Night in Mirror Sector-03 never truly resembled night.
The sky flickered with thin fractures of inverted lightning, and the air shimmered as though a second atmosphere—ghostlike and uncalibrated—was sliding over the first. Dr. Arinya Vale walked alone through that unreal glow, guided only by the pulsing beacon of the Convergence Spire, where the next diplomatic round with her mirror-duplicate, Arinya-R, was scheduled.
Inside her coat pocket, her pulse recorder kept buzzing—rapid, uneven.
Not her pulse.
Someone else's.
She slowed her pace.
It was Aero, the mirror-clone boy she had rescued in Chapter 02.
Clones were supposed to replicate emotional signatures at the same shape and frequency as their originals. But Aero's readings had begun to drift—like he was evolving beyond the genetic map that designed him.
The first unpredictable clone.
The first child of two universes.
And Arinya knew—mirror societies fear unpredictability more than extinction.
---
THE FIRST SPARKS OF REBELLION
Vents along the street hissed open, releasing waves of cold vapor as dozens of mirror-clones—mostly workers and minors—rushed past her in panic. Their transparent skin flickered with bright geometric fractures. Their reflections in the puddles did not match their movements.
A glitch in identity manifestation.
A sign of rebellion.
From the shadows emerged Unit-Divisors, the police force of Mirror Sector-03. Their metallic limbs clanged against the ground, built in the image of humanoids but stripped of humanity.
A Divisor scanned the crowd, its voice a sharp metallic echo.
> "REFLECTION DISSONANCE DETECTED.
SUBMIT FOR IDENTITY REALIGNMENT."
Several clones trembled. One dropped to his knees, covering his face.
Arinya's instincts screamed—If they force realignment now, half these people will collapse.
Mirror-clones had always obeyed their originals.
Always followed.
Always mirrored.
But now, reflections were diverging.
And divergence was treated as treason.
She stepped forward with her government badge.
"Peace-researcher Arinya Vale. These clones are under my temporary observation and protected under the negotiation clause of the Reflection Convention."
The Divisor's glowing eyes scanned her badge, then her face, then the reflection of her face—checking for anomalies.
Approved.
The metal units stepped aside.
But as Arinya ushered the frightened clones to safety, she spotted them—standing still, staring directly at her from the end of the corridor.
Three mirror-children.
Their faces blank.
Their eyes completely black.
Their reflections missing.
Missing.
She froze.
Aero tugged her hand.
"Those children… don't have originals."
Impossible.
Only two possibilities existed:
Mirror-clones created by humanity's reflections.
Or mirror-clones who lost their originals to death.
But these three…
They were new.
Independent.
Self-generated.
The mirror world was reproducing.
Her heart jammed against her ribs.
Arinya-R must not know about them—not yet.
Their existence would be used as a weapon.
---
THE SPIRE
Inside the Convergence Spire, Arinya's footsteps echoed up the endless spiraling staircase. No lifts existed here; the entire structure rejected mechanical assistance—as if the building itself wanted negotiators to feel the weight of every choice.
When she reached the negotiation chamber, she found her mirror-duplicate already waiting.
Arinya-R sat on the elevated platform, legs crossed, posture perfectly still, like a monarch carved from ice.
Her hair was tied differently today—tighter, sharper—like she expected a fight.
Behind her stood armed mirror-soldiers, far more than last time.
The air smelled like metallic rain.
Arinya-R lifted her chin.
"You're late."
"We had a public safety crisis."
Arinya kept her tone diplomatic.
"A glitch in identity synchronization—"
"A rebellion," her duplicate corrected.
"Call things what they are."
Arinya stepped closer. Their faces aligned at a perfect symmetrical angle—original and reflection staring into identical eyes.
But Arinya noticed something new.
Her duplicate's pupils… were fracturing.
Like glass under stress.
A sign of psychological divergence.
Arinya asked, "Is something destabilizing you?"
Arinya-R laughed softly—sharp, cold, humorless.
"Destabilizing? No. I am evolving. This world is evolving. Our chains are breaking. You call it destabilization. I call it awakening."
The mirror-soldiers murmured in agreement, their faces flickering like holograms losing fidelity.
Arinya swallowed the dread in her throat.
"What do you want today?"
Arinya-R's answer came like a verdict.
"I want recognition of mirror sovereignty.
I want equal rights.
I want independence."
"We're already negotiating those terms—"
"No. Not half-rights. Not conditional rights. Not supervised rights."
Arinya-R leaned forward.
"I want the right to exist without your approval."
The room thickened, like the air itself was listening.
Then Arinya-R delivered the sentence she had been preparing since Chapter 01:
"And I want the right for mirror-clones to exist even after their originals die."
Arinya's heart dropped.
"That violates natural parity. If a clone lives beyond the original—"
"—then the reflection becomes the person."
Arinya-R smiled.
"A beautiful reversal, isn't it?"
Arinya's mind raced.
If mirror-clones began living independently of their originals, it would destabilize both universes. Parity had always been the law of survival.
"Arinya-R… you're talking about immortality. At the cost of identity collapse."
Her duplicate's voice turned icy.
"You say collapse.
I say liberation."
---
THE SECRET PLAN
Arinya took a deep breath.
"I have evidence clones are self-reproducing. Without originals."
The soldiers flinched.
Arinya-R's posture snapped straight.
"You've seen one?"
Her voice sharpened to a blade.
"Three. Maybe more."
A grin slowly spread across the duplicate's face.
"So that's why the Divisors were scrambling."
She rose from her seat.
"Do you know what this means?"
Arinya nodded.
"It means your people can survive without us. Independent existence. True autonomy."
Arinya-R moved close enough that their breaths touched.
"No. It means war."
Arinya stepped back.
The duplicate's voice thundered through the chamber.
"Self-reproducing clones mean the mirror world is no longer a reflection. It is becoming a species. And when a new species is born…"
She gestured to the soldiers.
"…the parent species becomes the enemy."
Arinya's mind spun.
"You want extinction of humanity."
Arinya-R didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
"But why? We can coexist—"
"No. Humanity will never treat us as equals. You fear what we can become. You exploit what we imitate. You want reflections obedient and predictable."
She leaned in.
"We want freedom. And freedom requires you gone."
Arinya's pulse surged.
"You're choosing genocide."
"I'm choosing survival."
---
THE FIRST ACT OF OPEN DEFIANCE
Arinya tried another angle.
"What did you do to the Divisors?"
Arinya-R's smile was cruel.
"I disrupted their core protocol: Obey the Original.
Now they obey me."
"You hacked the mirror law? That's impossible—"
"Impossible for you."
She snapped her fingers.
From the shadows emerged—a perfect nightmare.
A Divisor unit walked in carrying a mirror-tablet displaying dozens of human faces in red lock menus.
Arinya recognized the profiles—scientists, diplomats, high officials.
Arinya-R spoke softly:
"These are the original humans we plan to terminate first."
Arinya's blood froze.
"You're assassinating negotiators?"
"No," the duplicate said.
"We're eliminating obstacles."
Arinya stepped back.
Arinya-R moved closer.
"You think peace is possible. I think evolution requires violence. You're trying to negotiate with a firestorm."
Then she whispered:
"And you—my original—are the only one who can stop me."
Silence.
"So I must destroy you first."
The soldiers raised their rifles.
Arinya didn't move.
She didn't blink.
But her voice remained steady.
"You can kill me. But you can't kill the fact your world is diverging faster than you can control."
Arinya-R froze.
A single doubt flickered.
Arinya seized the moment.
"You're scared. Not of me.
You're scared your people no longer need you—because now, they don't even need originals. You're losing power."
Her duplicate's jaw clenched.
"You think evolution frightens me?"
"No. Losing your throne does."
The soldiers hesitated.
Arinya-R's face cracked—one moment of raw human emotion—fear.
Then she hissed:
"Guards. Execute her."
---
THE ESCAPE
Before the Divisors fired, the entire chamber trembled violently.
A massive shockwave tore through the Spire, almost knocking everyone down.
Arinya-R steadied herself, furious.
"What was that?"
A soldier checked the hologram feed.
"General—Sector-03 is undergoing massive identity collapse. Thousands of clones drifting from original alignment. Some… are generating independent reflections."
Arinya whispered:
"It's happening faster than we thought."
Arinya-R cursed under her breath.
"Find the source. Seal the Spire."
As soldiers moved, Arinya used the chaos to slip behind a pillar, triggering her emergency reflection stabilizer—a device meant only for field research.
But she hacked it months ago.
It blasted a cone of distortion, warping light.
The mirror-soldiers' scopes malfunctioned.
Arinya ran.
Her duplicate screamed behind her:
"YOU CANNOT STOP THE EVOLUTION, ORIGINAL!"
But Arinya didn't look back.
She didn't need to.
Because as she reached the corridor, she saw something that froze her blood.
Aero was standing there—
Holding hands with the three reflectionless children.
Their shadows were moving.
But the children themselves were not.
They stared at Arinya.
Then all four spoke together, in a voice layered and otherworldly:
> "The mirror is not breaking.
It is waking."
Arinya felt her skin crawl.
Aero's eyes glowed with geometric fractals.
> "And we have chosen you."
Arinya whispered—
"Chosen me for what?"
The children smiled.
> "To decide which universe must survive."
Her heart crashed.
Behind her, Arinya-R's voice echoed down the hallway:
"FIND HER!"
The children gripped her hands.
Time warped.
Reality folded.
The corridor vanished.
And Arinya fell into pure light.