A warm family had set up a camera in front of the fireplace burning in the middle of their living room. The crackling of the flames blended with their laughter, and the house was filled with years of accumulated love. The twins, Arden and Elion, were celebrating their twentieth birthday. After twenty years spent side by side since the womb, unaware of the disasters awaiting them, they ate, joked, and enjoyed the moment together.
That night ended just as it should have. The candles were blown out, the gifts were put away, and the house fell into silence.
Some time after everyone had fallen asleep, Arden jolted awake from his first sleep as a twenty-year-old, gasping for air.
His eyes were open, but the nightmare hadn't ended. His heart felt as if it were about to tear out of his chest. He was drenched in sweat. The real problem wasn't what he had seen—he couldn't even remember it. The real problem was the voice echoing inside his head, a voice that did not belong to him.
"It's time, Arden. You should know me now."
The voice… wasn't his. It wasn't a thought either.
"I've always been here. And the real guest has always been you."
Arden sprang out of bed. He thought he had lost his mind. The explanation had to be that simple—at least, that was what Arden wanted to believe. He needed to wash his face, to pull himself together, to silence these ridiculous thoughts. He was sweating, exhausted, as if he had truly lived inside the nightmare he couldn't remember.
He rushed to the bathroom. Leaning over the sink, he turned on the faucet and splashed cold water onto his face. For a brief moment, he thought it helped. He tried to steady his breathing. Then he lifted his head.
In that instant, he couldn't even scream.
He staggered backward, lost his balance, and fell. His head slammed hard against the bathtub behind him. The impact didn't knock him unconscious, but the noise echoed through the house. A few seconds later, he heard hurried footsteps.
His family was at the bathroom door. Arden opened it in tears and told them everything.
What he had seen in the mirror… was himself. And yet, it wasn't.
When his family looked into the mirror, they saw an ordinary Arden—standing there despite his fear, his exhaustion, and the blood on his head. But what Arden saw was something entirely different: an Arden with no pupils at all, possessing an inhuman, almost divine perfection, his body drenched in blood from head to toe.
And that wasn't the worst part. There was nothing else in the mirror. No bathroom. No light. No family. Everything was gone. There was only that horrific body staring back at him from within the darkness.
His family assumed it was the result of head trauma. They went to the hospital. Arden had a deep gash on his head; it was stitched up. Given the psychological severity of what he described, he was referred to a specialist.
And so, Arden's twentieth year—one he had imagined spending with friends and new memories—seemed destined to pass in front of hospital rooms and psychologists instead.
After listening to everything her brother had been through, Elion had a different opinion than her parents. She remembered similar but not memorable incidents that her brother, whom he had known almost as closely as she had known herself for twenty years, had experienced in the past. Those memories weren't as frightening as they are now; Arden and Elion even laughed at some of them. But perhaps Arden really did possess an extra mind besides his own.
Maybe he really had gone insane.
He had always been interested in fantasy. Horror nights, stories, movies… they were all just entertainment. But what if his mind could no longer tell fiction from reality? Had a simple cinematic cliché—the "monster in the mirror"—affected him this deeply?
For six months, the same cycle continued.
Doctors. Medications. Questions. Constant supervision. He was never left alone. Yet nothing changed. Every time he looked into a mirror, that thing was still there, staring back at him from the darkness. It wouldn't stop. It wouldn't leave.
Throughout all this time, Arden had only had one supporter: her twin sister, Elion.
Elion couldn't believe her brother was going mad. In fact, she had strong reasons for this; perhaps because they were twins, Elion had been able to sense, even if only whispers, the voices Arden heard at times. The memories I mentioned about Arden and Elion laughing it off in the past were similar to these situations; they had heard something and found it funny. However, at the time, they didn't know that the sound they heard couldn't be heard by others.
Therefore, Elion had a serious conversation with her brother, telling him that the voices he heard in his head might actually have a presence, and perhaps he should try talking to them.
Eventually, Arden gave up. Or rather… he decided to respond.
"If you're not going to shut up, then listen to me," he said one night, standing in front of the mirror. "I'm starting to believe you're real. But you're wrong. This is my body. Wherever you came from, you're the guest. Stop filling my mind with your damn words. Tell me—what are you?"
Silence. Then anger.
The voice no longer whispered. It roared, vibrated, burned.
"I am the god of your gods"
Arden covered his ears, but it was useless.
"Don't worry. The body you think you possess will suffer more than all the bodies I will destroy. You will do whatever I want."
Arden couldn't breathe, but the voice kept shouting.
"Otherwise, I won't remain in the background any longer."
Arden clenched his teeth. "No," he said. "I won't believe you. Even being insane makes more sense than what you're saying. I'm still in the light."
With those words, he rejected the darkness in the mirror.
That was when the entity laughed.
"You'll be grateful for the six months I gave you," it said.
"Because what I'm about to do—everyone will see as you."
Laughter echoed in Arden's ears, as if he were standing right next to the concert speakers. Then, suddenly, the laughter stopped.
For the first time in six months—
Silence.
Arden finally felt the peace he hadn't had even in his sleep.
It lasted only one minute.
Then his body convulsed. His muscles refused to obey him. His eyes rolled back in their sockets. Blood poured from his ears, and the pain swallowed even his thoughts.
His body had become exactly what he had seen in the mirrors for the past six months.
But the mind inside that body was no longer Arden's.
The god was no longer hiding. And this god called himself Vaelor.
Arden had been put to sleep by Vaelor, awaiting the worst awakening of his life. Elion, for now, could only watch.
Vaelor said, "Now just watch, Arden. Your wretched mind is responsible for all of this."
Then, turning to Elion with Arden's gruesome body, he said, "You'll be the only one left in this house. Watch and enjoy."
- New chapter drop Thursday at 21:00 (Turkiye time) — that's 20:00 in Central Europe, 14:00 Eastern US, and 11:00 Pacific US. -