depths of the void opening up where there had once been walls.
The scenes around them blurred into a dizzying tunnel of speed, a kaleidoscope of realities where mirror fragments zipped past like meteorites.
Leif offered no resistance, letting her lead him, observing with genuine interest the peculiar, nauseating sensation of traversing the fabric of spacetime.
"Where are we going, exactly?" he shouted over the noise of the implosion.
"Home!"
In front of them, a single mirror appeared in the nothingness and through it, they could see a cozy room, flooded with sunlight.
It was their exit.
Airam did not slow down, and with her grip still firm on him, she launched headlong toward the reflective surface.
The transition was a strange and refreshing sensation, like running through a curtain of cold water on a hot day.
A second later, gravity reclaimed them. The world spun violently and they fell from the air, a tangle of arms and legs that crashed onto a soft rug.
Leif landed on his back, the impact knocked the air out of him, but it was the inertia that threw her directly onto him.
In that instant, the world stopped.
Due to the force of the fall, she was sprawled on top of him, her hands resting on either side of his chest to steady herself, effectively pinning him down.
Their bodies were completely pressed together, intertwined in a posture that erased any distance.
"..."
Leif remained absolutely still. He could still smell that residual cold from the mirror world, still trapped in her hair, mixed with her own scent.
He could feel the soft pressure of her body on his and the beat of her heart, a fast, loud drumming that hammered against his own chest.
Airam didn't move either.
She had landed straddling him, and the panic of the collapse faded, replaced by a sudden awareness.
With her head tilted, she found herself face-to-face with Leif's smiling eyes. He didn't look surprised, or uncomfortable; he watched her with an amusement that completely destabilized her.
It was the first time she had been so close to anyone... close enough to see the exact pattern of color in his irises and count his eyelashes.
The air in the quiet room suddenly felt thick, charged with a silent electricity that had nothing to do with demons, and she felt a heat that wasn't hers spreading across her skin.
In that sudden silence, so dense that the fast, erratic beat of their hearts seemed to be the only sound in the room, a voice filled with disbelief cut the air.
"What are you... doing!?"
The question, laden with trembling hesitation, hit both their ears with the force of thunder.
Leif and Airam turned to stone.
Very, very slowly, with an almost comical rigidity, both turned their heads in unison toward the enormous mirror they had emerged from.
In the reflection, the pale, delicate face of the true Maria had appeared with perfect clarity. Her eyes were wide, fixed on them, flooded with a paralyzing mixture of shock, absolute confusion, and a pang of pain that was impossible to hide.
There she was, the original owner of that body, watching helplessly from her prison as her "sister" was intimately on top of Leif. Her lips trembled visibly, unable to form a second word.
"Uh..."
Even Leif, whose confidence seemed bulletproof, felt an icy chill run down the back of his neck in that instant.
________
Time: If you're craving more (and I know you are!), I have just what you need. On my Patreon, you'll find exclusive chapters. Join our community and be the first to discover what happens next!
👉 [patreon.com/Athome790]
Your support fuels me. Thank you for the support! 💖