Chapter Seventeen: The Broken World
Three days had passed since the explosion.
The apartment still carried the smell of burned glass,
and the light creeping into its corners was dim,
as if the day itself no longer wished to enter.
Nour sat near the window, staring at her hand —
which sometimes turned half-transparent.
When she touched the light, a part of her would fade for a heartbeat… then return.
She felt something inside her that didn't belong to her.
Outside, strange voices echoed through the streets.
People were talking about unbelievable things:
"My reflection… moved before I did."
"The mirror split our house in half!"
"My kids are seeing faces like ours inside the glass!"
The news spread quickly —
an entire city was fracturing under the curse of the reflection.
Mirrors no longer just reflected… they watched.
At night, Nour sat in her room, the broken mirror before her.
She tried to ignore it, but a faint voice seeped from its cracks:
"Did you miss me?"
She froze.
The voice was hers — but deeper, calmer, more honest.
"You thought you got rid of me…
but the world can't survive with only one face anymore."
Nour stepped closer to the mirror and looked in.
She saw herself — no, her reflection — standing in a dark void,
surrounded by mirrors shifting like watchful eyes.
"Everyone who looks into a mirror now… wakes one of us,"
the reflection said with a quiet smile.
"You opened the door, Nour.
The mirror is breathing again."
Somewhere far away, beyond all light,
Neyar walked through emptiness —
his footsteps echoing as if he moved inside the heart of a dead mirror.
Since the explosion, his existence had split in two.
One part trapped with Nour in the real world,
and the other wandering the void, trying to return.
"The mirror broke… but it did not die."
said a voice from the darkness.
A faceless girl emerged, her entire form made of faint white light.
"The ancient entity is waking.
And the reflections… they are feeding on those who stare too long."
Neyar lifted his head, black hair covering half his face.
"Is there a way to stop it?"
> "Yes. Only one."
She paused, then whispered:
"You must restore the mirror to its origin…
and choose who will remain inside it forever."
Back in the city, things spiraled out of control.
People started covering mirrors and windows,
shops boarded up their glass fronts,
terrified of the "delayed reflections."
Even cameras and water surfaces began showing strange movements.
Everywhere there was a reflection… another life stirred.
In Nour's home, her mother tried to keep her sanity,
but she began noticing that Nour slept with one eye open,
and sometimes talked with two overlapping voices.
That very night, she entered the room to wake her—
and what she saw froze the blood in her veins:
Nour lay sleeping on the bed.
But in the mirror across the room…
she was sitting up, staring at her with a smile.
The next day, Nour received a strange email.
The sender's name: "Neyar"
but the address was untraceable.
"The mirror is no longer a door… it has become a world.
Every reflection is alive now, searching for a face to inhabit.
If we don't close the circle, the light will die in both worlds.
Find the original mirror — the one that started all of this.
You'll find it where you first saw yourself."
Nour read the message, her heart pounding.
She remembered the old room at the end of the hallway…
and the mirror covered by the gray cloth.
She stood up, breath trembling.
"So the end… is in the beginning."
Outside, night swallowed the city whole.
Streetlights flickered unnaturally,
and every window, every car door, every shopfront
began reflecting faces that didn't match their owners.
People started disappearing one by one,
leaving behind only faint prints on the glass —
as if the mirror had quietly devoured them.
And in Nour's house,
the old mirror waited for her with patient darkness.
Deep inside it, her other self whispered with a cold smile:
"See you soon… me."