The light that guided Elara out of the Silent Trial was dim — no more than a trembling thread weaving through the suffocating dark. It clung to her skin like cold breath, flickering with each uncertain step through the endless halls of the mansion. The walls breathed around her, damp and heavy, pulsing with whispers she tried not to listen to. But the light—however fragile—was enough.
Enough to find them.
When she emerged into the central chamber, a once-familiar space now twisted by dread, the others were already there. Not together—scattered. Fractured. Pieces of a whole that no longer fit.
Dorian paced before a cracked mirror, his movements rigid, shoulders drawn tight like a wound too long ignored. Jace leaned against a support pillar, arms crossed, face unreadable save for the cold vacancy in his eyes. Harper sat slumped against the wall, hands white-knuckled and clasped tightly in her lap as though praying to a god who no longer listened. Kemi stood hunched near the ancient tablet, its screen webbed with fractures, her fingers tracing obsessive loops around broken glyphs. And Coyle... Coyle stood apart, quiet, calculating, as always. Watching. Always watching.
Elara hesitated just a heartbeat before stepping into the space. Every eye turned to her—some tired, some bitter, all wary.
She cleared her throat, voice soft, but firm. "We can't keep going like this. If we do, the Room will win. It feeds on us—on fear, distrust. We need to trust each other."
Jace scoffed immediately. "Trust?" His voice was low, tight, bitter. "After everything that's happened? After the lies, the disappearances, the things we've seen? That word's dead in here."
Harper looked up, her eyes glassy, wet with the tears she refused to let fall. "But if we don't trust..." Her voice trembled. "Then we die alone."
Dorian stopped pacing. Turned slowly, shadows clinging to his expression like ash. "Trust doesn't mean shit if it gets you killed," he growled. "That's what this place teaches. Every time you let your guard down, it costs you."
Elara met his gaze, refusing to flinch. "It costs us either way."
Kemi looked up from the tablet, her usually calm demeanor strained. "The Room... it's watching us. It doesn't need to kill us directly. It just needs us to fall apart. If the mirrors want us broken, they'll use what's already cracked."
Coyle's voice slid in like ice, precise and controlled. "The Room feeds on weakness—on doubt. Every fracture we show, it reflects and amplifies. If we break ourselves, we break the whole."
There was a beat of silence. Heavy. Oppressive.
Elara stepped further in, her boots echoing across the marble floor. She stopped in the center of them, in the eye of their storm, and let her eyes move from one to the next.
"I know none of us are who we were when we got here," she said. "This place has... changed us. Hurt us. But we have to hold together. For survival. For answers. For whatever's coming next."
Jace's gaze narrowed, jaw clenched tight. "Easy for you to say. You're the Observer. You watch. Record. You don't take the risks we do."
Elara felt the sting, sharp and immediate. But she didn't flinch. "I've taken the Trials just like you. I've walked through horrors. I've bled, and screamed, and survived. Just like you."
"But you don't tell us everything," he snapped. "No one does."
Harper stood slowly, wobbling but firm. "I'll stand with Elara. She's right. If we keep tearing each other apart, the Room doesn't need to kill us. We'll do it ourselves."
Dorian crossed his arms, eyes dark and unreadable. "I'm not throwing in with anyone. But I'm not an idiot. I'll play smart."
Kemi looked down at the tablet, the flickering symbols echoing like a heartbeat. "Then we agree on something: No more secrets. We tell each other everything we find. Everything we see."
Coyle's nod was slow, deliberate. "Transparency might be our only real weapon."
For a moment, something shifted. A tension broke, just slightly. Not healed—but a beginning. The splintered edges of trust starting to knit, however shakily. Threads of something fragile pulling them together.
But the mirrors lining the chamber pulsed.
The reflections began to flicker.
Not just mimicry, but movement. The kind that made your spine crawl. Each mirror distorted their images, showing not what was, but what could be. Elara turned her head and saw herself — dozens of versions — each whispering a different betrayal. A different failure. A different end.
One whispered: You will let them die.
Another: You already have.
A third: They'll leave you first.
She backed away instinctively, heart hammering.
The others were staring too, faces pale, eyes wide, locked to their own mirrors.
Dorian's reflection laughed at him — a cruel, bloodstained version gripping Harper's limp body.
Harper saw herself alone in a corridor, screaming for help no one gave.
Jace's reflection stood over a pile of bodies, cold-eyed, triumphant.
Kemi watched herself fail, over and over, the tablet melting into glass, data lost to a void.
And Coyle... his mirror was empty.
Just darkness.
"You see it now," Elara whispered. "This is what it wants. This is what it does."
Harper stumbled back. "Make it stop. Make it—"
"We can't," Kemi said, voice hoarse. "But we don't have to believe it."
"That's a fucking joke," Dorian snapped. "That thing showed me... I saw—"
"You saw what it wants you to see," Elara interrupted, stepping toward him. "What it needs you to believe. So it can win."
Silence fell again. A long, agonizing pause.
Then Coyle moved. Slowly. Deliberately. He turned away from the mirror. "We need to reestablish hierarchy. Structure. No more guessing. No more wandering into traps. We move in units of two. We report findings. Every four hours, we regroup."
"Who made you the leader?" Jace's voice was sharp.
"No one," Coyle said flatly. "But leadership is a void in this group. And a vacuum will kill us faster than the Room."
"Elara should lead," Harper said quickly. "She's been the only one trying to—"
"No," Elara cut in. "It's not about one of us being in charge. It's about agreement. Collective will. The Room divides. We resist that. Together."
Dorian muttered something under his breath, then nodded once. "Fine. Units of two. Information shared. But if I catch anyone sneaking off again—"
"You won't," Elara said. "Not anymore."
Kemi glanced toward a nearby corridor. "I can reroute power from the outer trial halls. Maybe light the next section. It'll help keep the illusions at bay."
Jace sighed, pushing off from the wall. "Then let's get it done before we all start hallucinating worse things."
As they began to move—slowly, cautiously—the mirrors shimmered behind them. Watching. Always watching.
Elara paused for just a second, eyes lingering on her own fractured reflection. A dozen versions of herself stared back. One smiled cruelly. Another wept. Another turned her back entirely.
She swallowed hard and turned away.
Whatever the Room was planning, it had shifted. The tension in the air wasn't just oppressive—it was expectant. Like a predator circling a wounded pack, waiting to strike when they faltered again.
But for now, they had a plan. However fragile.
The alliances formed in blood and desperation weren't unbreakable—but they were something.
And for the first time in what felt like days—or weeks—Elara felt something dangerously close to hope.
Until the last mirror flickered.
A reflection none of them noticed.
One that didn't belong to anyone in the group.
A man with eyes like pitch and a smile too wide for his face.
He watched them walk away and whispered, softly, just loud enough for the glass to carry it:
"Only one leaves."