We are not reflections

Far below the surface of the known world, in a chamber carved from blackened stone and sealed behind a hundred mirror wards, the Cult of the Glassbound gathered.

There were no doors. Only shadows.

Twelve figures stood in a perfect circle around a pool of still obsidian. Their cloaks moved even without wind, and none of them cast reflections.

All eyes—if they had eyes—were turned toward the thirteenth figure.

He stood apart. Taller. Still.

Unlike the others, his hood was down.

His skin was pale, almost translucent, like he'd been born beneath moonlight. Hair long and black, streaked with threads of mirror-silver, flowing past his shoulders. His eyes were the most unnerving—completely glassy, devoid of pupils, like perfect reflective marbles. Looking into them was like staring into your own soul—and seeing it scream.

His name was whispered only once: Lazriel.

They called him the Mirror Ascendant.

The first to bow before the Sovereign.

The last to remember the truth.

Lazriel stepped forward, the obsidian floor beneath him rippling like water.

"The seal cracked," he said, voice soft, beautiful, and absolutely wrong. "The boy remembers fragments."

A cloaked figure trembled. "It's too soon. He wasn't meant to awaken this early."

"He didn't," Lazriel corrected, tilting his head. "He broke."

A long silence.

"Echo wasn't involved?"

Lazriel smiled faintly. "No. This was born of emotion. Fear. Confusion. Pain. The boy's power is bound to what he feels—and what he's been forced to forget."

Another spoke. "Then he's vulnerable."

"He's becoming."

The twelve turned to the obsidian pool. It rippled, then stilled.

Kael's face shimmered across the surface—drenched in sweat, silver light pulsing beneath his skin, eyes wide with panic and wonder.

A cloaked voice murmured, almost reverent: "The false world trembles."

Another whispered a chant: "What casts the shadow must be real."

Lazriel's expression turned sharp. "Let it tremble. The Reflection has remembered itself. The cage cannot hold forever."

"But the humans will resist," one warned. "They believe this is the only world."

"They will beg for the Mirrorwell soon," Lazriel said softly. "When the fractures widen. When they see what lies behind the veil they call 'reality.'"

"We do not act yet," he continued. "He must not remember too fast. He must come to doubt himself. To crave clarity. That is when we offer him truth."

Another low chant passed through the circle, barely audible:

"Let the mirror swallow the sky."

And Lazriel—beautiful, terrible Lazriel—smiled.

"The Sovereign returns. And when he does... this world of glass will shatter."

***

The world didn't understand what had happened.

But it felt it.

Every city across every continent experienced the same glitch: mirrors trembling without wind, reflections moving half a second too slow. It only lasted twelve seconds.

But it was enough.

People locked themselves indoors. Schools closed. Government lines were jammed.

Every news anchor stumbled over the same lines: "We are receiving reports of a global phenomenon. Citizens are advised to stay away from reflective surfaces."

Children with mirrormarks screamed in unison.

One cult-spotter station burned itself to the ground—no trace of its operatives remained. Videos of mirrors pulling back like curtains trended before being deleted.

And then came the visions.

Kael's face.

It didn't appear on television. Not in pictures or on camera.

It appeared in their heads.

Not a dream. Not imagination.

A sudden, searing image burned into the mind of every adult over twenty and every child under ten.

A boy with mirrored eyes, trembling hands, standing between light and shadow.

And for many—it was familiar.

Like something they had been made to forget.

A boy who had once saved them. Or ruled them. Or ended them.

And among them, in a quiet apartment with blackout curtains, a teenager clutched his head and muttered:

"Isn't that... Kael?"

His best friend.

Still alive. Still in school.

But not who he used to be.

The boy on the mirror's edge.

The boy the world forgot—and was now terrified to remember.