The glass stopped rippling—but Ha-rin couldn't unsee it.For one fleeting instant, the reflection had looked alive.Not just a trick of light.Not a glitch.
The mirrored Ha-rin and Jae-hyun hadn't mimicked them. They'd watched them.And smiled like people who knew something the living didn't.
She stepped closer to the window.The rain streaked down the glass, but when she wiped it, the other side didn't match—the reflection was clear, still, and bright, as though it belonged to a different weather.
"Jae-hyun…" she whispered.
He joined her, standing shoulder to shoulder. "I see it too."
Seo-jin squinted at the window, muttering, "Okay, either that's time travel, or this fog's got hallucinogens."
The boy stood on tiptoe, peering between them. "They look happy."
Ha-rin's throat tightened.The reflection showed another version of the same room—same people—but there was no boy in that world.Just her and Jae-hyun, older, sitting side by side with quiet smiles.Books scattered, warm light flickering, his arm draped around her.
"I think," she said softly, "that's us… if we'd never built Echo."
Jae-hyun stared, unreadable. "You mean if time had never broken."
Seo-jin's jaw tightened. "Alternate timelines bleeding through reflections. That's new. And terrifying."
The boy tugged Ha-rin's sleeve. "Mom, they're moving."
In the reflection, the older Ha-rin lifted her hand, pressed it against the inside of the glass—and mouthed something.
Ha-rin mirrored her instinctively, palm to palm through the cold surface.For a second, warmth passed through.
Jae-hyun leaned closer, reading the lips of his mirrored self."She's saying… 'You're almost out of time.'"
Seo-jin threw up his hands. "Oh, great. I was wondering when we'd hit the cryptic-warning portion of the day."
The mirrored versions leaned forward again—both of them speaking in perfect sync this time.
"The Last Twelve Minutes will begin when the suns overlap."
Ha-rin frowned. "But we destroyed the second sun."
Jae-hyun's voice dropped. "Then it's coming from inside Echo."
The reflection flickered once.Then twice.Then fractured—twelve smaller versions of the same image appearing across the glass like shards of reality, each showing a different version of them:
In one, Jae-hyun was gone and she stood alone, holding the red thread.
In another, the boy was older, standing beside Seo-jin.
In another still, Ha-rin herself had turned silver-eyed, her hands glowing like light.
She stumbled back. "No. No, this isn't real."
Jae-hyun reached for her. "It's all real. Just… not all at once."
The mirrors whispered.Their voices layered, overlapping into one haunting sentence:
"Find the clock that dreams backward."
Then, silence.
The glass went dark.Their own reflections returned—haunted, pale, real again.
Seo-jin was the first to break it."So… we're being given homework by our future selves. Great. Do we get extra credit if we survive?"
Ha-rin didn't answer. She was still staring at her reflection, heart racing, words echoing in her mind.Find the clock that dreams backward.
She turned to Jae-hyun. "There was one more clock we didn't destroy."
He frowned. "The one from the lab."
She nodded. "The prototype our parents used to calibrate the first field simulation. It's the only one built to count backward in real time."
Seo-jin blinked. "That thing? I thought it burned with the lab."
Ha-rin met his gaze. "Apparently not."
The boy tugged her sleeve. "Mom, the reflection's still watching."
She turned sharply.The mirrored window had gone dark again—except for one faint light, like a candle flame burning behind the glass.
As they watched, a shape slowly formed inside that faint light.A small, silver pocket watch, spinning in midair.
And then, a voice—not from outside or inside, but from the space between.
Tick backward… to move forward.
The flame vanished.
Ha-rin exhaled shakily. "It's calling us back to the city."
Jae-hyun looked up sharply. "Luma Labs."
Seo-jin groaned. "Oh, fantastic. We're going back to the place that literally invented trauma."
Ha-rin smiled weakly. "You can stay behind if you want."
"Not a chance," he said. "My PhD in bad decisions compels me."
As they packed to leave, Ha-rin caught Jae-hyun's wrist again.The glow beneath his skin had dimmed, but faint clockwork patterns still shimmered when she touched him.
"You're changing more," she whispered.
He looked at her gently. "So are you."
Her hand lingered. "Promise me something."
He tilted his head. "Anything."
"When this ends… and we're given another version of our life to live… promise we choose the one where we're ordinary."
He smiled faintly. "If I'm with you, I'll take ordinary."
Seo-jin groaned from the doorway. "If you two are done making the apocalypse sound romantic, can we maybe leave before time restarts itself?"
Ha-rin laughed softly, wiping her eyes. "Let's go before the suns get any ideas."
They stepped outside.The mist had lifted.The world looked peaceful again—almost too peaceful.
The boy held Ha-rin's hand, the red thread between them glowing faintly.He looked up at the single sun overhead. "Mom, if there's another one hiding, how will we know?"
She squeezed his fingers. "We'll feel it."
And as if in answer, a second shadow bloomed briefly across the ground beside theirs—there for only a second,but unmistakably real.