For a heartbeat, everything was still.
Then the room shuddered.
The lights flickered once — and the air exploded.
A roaring wind surged through the space, whipping papers, books, and dust into a violent storm. The floating letter burst apart, its pages scattering like feathers caught in a hurricane. The floor beneath them began to tremble — then crack.
"Hold on to something!" Kim shouted.
But there was nothing to hold.
The tiles split like glass. The cracks raced across the floor, glowing faintly red from below — and then the ground gave way.
They fell.
Screams echoed through the air as the world spun around them. Below, glowing red light flickered like fire.
Then they saw it — a floor of molten lava, bubbling, burning, alive.
Jet gasped. "No—no, no—this isn't real!"
"It looks real enough!" Tony yelled back, his voice breaking.
The fall seemed endless. The heat licked at their faces, and the air burned in their lungs. For the first time, every one of them thought the same thing:
This is the end.
And that's when the confessions began.
Samy, tears streaming down her cheeks, turned to Tin as they fell side by side.
"Tin! I—I have to say it before—before it's too late! I like you! I've liked you since the science fair last year!"
Tin's eyes widened. He almost forgot to scream. "Samy… I—"
He swallowed hard, shaking his head. "I'm sorry! I broke that promise, remember? I swore I'd stop bullying new kids—but I didn't. I just wanted to be someone people feared because I was scared myself!"
Jet, spinning through the air beside Tony, shouted, "You think that's bad? I—Tony, I always pretended I didn't care about you, but I did! You're stupid and reckless, but you're the reason I even joined this group!"
Tony laughed, half-sobbing. "Good thing! Because I've been trying to tell you that I love you since forever!"
Roger was quiet until she caught Kim's eye.
Her voice cracked. "When I was thirteen… there was an accident. My little brother didn't make it. I thought I saw him in this school once — I thought I was going crazy. That's why I'm not scared of ghosts anymore… I've lived with one."
Kim looked at her for a long moment. Then he spoke, calm even as the air burned around them.
"I came here for my sister," he said. "She went missing five years ago. She was last seen in this school the night before she vanished. I thought if the rumors were true, maybe I could find her."
He smiled faintly, bitterly. "And, Roger… I've liked you since fifth grade. Guess I picked the worst time to say it."
Roger gave a small, trembling laugh. "No, Kim… it's the perfect time."
The lava was seconds away now — the heat unbearable.
They all squeezed their eyes shut, waiting for the end—
—and the world changed.
The burning light below them shimmered, folding like liquid glass. The lava turned transparent, glowing blue for a moment before solidifying. They landed softly, as if the air itself had caught them, and rolled onto a floor made entirely of smooth glass.
Everything was silent.
No more heat. No more storm.
Just the reflection of six stunned faces staring up from the mirrored surface.
Roger sat up slowly, breathing hard. "We're… alive?"
Tony blinked. "I don't know how, but yeah. I think so."
They looked around. The room was gone — no walls, no ceiling, no sign of the lava. Only darkness stretching in every direction, the glass beneath them reflecting endless versions of themselves.
In the center, the diary and the letter floated again — motionless, glowing faintly.
For a long minute, none of them spoke. Then Samy gave a nervous laugh. "Well… that was… something."
Jet glanced at her reflection. "Did that really happen? Or did we all just… imagine it?"
They stood together, catching their breath — until a low, familiar chuckle filled the silence.
The voice.
The one that had watched them before.
"How touching," it whispered, echoing through the black. "Confessions before death… but death doesn't always come when you expect it."
The laughter deepened, rolling through the air like thunder. Then — a sound like cracking ice.
The mirrored floor rippled.
Reflections twisted.
And then — shattered.
Each fragment of glass began floating up, rearranging itself, forming walls, corridors — a maze made of mirrors. The glass glowed faintly blue, each panel reflecting them in distorted ways.
When the light settled, the six friends were no longer standing together.
They were in pairs.
Jet and Tony.
Samy and Tin.
Roger and Kim.
Each pair faced a long mirrored hallway.
The air was heavy.
The mirrors around them flickered — some showing their reflections… and some completely blank.
Kim reached out to touch one of the empty mirrors. His fingers met cold glass — but no reflection stared back.
Roger frowned. "Some mirrors show us. Some don't. Why?"
The voice returned, soft and close, as if whispering right behind them.
"Because not all of you are real."
The world had shattered — and then rearranged itself.
Now there were six of them, but no longer together.
Each stood inside a corridor of mirrors that stretched endlessly in both directions, the floor glimmering like frozen water.
The glass walls flickered faintly — some mirrors showing their reflections, others nothing at all, blank like open doors to nowhere.
Tony's voice echoed somewhere distant.
"Jet! Are you okay?!"
A faint reply came from far away. "I'm fine! I think— I can hear you but I can't see you!"
And then, cutting through the silence, Samy's voice rang out — loud, trembling, desperate.
"HELLO! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?!"
Her voice bounced and split, echoing around the maze until it sounded like a hundred versions of her shouting back.
For a heartbeat, there was only the echo. Then faint voices responded — Jet's, Tony's, Tin's, Roger's, and Kim's — overlapping, shaky but alive.
They couldn't see one another, but they understood now:
They were still close… trapped in the same strange space.
Roger stood beside Kim, both breathing heavily. The mirrors around them shimmered, distorting their faces — their reflections seemed older, darker, like something was watching from behind the glass.
Roger swallowed hard. "Kim… what is this place? Why does it feel like it's… alive?"
Kim's jaw tightened. "Because it probably is. Whatever this thing is, it's not just a building. It's reacting to us. To what we feel."
Roger looked at her own reflection — but the mirror didn't show her. It showed a younger version of her instead, crying, trapped behind glass.
Her chest tightened. "It's showing me… my past."
Kim turned toward her. "Roger?"
She hugged herself, voice trembling. "When I was thirteen… I lost my brother. He was only nine. We were playing near the old bridge and… I slipped. He tried to help me, and he—"
Her voice cracked. "He didn't make it. Since then, I keep hearing him call me in my dreams. I thought… maybe that's why I wasn't scared of coming here. Maybe I was used to the ghosts already."
Kim looked at her for a long moment, silent. Then he said softly, "You're stronger than you think."
Roger gave a small, shaky smile. "You too. You've been calm through everything. Why?"
He sighed, leaning against the glass wall. His reflection didn't move with him.
"I came here because of my sister. She went missing five years ago. Everyone said she ran away — but she didn't. She was last seen in this school."
Roger's eyes widened. "Your sister? The one in the photo you showed once?"
He nodded. "Yeah. She told me once that she found something strange here — a 'door between times.' The night she disappeared, she sent me a message: Don't come looking for me until you're ready."
Roger frowned. "And you think this maze… is that door?"
Kim's voice dropped to a whisper. "I think it's part of it. I planned to come here tonight, find clues, and finally bring her back. But now…" He glanced at the mirrors. "Now I think she might still be here — watching us."
Before Roger could answer, one of the mirrors beside them rippled like water.
A faint handprint appeared on its surface — small, delicate — and then vanished.
Roger took a step back. "Kim… did you see that?"
He nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing. "Yeah. And I think it's telling us… we're not done yet."
The air grew colder. The mirrors around them flickered — their reflections replaced by shifting shadows, moving shapes that whispered in voices too soft to understand.
Then, that same haunting laugh filled the maze again, rolling through every corridor.
"Secrets… fears… confessions. You gave them freely. Now let's see what truths your hearts can survive."
The mirrors pulsed with dim blue light, and one by one, paths began to form — twisting, splitting, swallowing the faint glow ahead.
Roger clenched her fists. "Guess we don't have much choice."
Kim nodded. "No choice. Just the truth — or whatever's left of it."
Together, they stepped forward into the dark glass corridor, unaware that on the other side, the other pairs — Jet and Tony, Samy and Tin — were doing the same.
And deep within the maze, something unseen moved — a presence shifting behind every reflection, waiting for the right moment to speak again.