Sunlight filtered through the curtains in pale strips, painting soft lines across Ethan's desk and floor. The hum of traffic outside was distant, muffled by the cool autumn air seeping through a cracked window. Everything was quiet. Normal.
Too normal.
Ethan sat on the edge of his bed, unmoving, his fingers laced together as he stared at his boots.
His apartment smelled like stale coffee and warm dust. A piece of half-burnt toast sat forgotten on the kitchen counter. The television murmured a muted morning show in the background — human voices discussing weather and traffic as if nothing in the world had ever shattered.
But something had.
He blinked, eyes drifting toward the hallway mirror. For a second, he didn't see himself. Just a silhouette. A breath held behind glass.
Then the reflection snapped back — yawning in sync, brushing its hair as he reached for his comb. Normal again.
But not forgotten.
He dressed mechanically — hoodie, faded jeans, jacket — and slung his bag over his shoulder. His phone buzzed as he stepped toward the door.
Mom:
Call me when you get a chance. Love you.
He hesitated a second longer than he used to, then tapped "Later."
Another message blinked in:
Mia:
Library today? I promise not to let you vanish into dusty oblivion.
Also, I brought snacks.
He exhaled through his nose — the faintest smile threatening his lips.
Sure. Noon?
Her reply came seconds later.
Deal. Meet by the old mythology shelf.
He slid the phone into his pocket and finally opened the door. The hallway was sunlit and empty.
But in the reflective frame of a neighbor's picture — faintly warped by the curved glass — his reflection paused for just a moment longer than he did.
Watching him go.
..................
The café was louder than usual.
Steam hissed from the espresso machine. Silverware clinked against ceramic mugs. Students filled the corner tables with laptops and half-finished essays. Ethan stood near the window, watching the way sunlight struck the silver edge of a spoon left on the counter.
His eyes drifted — to the metal napkin holder beside it. Just a slight reflection.
And in that reflection, for the briefest moment, he saw himself blink before he did.
He blinked again.
This time, it matched.
"Okay, spooky."
Mia's voice cut through the noise as she stepped beside him, carrying two paper cups and a smug grin.
"You know, for someone who begged to study indoors last semester, you look like you're about to bolt."
Ethan took the coffee she offered with a small nod.
"Didn't sleep great."
"Is that your new personality now? Brooding silence?" She arched a brow. "Because if you're going full noir detective, I need to adjust my wardrobe."
He let out a quiet laugh, the tension easing just a bit.
They claimed a window seat near the back, a familiar corner tucked between shelves of used books and a worn bulletin board cluttered with old flyers.
Ethan stirred his coffee, not because he needed to, but because it gave his hands something to do.
"How's your week been?" he asked, trying to sound normal.
"Same old," Mia said, sipping. "Weird dreams, missed alarms, existential dread. Oh—and I saw a crow dive into a mirror the other day. That's new."
He glanced up sharply.
She shrugged.
"Probably just a smudge. Or a very stupid bird. Anyway, I figured you'd show up eventually. You always do."
Her voice softened near the end, and for a moment, he felt the weight of the week lift slightly.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
"Don't thank me yet. We're still facing the mythology shelves together. That's trial by dust."
Later, on campus, Professor Halvorsen's lecture on comparative myth cycles was already underway. Ethan slipped into the back row, grateful for the dark lighting and quiet hum of academic comfort.
On the projector, the professor had highlighted a diagram: a spiral symbol surrounded by wings, claws, and a yawning void. Old world mythology. Tales of layered realms and crossover souls.
"...and of course," Halvorsen was saying, "the mirror as metaphor has always fascinated scholars. A reflection not only of appearance, but of the hidden self. And in rare accounts, a gate between what is and what might've been."
Ethan sat up a little straighter.
"These stories appear across cultures," the professor continued. "Africa. Northern Europe. Rural South America. Unrelated societies describing mirror-realms filled with beasts, angels, demons. And sometimes... echoes."
Ethan met the man's gaze when it swept the room. Halvorsen lingered for a second.
Then looked away.
After class, Ethan didn't wait. He followed the professor as he gathered his notes.
"Professor Halvorsen," he said, quieter than intended.
The man glanced up.
"Ah. Mr. Gray. I wondered when you'd stop lurking in the back row."
Ethan hesitated.
"Do you believe what you teach?"
"Which part?" Halvorsen smiled faintly. "The symbolism? The ritual poetry? The gateways to lost worlds?"
"All of it."
The professor studied him, eyes sharp despite the weariness in his posture.
Then he nodded toward his office door.
"Come in. Let's talk about the ones who never came back."
.......................
Professor Halvorsen's office smelled like old books and older paper. The blinds were drawn halfway, letting in just enough light to make the dust dance in the air.
Stacks of journals, myth anthologies, and linguistic reference volumes formed uneven towers around the perimeter. A cracked ceramic cup of half-dried tea sat forgotten behind a stack of field reports.
Halvorsen gestured toward the guest chair with a quiet grunt, then moved to a locked drawer in the lower cabinet of his desk.
"You're not the first student to ask strange questions," he said. "But you are the first who looked like they already knew the answers."
Ethan sat without a word, fingers tight in his lap.
The professor withdrew a wrapped bundle, about the size of a textbook, and carefully untied the faded cloth cover. Inside was a hardback volume bound in cracked black leather, its spine warped and its corners soft with age.
He placed it on the desk like something sacred.
"This isn't part of the university collection," he said. "Came to me from a colleague in a comparative folklore exchange decades ago. Most call it nonsense."
The cover had no title. Just a sigil: a cracked circle with jagged lines fanning outward.
Halvorsen opened it gently, revealing handwritten marginalia around printed blocks of text. The script inside was in a dozen languages—Latin, German, Arabic, Old French—and someone had annotated them all in frantic modern English.
He flipped a few pages, then tapped one.
"There. That name."
Ethan leaned forward.
Noctareal.
"Some called it the mirror world. Others, the echo realm. A place reached through ritual or trauma—or through the wrong reflection at the wrong time."
Ethan's mouth went dry. He couldn't look away.
"A handful of warrior-figures appear in accounts across cultures. Always solitary. Always unstable. And always marked by glass in their eyes or voices in their mirrors."
Ethan shifted uncomfortably. His eye pulsed—just faintly.
Halvorsen turned another page, revealing a hand-sketched diagram that looked like a compass wheel split into five shards.
"The few who claimed to survive spoke of kingdoms. Not metaphorical. Real. Structured."
He pointed as he spoke:
The Demon Throne — a realm of fire and conquest.
The Angel Citadel — light above illusion, pure but ruthless.
The Beasts' Domain — primal, territorial, ruled by instinct.
The Void Between — silence, madness, memory loss.
The Flame-Sealed Hell — deeper than fear, ruled by will alone.
"Of course," he said, sitting back, "these are legends. None of it's been confirmed. Most consider it symbolic, or the result of lucid trauma."
Ethan looked at the diagram again. One of the shards on the compass glowed faintly.
He reached toward the page.
It warmed under his hand.
Just a little.
"Do you have more?" he asked.
Halvorsen hesitated.
"If I dig, yes. But I'll need time. A week. Maybe two."
"I don't have two weeks."
The professor studied him again, longer this time.
"Then you'd better keep your mirrors clean, Mr. Gray. If any of this is real... the next time you look into one, it might look back."
.......................
Halvorsen's phone buzzed on the desk.
He frowned and stood, muttering something about a department meeting. "Stay as long as you like," he said, already halfway out the door. "Just don't let the book eat you."
The door clicked shut behind him.
Ethan leaned forward, scanning the old pages again. The ink was faded, some of the letters smudged by time or sweat. Between the legends, someone had scribbled margins full of speculation:
"They entered by lightless reflection."
"Memories leaked out through glass."
"He returned with a voice that didn't belong to him."
Then—something shifted under the page he had just turned.
He paused.
Between the spine and the next leaf was a folded piece of parchment — yellowed, brittle, nearly invisible against the old binding. He pulled it free carefully.
It crackled open.
It wasn't paper.
It was mirrorleaf — glass-thin and flexible, etched with glowing ink that pulsed faintly once exposed to air.
A map.
Rough outlines of Greyford, drawn in strange spiral geometry. Not streets, but vein-like mirror lines, converging on one central mark drawn in red.
A cathedral.
He didn't know why, but his chest tightened.
As he stared, a shimmer crossed the glass-surface of the parchment. The sigil in his eye reacted — glowing just enough for him to feel the heat behind his iris.
Then the room darkened.
Not all at once. Light flickered.
The overhead bulb hummed, dimmed, and returned.
He blinked and looked up.
Every reflective surface in the office — the glass in the cabinet, the brass of the doorknob, the window pane, even the rim of a dusty framed certificate — had fogged.
Misted over.
Except the mirror on the wall across from the desk.
That one stayed clear.
And Ethan's reflection in it...
...didn't move.
It stared at him.
Unblinking.
Expressionless.
Then, very slowly—
—it raised its hand.
And waved.
Ethan staggered back, knocking his chair against the bookcase.
The light flared again.
And the mirror returned to normal.
He stood still for several seconds, breath held tight, heart hammering in his ears.
The reflection blinked with him this time.
Everything was fine.
The office door opened.
Halvorsen stepped in, still speaking into his phone.
He paused when he saw Ethan's face.
"You all right?"
Ethan nodded stiffly, folding the map and tucking it into his jacket.
"Yeah. Just a weird feeling."
Halvorsen raised a brow but didn't press.
"Be careful what you read too closely," he said with a faint smile. "Some stories look back."