Moreno's Glass City – The Mirror of Reflections
(A journey through a city that forces you to confront your deepest truth—not as you see it, but as you deny it)
Moreno was no ordinary city. It wasn't a city in the literal sense but a maze of glass—streets floating in midair, transparent towers, and air so pure it weighed heavily on the lungs. Everything appeared still, yet the stillness was like old wounds: they didn't bleed but never healed.
The three—Rayne, Lima, and Niko—arrived through a curved, floating gateway in the void, crafted by time, not geography. The ground beneath their feet was solid but transparent, revealing what lay below—and beneath it, nothing but their own reflections. Not as they were, but as they had been… or as they feared to be.
Niko gazed at the ground and said,"It's like we're walking on memories made of glass."
Rayne whispered, his voice heavy with doubt,"Or on ourselves… before we became who we are."
Lima said nothing. She stared at her reflection—a face that was not quite hers. Her features seemed longer, her hair untamed, her eyes avoiding direct contact. The reflection was ashamed of her.
In the heart of the city
The buildings did not house people—they watched. Every wall displayed a strip of images—not art, but glimpses of the past, memories. Some were theirs… others belonged to unknown versions of themselves from parallel times.
Rayne stood before a transparent building shimmering as if light itself feared to touch it. On the wall appeared a scene from his childhood: a door slightly ajar, creeping darkness, a trembling child. It was Rayne, at seven years old, hiding behind the door, watching his brother be killed without moving. He wanted to scream, to run, but his legs didn't move then… nor now.
Rayne raised his hand, touching the glass. A warmth spread across his skin as if the past were still alive—pulsing… judging.
He whispered,"Why didn't I move?"
A voice came from behind him—his brother's voice:"Because you were afraid. And I died because you weren't ready."
Rayne slowly turned, but there was no one. Only his reflection… and a breaking heart.
Driven by an unknown inner voice, Lima took a narrow corridor lined with mirrors stretching into infinity. Each mirror reflected her childhood, but each image bore a small difference: once with a tearful eye, once with a broken smile, once bearing wounds that never actually existed.
She stopped suddenly when she saw a familiar face in one of the mirrors—her sister, Talia.
"Talia?" Lima gasped, catching her breath like a drowning person resurfacing.
The reflection didn't answer but began to move. Talia's eyes were full of unspoken blame, her lips trembling, as if about to cry—or accuse.
Lima reached out to touch the glass and whispered,"I'm sorry… I didn't know that day would be the end."
But as her hand touched the glass, it started to crack. From behind the reflection emerged a long shadow, stretching like smoke and wrapping around Lima's body. The ground beneath her melted, as if losing its hold, plunging her into a merciless sea of reflections.
In the whirl of hallucinations, she heard her sister's voice:"You ran away and left me… don't say you forgot."
Meanwhile, Niko's steps led him to a building resembling a museum, but instead of treasures, it held copies of his past, arranged like confession panels. He saw himself as a child, then a teenager stealing, then a young man imprisoned, and then… something else.
At the end of the hall was a sealed glass room. Inside sat a figure exactly like him. The same tattoo on the neck. The same scar above the eyebrow. But the eyes… were different—cold and deadly.
The "other Niko" raised his head and smiled."I thought you would never come."
Niko approached slowly and asked,"Who… are you?"
The other stood and replied,"I am the one who never abandoned the darkness. I am the one who never sought redemption."
In the Lower Depths of Moreno
Rayne descended a spiral staircase made entirely of glass. With every step, he felt himself sinking deeper—not into the city, but into the very core of his own being.
Below, he found a circular chamber. At its center stood a giant glass clock, frozen in time. Its hands were still, yet it emitted a faint heartbeat—like the pulse of his own heart when gripped by fear.
From the shadows, his brother's ghost appeared once again—not as a memory, but as a judge.
"How many times have I seen you stand still? How many times did I wish you would reach out?" the ghost asked.
Rayne's voice was hoarse as he replied,"I was just a child… I didn't understand."
The ghost stepped closer, fingers touching Rayne's heart, causing his body to tremble.
"But now you are a man… yet you still run."
Then the ghost vanished. The clock shattered, glass shards flying in every direction, leaving Rayne bleeding from his hand—and crying for the first time in years.
At the Heart of the City
The three reunited before a massive building resembling a broken palace—the Hall of Mirrors.
"Every wall reflects the past, every floor shows the future, and every ceiling displays possibilities that never happened."
They entered together, but as soon as they took their first steps inside, the floor beneath them split and fractured. The mirrors warped and distorted, each pulling them into separate glass rooms—as if the place itself chose a personal battle for each.
Lima found herself first in a dark wing. She tread cautiously, as if the glass floor beneath her might collapse under the weight of memories. Inside, she faced a shadowed version of herself—tearful, somber, holding the same silk scarf their father had used to strangle Talia. Behind this figure, her sister's reflection smiled—not with joy, but with a mysterious forgiveness, as if awaiting the final confession.
Lima stepped forward toward the figure, tears welling in her eyes.
"Forgive me…" she whispered. "I cannot live without this regret."
Slowly, with trembling hands, she pulled the scarf around the other's neck—just as their father had done one dark night. But this time it was not a crime—it was a trial.
Strangely, the figure did not resist. She stood still, eyes moist, gazing into Lima's with no hatred—only complete surrender, as if saying, "The time has come."
With each twist of the scarf, Lima felt the pain transferring from her hands to her heart. She was strangling her past, killing the guilt—but the figure smiled in her final moments, as if grateful.
She quietly choked… then faded like a light dissolving in still water. No screams, no struggle—only a silence akin to forgiveness.
In the next room, Niko faced his shadow—a perfect double, but with eyes cold as a blade, glaring beneath a lowered brow.
"I am not you," Niko said, his voice trembling with fear and resolve.
The shadow smiled and stepped forward.
"No, I am the part of you you never killed—and never will."
A fierce battle erupted. Every blow echoed through the glass; every clash reverberated like a scream of memory. It was not just a fight between bodies but between consciences—a struggle between what Niko wanted to forget and the whispers of his past in the dark.
Niko dodged, attacked, and retreated. With every move, the shadow's insight grew sharper, as if knowing every weakness inside him.
"You fear—not me, but that you might have become me if circumstances changed."
"You lie to yourself, convincing yourself you've moved on while everything inside still bleeds."
Niko hesitated. He raised his fist for the final strike—but could not bring himself to strike.
His hand trembled. His arm felt heavy—weighted not by bones but by guilt.
Inside him, a voice that always whispered strength shattered, making way for another, more fragile:
"If I kill him… have I killed myself? Or only the man I might have been?"
He was stuck. Neither victor nor vanquished. Just frozen.
The shadow raised its fist, ready to strike—but suddenly the glass wall beside them shattered. Lima burst into the room, her hands still marked by the previous chamber, her face set with unyielding determination.
Without hesitation, she plunged a glass dagger into the shadow Niko's chest.
Time froze.
The shadow fell, breaking into tiny shards of black light.
Niko remained standing, speechless.
He did not feel victorious—only ashamed.
He looked at Lima, at the blood dripping from her hands, the resolve in her eyes, and the tremble after seconds, as if she had lifted from him a burden he could never carry.
He slowly approached and whispered,"I was supposed to do it…"
Lima shook her head."No. You would have kept him alive inside you. But I have seen enough shadows to know when it's time to end them."
Niko looked at the scattered shards of his shadow, and at his own reflection on the broken floor. He saw himself broken—but for the first time, he was not afraid of what he saw.
"Maybe we don't kill our shadows with one strike…""But we begin when we dare to see them whole, then let another witness us."
In that moment, Niko realized he wasn't weak—he was just alone facing himself.
And now, he was not alone.
At the Other End of the Hall
Rayne stopped before a long mirror, isolated from the rest. It did not just reflect him—it showed a scene from a past buried deep in his chest, yet whispered to him every night.
The child in the reflection was not Rayne…but his older brother.The boy he had seen killed 28 years ago, while he, a small child then, hid trembling behind a door, unable to scream or move.
His brother appeared in the mirror just as on that day—standing, looking at him with a calm face and tearful eyes. No anger, just a question suspended in time.
The brother's whisper came—not heard but felt:"You were there… you saw me… and did nothing."
Rayne froze. His hands trembled.
This was no reflection. It was not a hallucination.It was the echo of an old guilt… now incarnate.
He slowly approached the glass, tears filling his eyes:
"Forgive me… I didn't know how to move. I was a child… but I take all the blame."
The brother did not answer, did not smile—only gave a long look, then turned his back and began fading into the depths of the reflection, disappearing quietly as if sinking into a realm Rayne could never reach.
In his place, a small handprint remained on the glass… and a drop of blood—a permanent scar, telling him:
"Forgetting is impossible… but forgiveness begins when you admit."
At the moment the last reflection shattered, the glass beneath their feet cracked. The walls trembled as if the entire city had decided to confess too. Then, with a sound like the wail of a breaking mirror, Moreno's Glass City began to collapse.
The City Began to Collapse
The glass towers shattered. The mirrors shrank, then exploded into emptiness. The sky filled with fractures of light, and the air grew heavy—like the weight of truth after a long lie.
Rayne pulled Lima close, while Niko leaned on a broken glass cane. They sprinted through the rubble toward an opening on the horizon, like a retracting eyelid.
Behind them, Moreno City sank into itself, as if it had never existed.
The three sat out in the open, breathing slowly, hearts burdened by the confrontation.
Niko, gripping his wounded shoulder, said,"What were we caught in?"
Rayne answered, his voice rough,"Deep inside ourselves… where we dare not look."
Lima gazed at the sky slowly regaining its blue hue and murmured,"The problem isn't the past… but its mirror."
A long silence followed.
Yet within them, the old voices began to fade. A new echo was born.
For in crossing this city, they had not fled—they had faced themselves.And no one who faces themselves remains the same.
Moments passed without words, only breaths rising like steam from wounds not yet healed, but no longer bleeding.
In their eyes was a new gleam—a gleam born not of victory or defeat, but of acknowledgment.
Acknowledgment that a fracture is not an end, but the start of another voice.
Rayne was the first to rise, brushing dust off his coat, then turning to the path stretching among the stones, as if charting a new direction.
He said quietly,"Here something ends… and there, something waits for us to begin."
Lima rose after him, then Niko, their steps still heavy but steadier.
Behind them, there was no city, not even ruins.
Only empty land… and a clear sky, as if the glass above had melted away, leaving truth floating unblemished.
The three walked silently under a soft sunset glow, each knowing:The reflections they had seen would never erase… but would no longer lead them.
And on the horizon… awaited a new city.Perhaps less glassy.But more honest.
End of Chapter – Moreno Glass City | Mirror of Reflections
A question for you, dear reader...
Do you think there are crimes unrecorded by time?Unwritten in archives, unread in newspapers, unpunished by law?Crimes known only to those who felt them… and bled beneath their silence?
Is the past always as it's told?Or is there a broken mirror, keeping secrets too dark for light to reveal?
Think, before you look into your next mirror.
In the Next Chapter...
Footsteps move toward doors unopened, as new secrets form from the shadows of the past.Will Lima, Rayne, and Niko face truths darker than they imagined?Follow the journey where the story does not end… but begins anew.