Ren's breath came in ragged, iron-sweet gasps — warmth dripping from the fresh cut over his ribs, splattering across the black glass beneath his knees. The shadows in the mirror shards drank it up, grin after grin flickering to life, teeth sharp behind the cracked reflections.
The Thorn behind his ribs pulsed raw — no hush silk to dull its bite, no frost crown to weave it shut. Just the jagged truth of him: wide open, warmth blooming ruin where hush roots once braided him soft.
"Good boy," the shadows cooed — dozens of Ren's grinning back at him from every broken pane. "You've cracked the hush. Bled the ruin clean. Now… deeper."
Ren's head tipped back — breath steaming through the cold dark that pulsed like a heartbeat around him. The blade slipped from his grip, clattering across the glass floor with a note that echoed through the endless reflections.
One shard trembled under his blood — rippling like black water until it split down the middle. Behind it, not another grin, but a door — carved in dark glass, veins of frost pulsing like veins through a mirror skin. The Thorn throbbed when his eyes met it — a soft tug in his ribs that made him flinch and laugh at once.
"A door…?" he rasped — his voice raw, real, so alive it scraped the inside of his throat. "Where does it… go?"
"Where you slipped before," hissed the shadows. They pressed closer behind the cracked pane — faces half-formed, fingers tapping the glass like claws scratching bone. "Where hush roots couldn't crown you. Where ruin never fed. Where the Pane waits — hungry."
Ren crawled closer — warmth dripping from his ribs, trailing thin red lines that glowed faint in the shadow pulse. His reflection stared back at him in the door's frost glass: wide eyes, a crooked grin split by ragged breaths, Thorn humming under pale skin like a vein that would never heal shut.
He pressed his palm to the door — the glass was cold, but behind it pulsed something warm. Not hush ruin. Not silk root. A heartbeat older than either.
The Thorn squeezed — sharp enough to make him gasp, warmth splattering across the door. It drank it up — the frost veins flaring bright as his reflection rippled, smile splitting wider.
"Feed it," the shadows moaned — a thousand Ren's whispering in his ear at once. "Bargain deeper. Crack the Pane wide. Open the Shard World until nothing hush stays whole."
Ren's breath hitched — his fingers trembling against the cold door. He could feel it hum under his palm — like bones rattling under thin ice.
"Alright," he breathed — voice low, hoarse, hungry. "Let's open it."
The Thorn pulsed — a raw snap behind his ribs — and the door shattered, shards blooming away like frost petals torn free in the dark.
Beyond it: a stairway of black glass, each step flickering with faint reflections of himself — hundreds of Ren's, each one grinning wider the deeper the shadows curled.
Ren stepped forward — bare feet cutting on broken glass, warmth trailing after him like a promise.
The Shard World waited.
Ren's foot hit the first glass step — the cut in his ribs pulsing warmth that dripped down his bare stomach, splattering the black stair in a bright smear that shimmered faint under the crackling shadows.
The Thorn behind his ribs throbbed — not soft like hush silk, not numb like ruin root, but jagged, sharp, alive. Every step he took sent a raw tremor through his bones — each heartbeat a scratch that reminded him he was open, unsealed, real.
Below him, the glass stair spiraled into darkness. The walls were shards — angled mirrors that showed pieces of him with every step. His back slick with sweat. His cut ribs gleaming bright red. His grin wide, breath steaming, eyes flicking from one reflection to the next.
"Good boy," the shadows purred — voices leaking from the cracks in the glass, fingers pressed flat to the inside of each shard. Some shapes had his face. Some had none at all. "No hush to hush you now. No frost to crown you shut. Just Thorn and warmth. Bleed the Pane deeper."
Ren's hand pressed to the cut at his chest — the Thorn's pulse a hot snarl under his palm. He felt it grind against bone, felt its promise hum: More. Deeper. Wider.
He laughed — raw and rough. The sound bounced down the spiral, echoing back from a thousand shards until it didn't sound like a single boy's laugh anymore, but a chorus of ruin threading the dark.
A mirror fragment beside the stair flickered. In it, he saw himself — but not him now. A softer Ren. Younger. Pale and wide-eyed, hair clean and clothes uncut by shards. That version lifted its hand to the glass — palm pressed flat to the other side, as if begging through a Pane he could no longer seal.
"Why do you look at me like that?" Ren rasped — voice cracked open around the laugh still stuck in his throat. "You're gone. I'm what's left."
The reflection's mouth moved — no sound, but the grin didn't match the eyes. It flickered — the Thorn pulsed sharp, a warning.
"Don't stop," hissed the shadows behind the shards. "The Pane feeds. The hush root dead. Step deeper. Descend until your Thorn blooms wide enough to drown every Pane in you."
Ren lifted his foot — the step below cracked under his heel, shards splintering outward like a frozen lake under too much weight. He didn't stop. The cut on his ribs spilled warmth faster, drip after drip marking every stair he left behind.
He glanced back once — the reflection still pressed to the mirror behind him, palm flat, eyes wide. Silent.
"Stay," he whispered — grin splitting raw as the Thorn throbbed deeper behind his ribs. "You're the piece that's scared to cut."
He turned — and stepped down again. And again. And again.
The stairs spiraled tighter — the darkness folded closer. The Thorn's pulse stitched into each breath, each heartbeat, each drop of warmth that stained the Shard World open.
Below, where the stairs vanished into black: a door flickered. No glass this time. Just shadow, stitched with veins of dull iron.
And a heartbeat pulsing from the other side.
Ren stood at the end of the spiral — feet cut raw on the last jagged step, warmth trailing behind him like a thread of red silk winding back through broken mirrors. The Thorn behind his ribs pulsed sharp, a steady, hungry grind that made every heartbeat scrape against bone.
Before him: a door of pure shadow. No glass. No frost root. No hush silk. Just dark, stitched tight with veins of dull iron that pulsed faint, like a heart trying to beat itself open from the inside.
His breath fogged in the cold that leaked around the seams — colder than the hush world's drift, but not the same kind of cold. This was the old cold — the Pane's breath. The truth no hush could crown soft.
"Good boy," the voices purred — echoes that licked the inside of his skull like frost biting nerves. "Your Thorn's wide enough now. Your warmth's deep enough now. Knock, and the Pane cracks you clean through."
Ren pressed his palm to the door — warmth smeared across the iron veins, the Thorn's pulse flaring so sharp he nearly choked on his next breath. The door shuddered under his touch, a heartbeat answering his own in a rhythm too raw to be hush ruin.
He leaned in — cheek brushing the cold shadow surface, grin wide, breath misting the iron seams.
"What are you hiding?" he rasped — voice hoarse, teeth clicking on the grin that split his laugh in half. "Another mirror? Another root to hush me shut?"
"No hush here," hissed the dark — the door's voice so low it felt like the Thorn itself was whispering through his ribs. "No root. No silk. Just the bargain you bled wide. Step through — feed the Pane what the hush crown never could."
His fingers curled tight against the iron seams — the warmth from his ribs dripping down his stomach to smear across the door's veins. The Thorn squeezed — a sudden, jagged throb that made him flinch, knees nearly buckling as the pulse scraped him open inside.
A flicker in the iron — pale eyes blooming in the black like cold lanterns behind frost glass. They blinked — slow, patient, hungry.
"Ren…"
It was his own voice — but rawer. Younger. It sounded like the first time he'd looked in the mirror and wondered if he'd ever escape the Pane's edge.
His grin split wide enough to ache. "Still clinging?" he whispered, forehead pressed to the cold door. "I'm not yours anymore. The hush is dead."
"Then come in," the shadows purred — the iron veins flaring faint red where his warmth sank deeper. "Come in and break the last piece yourself."
The door breathed. A slow pull inward, like lungs cracking open behind old ribs. The Thorn behind his chest pulsed in time, scraping every heartbeat raw.
Ren laughed — soft at first, then sharp as the cut that dripped down his belly. He pushed forward — not knocking, not asking.
He stepped through.
The shadow swallowed him whole.