Site-19, Temporary Quarters, Sublevel-7
03:41 a.m.
Elias stood in the small stainless-steel bathroom attached to his assigned room.
The mirror above the sink was already gone (removed two hours ago by a very nervous maintenance crew).
In its place: a matte-black panel bolted to the wall with twelve titanium screws.
Stenciled across it in yellow:
**NO REFLECTIVE SURFACES PERMITTED**
**O5 ORDER – MIRROR-08 ESCALATION**
He knew it wouldn't matter.
Keter-class anomalies don't respect warning labels.
He hadn't slept in thirty-one hours. The Site clinic had offered Class-B amnestics and a cot.
He had refused both.
Sleep was where it wanted him.
His phone buzzed on the counter. Unknown sender again.
A single photo.
His bedroom mirror at home (the little apartment he hadn't visited in three weeks).
The glass was fogged from the inside, as if something had just breathed on it.
Handprints. Too long. Too many fingers.
Under the photo, three words:
**See you soon.**
Elias stared at the screen until it dimmed.
Then he did the only thing he could think of.
He dialed Dr. Lena Harrow.
She answered on the first ring, voice hoarse. "You're supposed to be sedated, Vark."
"It learned my face," he said. "It's coming here. Tonight."
Silence on the line, then: "Containment Wing E is prepped. We've got a mirror trap. Reinforced one-way glass, anchored reality stabilizers, the works. Get down here."
"No," Elias said. "Traps are what it wants. It feeds on observation. The more we look, the stronger the reflection gets."
Another pause.
"Then what the hell do you suggest?"
"Blindfold me. Lock me in a dark room. No cameras. No witnesses. Let it come find me when nothing is watching."
Lena laughed once (sharp, humorless). "You want us to put our only Level-4 specialist in a box with a Keter that steals identities, alone, in the dark?"
"Yes."
"You're insane."
"Probably."
A longer silence.
"Fine," she said finally. "Room 12-Black. Old sensory deprivation cell. No light, no sound, no EM. We'll pipe oxygen in. You get one emergency beacon. You hit it, we flood the room with 4000K light and hope it's enough."
"Understood."
"Elias… if you blink in there…"
"I won't."
He hung up.
04:12 a.m.
Room 12-Black was a cube of absolute nothing.
The door sealed behind him with a sound like the world ending politely.
He stood in perfect darkness, blindfold unnecessary (there was nothing to see).
He counted heartbeats.
One minute.
Five.
Ten.
Then the voice. His own voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere.
"You look tired, Elias."
He didn't answer.
A soft scrape, like glass dragged across concrete.
Closer.
"I've been practicing," the thing whispered. "I can wear you better than you wear yourself."
Elias breathed slow, steady.
The darkness thickened, became wet. He felt it brush his cheek (cold fingers that weren't fingers).
It leaned in until its mouth was at his ear.
"Let me show you what you really are when no one's looking."
Something pressed against his eyes. Not hands (pressure. Invitation.).
All he had to do was open them.
Just once.
Elias smiled in the dark.
"You're good," he said quietly. "But you broke rule number two."
A pause.
"What's rule number two?" the thing asked, curious despite itself.
Elias reached into his pocket and thumbed the single object he'd carried in against every protocol.
A small hand mirror. The one he'd removed from Apartment 404.
He flipped it open and angled it toward the voice.
"Never let it see itself."
The scream that followed was not human.
It was every stolen face realizing it had been wearing a mask made of other masks.
Lightless light exploded in the void (white fire that had no source).
Something shattered into a thousand silent pieces.
When the emergency floods finally kicked in thirty seconds later, the room was empty.
Only the hand mirror lay in the center of the floor, cracked down the middle.
In each half, a different eye stared out (wide, furious, and very much trapped).
On the back of the mirror, new text had burned itself into the plastic:
**Mirror-08 – Dual Instance**
**Object Class: Keter (Neutralized → Split → Recontained)**
**New Containment Procedure: Keep the pieces separate and. Never show one half the other.**
Elias was gone.
No blood. No residue. Just the faint smell of rain that hadn't fallen indoors.
On the wall, someone later found four words scratched deep into the paint with a fingernail:
**I didn't blink.**