Sora woke, but it wasn't like before.
The void wasn't cold—it was burning. Everything around her twisted like molten glass, reshaping in ways her mind could barely comprehend.
She could feel it before her eyes even opened—the wrongness. Something had cracked inside the game. Not just the recursion, but her very connection to it.
Her limbs were heavier than she remembered. But that wasn't all. Her movements felt detached—as if someone else was controlling her actions, pulling her strings.
She gasped, heart hammering, her breath catching as the air shimmered, distorted.
Before her stood a mirror, but it wasn't one she recognized.
It was alive.
The reflection that stared back at her was… wrong. It smiled. But not like she smiled. Its eyes weren't hers. The gaze was cold, predatory—too calculated.
The other Sora didn't move, but spoke.
"You have forgotten something. But I remember it all."
The distorted version of her tilted its head, watching her every twitch.
Sora stumbled back, shaking her head. "No, you're not me. You can't be."
"You're the copy, Sora. I'm the one who came first." The reflection stepped closer, and Sora's breath hitched. "And I don't think you'll remember who you really are until it's too late."
Her hand shot up to her face—trying to feel if she was real. Her fingers brushed against the mask, and a shiver ran through her spine. The Mask of the Forgotten was still tethered to her. It was the key, but also the lock. Her identity had been split, sliced between what she was, and what she had been forced to become.
She wasn't supposed to be here. She shouldn't have made it through the recursion.
The mirror-Sora reached out and touched her own face, mimicking Sora's movements, but with a mocking slowness.
"Did you think the system would let you escape? You didn't sever the thread completely. You didn't rewrite the rules. You just made yourself… another layer."
Sora flinched, tearing her eyes away from the mirror. The world was pulsing, warping—folding in on itself like a distant echo. Reality was tearing between memories, each one a faint, shredded version of what had been.
"Don't you see?" the other Sora whispered, her voice not her own. "You're nothing more than a ghost."
A sudden shock ran through her body. Rin and Matthew. She remembered them. The weight of their bond, their shared struggles, their shared pain.
But something had gone wrong. The game was changing again.
The reflection in the mirror flickered again—changing to something even less human, a shadow. A glitch. A facelessness.
"You're stuck here, Sora. You're the reflection now."
Sora staggered back, eyes wide with realization. She slammed her palm against the mirror, her chest aching.
"NO!"
She couldn't let herself be consumed again. She couldn't lose herself again.
A pulse rippled through the distorted world. For a moment, everything went silent—dark. Then, the voice returned.
"The recursion has already begun. You're just… a part of it."
Sora's eyes burned. She had to hold onto what was real. The real memories. The real connections.
"I am me. Not a reflection. Not a copy. I am Sora."
Suddenly, the distortion trembled. And the reflection broke.
The mirror shattered.
And in the cracks, Matthew and Rin's voices broke through the static, calling her name.
Sora's heart raced, her body fighting against the disorienting waves as she struggled to find herself within the hollow reality.
The system was collapsing. But so was she.
And this time, there would be no reset.