A mirror that doesn't reflect is just glass. But a reflection that walks away? That's something else entirely.Asher's grasp on reality teeters while demons in disguise begin to circle. Some hunger for power. Others... for something far more intimate.
The city never really slept—it just changed costumes.
By day, Hollowgate draped itself in soot and apathy, dressed in crumbling concrete and blood-tinted graffiti. Sirens served as lullabies for the restless, while smoke stacks painted the sky with poison. But by night, the city became seductive. Neon lights pulsed like artificial hearts, and shadows grew legs to dance with ghosts.
Asher pulled his hood low, ducking beneath a sagging wire fence as the streetlights behind him flickered out. The mask—silent and still wrapped in cloth—sat like a stone in his bag. He could feel its hum. Like a held breath. A weight in his pocket and his mind.
Since the library, nothing had been the same.
Mirrors hissed when he passed. Reflections blinked out of sync. His own face—once familiar—now seemed like an actor he didn't trust. And then there were the whispers. Constant. Closer. He didn't know if they came from the mask, the city, or his own head anymore.
But tonight, it wasn't about the mask. Not directly.
It was about a name. A place.The Velvet Spiral.
Rumors spread fast in Hollowgate. A new club, open only at night, where nothing cost money—but everything had a price. Some called it a pleasure den. Others called it a trap. People entered drunk on lust and left… empty. And Asher had received a message scrawled in his mail slot this morning.
Just five words:"We know what you are."
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Inside The Velvet Spiral
The building didn't exist on any map.
One minute, Asher walked past condemned storefronts, blinking neon motel signs, and walls that bled from old bullet holes. The next, a staircase spiraled downward like an open wound in the sidewalk, warm air pulsing up like the breath of something sleeping below.
A woman met him at the entrance. She was statuesque, her hair tied in gold-wire braids, and her corset glittered with scales. Her smile was all wrong—too wide, too knowing. Her eyes shimmered like candlelight seen through oil.
"Asher Blackwood," she purred. "We've been waiting."
Asher narrowed his eyes. "Yeah? You got the wrong guy."
Her laugh was liquid silk. "You brought the mask. That means you're exactly who we hoped for."
The hallway that followed was red velvet and black mirrors. The smell of sandalwood and spice clung to the walls like sweat. Bodies danced, kissed, moaned—all lost in fever-dream ecstasy. But the mirrors…
They didn't match the dancers.
One showed a woman crying while her real-world self laughed. Another showed a man choking while his reflection calmly smoked a cigar.And one?
One showed Asher strangling himself—with a smile.
He looked away.
At the end of the corridor, a grand door pulsed like a living heart. It opened without touch.
Inside: a throne room cloaked in luxury and sin. Black velvet draped from the ceiling like spider silk. The throne itself was carved from obsidian and bone, rimmed with shimmering ash. And on it, lounging like a god of carnality, was a woman with midnight hair and wings of velvet flame.
She wasn't just powerful. She was designed to make power seductive.
Her eyes locked onto him instantly.
"You brought my mask," she said.
Asher's fingers twitched. "I didn't bring it for you."
The succubus stood. Her hips rolled like storm waves. Every step she took pressed against reality. The walls rippled with her movement. Asher felt dizzy.
"I know what the mask sees," she said. "And what it makes others see through you."
He stayed silent.
She stepped closer.
"I know who's watching," she whispered.
That froze him. "Who?"
Her grin turned cryptic. "A god. But not the kind you pray to. The kind that wears your soul as a glove."
Asher's breath caught. A chill licked down his spine.
She reached up—not to hurt—but to touch his face. Cold fingers brushed his jaw with reverent hunger.
"You smell like two people trying to wear the same skin," she said softly. "Do you know what pleasure really is, Asher? It's truth… freed from shame."
Before he could react, she kissed his forehead.
And the world tore open.
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The Wane
The world flipped.
Asher stood inside a mirrored version of the city. Backwards letters. Inverted moon. The sky was cracked glass. And the mask—somehow now on his face—spoke.
"Welcome to the Wane," it rasped. "Where truths rot, and secrets are kings."
The street was empty.
Then… the screams started.
He turned—and saw the mirrors.
Not walls. Not glass. People.
Each trapped inside a frame—clawing at the inside. Dozens of them. Their mouths moved in voiceless panic. Some were strangers. Some… were not.
He saw Rey, beaten and bloody. Mira, tied to a chair with books burning around her. He saw the succubus, her eyes hollow.
And himself.
Over and over.
Bleeding. Dying. Laughing.
He backed away. He needed out. He needed—
Laughter.
It came from behind.
He spun around—and there stood another him. Taller. Colder. Mask fully fused to his face. He didn't speak.
He just raised a hand.
And snapped.
Asher's eyes opened.
Back in the throne room.
Or what used to be the throne room.
Now it was… rubble.
No velvet. No succubus. No mirrors.
He stood alone in an empty lot, surrounded by graffiti and silence.
The Velvet Spiral had vanished.
Like it never existed.
[End of Chapter 26]
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Asher turned toward the street, heart thudding like a war drum. Across the street, in the reflection of a cracked window, he saw himself again.
But this version was wearing the mask.Fully.
And he was smiling.
Then—with a wink—he turned and walked away.
And this time?
The reflection didn't wait for Asher to follow.
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Chapter 27 – "The Velvet Lie"Was the succubus real, or a planted hallucination? Asher searches Hollowgate's red zone for answers, a forgotten district where pleasure turns into poison and addicts vanish by sunrise. But every question digs deeper into the mirror's game—and a new enemy waits beneath the city's skin, hungry for Asher's reflection.