Tianmu: Eyes of Illusion

Lucas couldn't shake the feeling that he was being followed.

Not just the ordinary kind of paranoia, but something deeper—an instinct scratching at the base of his spine. He walked with his hood up, eyes darting to mirrored windows and passing shadows. But every time he turned around, the street was empty.

Something was watching him. He knew it.

When he returned to his apartment, the front door was still locked. Nothing inside seemed touched. Still, he double-checked the closets, the shower, even under the bed. Just to be sure.

He told himself he wasn't losing it. That this wasn't what his mother would call "one of those spells again."

He needed answers.

And there was still one thing he hadn't touched.

The last unopened box sat in the back of his bedroom closet, beneath old jackets and dusty shoeboxes. It was wrapped in twine, the corners softened by time. A single strip of red paper was glued to the lid—another symbol inked across it in careful brushstrokes: a square within a circle, crossed by a slanting line.

Lucas didn't know what it meant. But it felt… protective. Like a seal.

He hesitated only a moment before pulling the twine loose. The paper crumbled in his fingers.

Inside, carefully wrapped in cloth and dried lavender, lay another mirror. Larger than the first—maybe the size of a dinner plate—but thinner, impossibly light in his hands. The surface was obsidian-dark, with no reflection at all.

Etched into the back were familiar markings—trigrams from the I Ching, old Taoist celestial symbols, and at the center, a spiral labyrinth that echoed what he'd seen in his dream. His fingers brushed against the engraving, and a strange warmth spread into his palm.

Beneath the mirror was a faded envelope, heavier than paper should be. Inside was a letter, handwritten in Chinese, and a pressed object wrapped in silk.

The letter was brief:

"If you are reading this, then the Eye has opened to you.

You must learn quickly—before others sense it.

This mirror is not a tool. It is a gate.

Do not trust what you see.

Especially not your own reflection."

— Grandfather

Lucas slowly unwrapped the small silk bundle. Inside was a jade pendant—carved into the shape of an eye, its pupil a tiny spinning disc of metal. It felt heavier than it looked.

For a long moment, he just sat there, mirror in one hand, pendant in the other, the words not a tool... a gate turning over in his mind.

Then, for no reason he could explain, he hung the pendant around his neck.

And the lights dimmed.

The mirror's surface rippled—more violently than the last one. Not silk this time, but water crashing against itself. Images rose like steam.

He saw flashes.

A narrow alley lit by red lanterns.

A woman with her eyes sewn shut, whispering incantations into a bowl of blood.

An enormous black door covered in thousands of paper talismans.

A man standing in front of a wall of mirrors, all showing different versions of him—some older, some in robes, one bleeding from the eyes.

Then the images vanished.

Lucas dropped the mirror with a gasp. It didn't break—it landed like it was made of rubber instead of bronze.

He looked down at his hands. His fingertips shimmered faintly, like heatwaves in summer air.

Then he turned to the bedroom wall.

A symbol glowed there—drawn in golden light across the cracked plaster. Slowly rotating.

His breathing slowed.

This wasn't just hallucination anymore.

He was seeing through something. Through the surface of the world.

That night, Lucas stepped outside with the pendant hidden under his shirt. He walked slowly through the city, not trying to reach anywhere, just… observing.

Haleford had changed.

Or maybe it had always been like this, and now he finally saw it.

Symbols shimmered beneath neon signs, layered between cracks in the concrete. Dogs barked at nothing. People passed by, their shadows not matching their stride.

Then he saw something that stopped him cold.

A man was standing across the street, under a flickering sign for a pawn shop. Wearing a dark coat, face obscured by shadows. But Lucas knew—he was the one from before. The one watching.

The man raised a hand.

Not to wave. To beckon.

Lucas took a single step forward.

And the man vanished.

No smoke. No sound. Just gone.

But where he stood, etched faintly into the wet asphalt, was a symbol Lucas had come to dread:

An eye inside a triangle.

But this one was open.

Next chapter preview:

Chapter 4 – Sight Beyond Sight

Lucas discovers that he can manipulate what others perceive—but using the power draws attention. Dangerous attention. The first encounter with a demon-hunter ends in fire, confusion, and a psychic backlash he may not survive.