Chapter Twenty-Four: The Fracture
Day never came.
The clock on the wall was frozen at 3:07 a.m. — the same number that had haunted her in every nightmare.
Yet the nurse wished her good morning, and the window showed a gray sky with no sun.
The entire world was suspended in a moment that refused to end.
Noor sat on the small chair in the room, staring at a glass of water on the table.
The reflection in the water was not her face.
It was Niyar's.
His gray eyes watched her from the depths of the glass, then vanished whenever she blinked.
She whispered hoarsely:
"Leave me… please."
But silence answered her with the rapid pounding of her own heart.
During the therapy session, Dr. Layla sat across from her.
The same smile, the same calm — yet she wrote in the file without lifting her eyes.
"How are you feeling today, Noor?"
"Am I real?"
Layla slowly raised her head, her gaze cold.
"Why do you think you aren't?"
"Because everything repeats itself. The same words, the same light, the same footsteps in the hallway."
"These are symptoms of anxiety and dissociation."
"No. They're symptoms of lying."
Layla's hand stopped writing.
"What did you say?"
"You're not doctors… you're reflections."
Layla smiled — but her face began to crack slowly… literally.
Tiny fractures appeared around her mouth, spreading to her eyes, until her skin shattered like glass.
From between the cracks, a dull gray light seeped out.
"Do you see?" Noor cried.
"Even your faces are fake!"
She ran down the hallway.
Doors on both sides opened and closed by themselves, patients whispering with repetitive laughter:
"The reflection doesn't die… the reflection doesn't die…"
She saw her mother's face through the window of a locked room.
Her mother was smiling — but when Noor drew closer, she saw in the glass reflection that her mother had no eyes.
She screamed and collapsed to the floor, clutching her head with both hands.
"Make it stop!"
But the voice wasn't external.
It was inside her.
Her own voice.
"I'm not your voice, Noor… I'm you, the one who stayed inside."
The walls began to melt like candles.
The floor turned into liquid glass, reflecting everything.
And Noor saw herself in every direction — dozens of versions of her crying, screaming, laughing, whispering words she couldn't understand.
Then Niyar appeared among the reflections.
His face was no longer gray, but covered in a white light that shone like silver.
He spoke calmly:
"Haven't you seen the truth yet?"
"What truth?!"
"That you're not here to heal yourself… but to end yourself."
"What?"
"The mirror only takes those who want to escape. And you invited it since childhood."
He stepped closer and extended his hand.
"If you want this cycle to end, look into my eyes — and don't blink."
She did.
And in the next moment, everything shattered.
The little girl returned.
Noor at seven years old, standing before a broken mirror in a dark house.
Blood on her small hands.
Her mother's voice crying and screaming behind the door:
"Noor! Open the door!"
But the child didn't move.
She stared into the mirror, where her other self stood, smiling.
"Do you want the screaming to disappear?"
"Yes."
"Then look carefully."
And from that moment on…
Noor never truly left the mirror.
Reality returned gradually.
Noor was back in the hospital, her hands restrained, white light filling the room.
Dr. Layla spoke with a strange man holding Noor's file, saying seriously:
"She still believes her reflection is alive. Every time we try to convince her she survived the trauma, she returns to the beginning."
"And what about the name she keeps repeating?"
"Niyar? There's no one by that name in her real life."
At that moment, Noor slowly opened her eyes.
She lifted her gaze to the glass of the opposite window.
Her reflection was there — but its features were slightly different.
It was smiling with confidence.
She whispered softly:
"I am real… or maybe you're the one dreaming of me."
She smiled a cold smile.
And her reflection… blinked first.