Elara's breath came in ragged bursts as the Mirror Cloak weighed down her shoulders like a living thing cold, whispering, and unrelenting. The shattered glass shards spun in the air around her, reflecting fractured fragments of her face, or was it Lyra's? She couldn't tell anymore. Each shard held a memory, a possibility, or a nightmare.
The silence of the Mirror Realm wasn't peaceful. It was suffocating a vacuum where time bent and stretched, where shadows breathed and watched. Elara was trapped inside a kaleidoscope of realities, each one twisting farther from the truth.
A voice curled inside her mind, soft and cruel.
"You are hers."
"No," Elara whispered, shaking her head. "I am not her."
But the voice seeped deeper.
"You are her. You are what remains."
Her fingers trembled as she reached toward a shard hanging closest to her. The glass was ice-cold, burning against her skin. The moment she touched it, memories exploded behind her eyes flashes of a cliff edge, screaming into a fractured sky, of bloodied hands clutching at air, and a voice begging for mercy.
"Why do you fight what you already are?" the voice hissed.
The largest shard twisted, her reflection morphing, the eyes no longer hers but wild, desperate, and merciless. The face smiled, but it was a grin filled with rage and madness.
"You'll never be free," it whispered.
Elara recoiled, chest tightening. "I'm not you."
The shard cracked like a scream, sharp and terrifying.
From the shadows, a familiar figure stepped forward, Talren, his eyes dark and unreadable, the scar across his cheek deeper than before.
"You can't do this alone," he said quietly.
Elara glared at him. "Why should I trust you? After everything you've hidden?"
Talren's voice was steady. "Because I don't want to lose you. Not like Lyra lost herself."
The shards pulsed violently, and suddenly her mind flooded with images she hadn't seen before, Talren's pain, his sacrifices, and a secret deeper than betrayal.
"Lyra didn't just shatter reality," Talren said. "She shattered time itself. Her essence is scattered across countless worlds, every choice, every life splits her into pieces."
Elara's heart hammered. "So, this cloak… it's a prison? Or a beacon?"
Talren nodded. "Both. It holds her, but it also calls her home."
Her breath caught. "Then what am I? A cage?"
"No," Talren said firmly. "You're the key."
Before she could ask how, the shards spun faster, a cyclone of broken reflections. The largest shard cracked open, revealing a blurred image a bustling street, the scent of coffee, laughter echoing faintly.
"Your real world," Talren whispered.
Elara stared, breath trembling. The memories, the sounds, the smells weren't hers, but they felt achingly real.
"Whose life am I living?" she asked, voice barely audible.
The shard shattered with a violent crash, shards stabbing toward her like frozen daggers. The cloak flared, shielding her from the onslaught, but Elara knew the battle wasn't over.
"Stay close," Talren urged. "If you lose yourself, there's no going back."
She swallowed hard as her reflection in the shards grinned one last time.
"You belong to me."
The mirror cracked open wide, swallowing them both into darkness.
....
When Elara opened her eyes, she was somewhere new.
A dimly lit room, walls lined with mirrors that twisted and warped her reflection into grotesque shapes. Each one whispered fragments of her mind, some memories hers, others alien and terrifying.
She stumbled forward, hand trailing along the glass.
Suddenly, one mirror rippled, and a shadow stepped out Lyra.
Not the ghost she expected, but alive. Her eyes burning with fury and sorrow.
"You shouldn't have come here," Lyra said, voice like ice and smoke.
Elara's heart slammed. "Why are you inside me? Why are you this?"
Lyra smiled, a slow, cruel curve of lips.
"Because I'm the fire that forged you. The ashes you walk through."
Elara shook her head. "I'm not you. I won't become you."
"Won't?" Lyra mocked. "I've already begun. Every breath you take, every thought you fight—it's me clawing from inside."
The Mirror Cloak tightened around Elara's neck, cold as death.
"You're losing."
Elara fell to her knees, struggling for control.
"I am not lost," she whispered fiercely.
"You don't get to choose," Lyra said, stepping closer. "Not here."
The mirrors around them began to crack, shards raining like deadly rain.
Suddenly, Talren appeared behind Elara.
"Focus on your memories," he urged. "Remember who you were before the cloak."
Elara closed her eyes, searching the chaotic storm inside her mind.
Then she saw it, a fragment of a life, pure and untouched. A street corner bathed in sunlight. The sound of laughter, a face she longed to recognize.
A memory not her own, but maybe hers to claim.
Lyra snarled.
"You can't hide in shadows."
Elara opened her eyes, filled with a fire not her own.
"I'm not hiding. I'm fighting."
The cloak shimmered, no longer a prison, but a weapon.
The mirrors shattered violently, and Elara felt the first taste of victory, but she knew the war was only beginning.
Because in the Mirror Realm, reality was a lie.
And every mirror held a truth darker than the last.