The corridor stretched like a thin vein through the city's heart, dark and suffocating. Flickering lights threw jagged shadows along the walls, stretching long and unnatural, bending every line, every edge. The damp tang of the pipes mixed with the metallic bite of the Veins themselves. Every drip echoed, a heartbeat I didn't recognize as my own.
Drip… hum… distant metallic clang…
I paused, coat slick with rain I'd tracked in, ears straining. There was a presence, deliberate and calm, like the quiet before a blade slides free.
"You're not outside looking in," came the voice, smooth, precise. The Detective stepped from the shadows, silhouette sharp, calm. "You've been in the center the whole time."
I tilted my head, sarcasm slipping out before my mind could catch it. "Center of what? Your little morality play?"
He stepped closer, eyes reflecting the faint light like a mirror. "To see if you'd become me."
I blinked. Something in that phrasing sank into my chest. The weight of recognition of inevitability pressed down. Every calculated move, every manipulation, every trap I'd set… maybe it had all been rehearsed for me to fall into this reflection.
I laughed, but it was hollow. "Great. Another mirror. Just what I needed."
The walls seemed to pulse with the rhythm of our breathing, our movements mirrored in the faint, broken reflections cast by cracked panels. I noticed every detail—the tilt of his head, the calm patience, the almost surgical precision in his stance. I'd seen him countless times, chased him, evaded him, thought I'd outsmarted him. And yet, here he was, not just as an opponent, but as a shadow of the role I was slowly slipping into.
Drip… low hum… metallic scrape…
"You think you're free because you move," he said, voice calm, almost indulgent. "But freedom isn't about movement. It's about choice. And choice… has a cost."
I smirked, forcing the familiar sarcasm back into place. "Right. So let me guess I pay the rent on this lecture with blood?"
He didn't answer. Only the faint flicker of lights and the distant echo of the Veins responded. I could feel the weight of the truth pressing, heavy and precise: the Detective wasn't just a man standing in my path. He was a reflection of what I could become. Of what I was already becoming.
I shifted on my feet, boots scraping against wet metal. My hands itched not for a weapon, but to rearrange the pieces, to carve a space where inevitability wasn't already mapped out.
"You've been dancing on a stage you didn't know existed," he said, stepping back into the shadows. "And now you see the boards beneath your feet."
I exhaled slowly, letting the tension slide into dry amusement. My voice echoed slightly, mocking even as it trembled. "Perfect. Just what I needed. A ghostly pep talk before my inevitable collapse. Thanks, pal."
The Detective's eyes lingered for a heartbeat, then vanished into the darkness. And there I stood, staring into the faint flicker of broken reflections, realizing that the fight wasn't just outside me. It was inside. And the mirror had just cracked.