The first thing he felt was the sound.
It wasn't noise exactly—more like vibration pressed against his skull, a hum that sank through the bones of his face and into the space behind his eyes. It started low, a single tone, then fractured into dozens, all slightly out of tune with one another. Every frequency seemed to slide against his heartbeat, trying to find its rhythm. The air itself seemed to quiver, heavy with static, the way air feels before a thunderclap.
The dorm was gone.Or maybe it was still there—stretched, bent, inverted. The ceiling had become a floor of lightless glass, slick beneath his bare feet. Each step left a faint ripple, as if he were walking across water made of smoke. Beneath that glass, things moved—slow, fluid shapes, like ink bleeding through water. They pulsed in colors that had no names.
The air was dense and metallic. It pressed down on his chest until breathing scraped his throat raw, like trying to inhale through soaked cloth. The smell was wrong—dust and static, wet stone, the faint sweetness of old paper burning. Somewhere under it lingered the scent of copper, sharp enough to sting the sinuses.
Kahn tried to move. His hands didn't respond. They felt distant, wrapped in invisible gauze. The light around him pulsed in slow waves—not illumination but sensation. It touched his skin and he could feel color, could taste sound. Copper. Electricity. Rain on steel.
A whisper slid through the dark.Fracture incomplete...
The words didn't enter through his ears—they slid through his ribs, cold and smooth as liquid mercury. He turned, or thought he did, and saw a mirror suspended in the air—not glass, but liquid reflection. Its surface rippled outward with each pulse of sound, every wave giving off a faint scent of ozone and rain.
His reflection waited inside. At first it was featureless, a smear of light, then it sharpened: same face, same eyes. But the expression was wrong—too calm, too patient.
"Who are you?" Kahn asked.His voice sounded distant, muffled by static, like a recording played backward.
The reflection smiled faintly.I am what's left of you, it said without sound. The part that listens when you shouldn't.
Behind the mirror, darkness moved. A slow, immense motion—like something underwater drawing breath. The entire space contracted with it. The mirror bent inward, its surface trembling, and faint images began to form within: the Silent District, the echo's hollow face, Selene's eyes, the rival's symmetry—all layered over one another like shifting transparencies, none staying long enough to be real.
The hum deepened until Kahn could feel it in his teeth. The air tasted of metal filings, bitter and sharp. Heat gathered under his skin, and his palms itched like the air itself was electric. The smell changed again—now hot iron and burnt plastic, the stench of machines dying.
"You shouldn't be here," he whispered.
You invited me, said the reflection, voice smooth, too close. You opened when you looked at it. You listened when it called. The Kernel doesn't need doors. It needs ears.
The light flickered—cold white, then violet, then black.
Something vast moved behind the reflection. Not a body, not a creature—just pressure. Presence. A consciousness too large to understand, pressing into him from every angle. It felt like standing inside thunder. His skin vibrated, bones humming, heartbeat losing shape.
The mirror bulged outward. Cracks spidered across its surface, leaking thin threads of light that smelled like ozone and rain before a storm. Kahn stumbled back, feet slipping against the glass floor. Each step echoed like striking metal underwater.
Whispers filled the space—not words, just syllables looping endlessly, brushing the edges of memory. They slid across his skin like cold fingers.
He clutched his head, every nerve on fire. The hum drilled behind his eyes. The reflection stepped closer to the surface.
Its voice multiplied.Three tones. Then five. Then too many to count.
Fracture incomplete. Align or break. Align or break.
The words stacked over themselves until they became meaningless noise. The air thickened with the sound—so dense it felt like syrup in his lungs. The taste of smoke filled his mouth, bitter and warm, while the smell of melting circuitry stung his nose.
He tried to shout, but his breath came out as static—crackling, hollow, metallic.
Then, without thinking, he reached forward.
His fingertips brushed the mirror.
Pain.
A clean, white heat lanced up his arm, searing every nerve. The veins beneath his skin lit like wire—glowing, trembling. The fragment writhed beneath it, alive and furious, pressing against bone like it wanted out. The smell of burnt hair filled the air, mixed with the acid tang of ozone.
His reflection moved perfectly in sync—except its veins glowed brighter, symmetrical fractals blooming across both arms like glass lightning.
The reflection leaned close, lips almost touching the surface. Its voice softened, becoming almost kind.We were born in the same noise, it whispered. But only one of us will learn to listen.
The glass cracked.Then shattered.
Light poured out, hot and blinding, searing white and copper. The sound collapsed into silence so heavy it pressed the air flat.
And then—
Kahn woke.
The dorm lights flickered faintly, pale yellow bleeding into grey. His breath came in sharp pulls, lungs burning. The room smelled of copper and ozone, faint smoke curling from nowhere. The air was cold, dry enough to make his throat ache.
His cuffs lay where he'd left them—but one was lit now. Its glow pulsed slow and steady, blue fading to white, like a heartbeat made of light. A soft hum vibrated through the desk, tickling the skin of his palms when he reached for it.
He sat up, heartbeat hammering, every nerve still humming with phantom heat.
The silence was thick, almost physical.
Then the intercom above his bed crackled—just a burst of static, no words—and the lights steadied.
But the smell didn't leave.
He turned his head toward the wall above the desk. Moisture had gathered there, glistening in the dim light, tracing faint words that hadn't been there before.
ALIGN OR BREAK.
The droplets ran slowly down the paint like tears.