The underground tunnel hadn't changed in ten years, but it felt narrower now. Every echo bounced too hard, every drip too loud. Kael's flashlight flickered as they moved through the forgotten corridors beneath the Sobo Council Hall.
Juno walked behind him, one hand pressed against the cold wall, the other gripping her plasma baton.
"I thought this place was sealed," she muttered.
"It was," Kael said. "I helped design the lock."
"How comforting."
Behind them, Luma walked quietly, her face pale, her eyes still red from what she'd seen—her brother's body possessed by the voice of a forgotten being. She hadn't spoken since they left the ship.
"I should've known something was wrong," she finally whispered.
Kael slowed. "You did everything you could."
She didn't answer.
They stopped at a circular vault door, its center etched with a seven-pointed star. The edges pulsed faintly—resisting time.
"This is it," Kael said.
Juno stepped forward. "The Mirror Room."
Kael pressed his palm to the symbol. The wall buzzed with old energy. "It wasn't just a lab. It was a prototype memory chamber. It reads everything you've ever seen."
The door hissed and opened.
Inside, dust hovered in the stale air. A giant sphere sat in the center of the room, covered in mirror-like shards. Each piece reflected not the present—but flickers of different moments.
A birthday. A funeral. A kiss.
The room read them all.
Juno stepped in first. The sphere reacted immediately—her memories pulsed across the surface like ripples.
Luma hesitated at the threshold. "Is it safe?"
"No," Kael said, stepping in. "But it's the only place that remembers truth without filters."
As soon as he entered, the shards turned blood-red.
Kael's eyes widened.
"What's it showing?" Juno asked.
"Not what I did," he said. "What I forgot."
The Mirror Room didn't speak in words. It flooded you with moments—both real and broken.
Kael saw himself as a child, running through Sobo streets with a girl who wore braids and laughed too loud. Maya. Her smile still burned like a comet.
He saw the moment he left her—standing on the launchpad, promising he'd return. But he never did.
Another shard flickered—Maya standing in front of a window, years later, whispering something into a recorder.
"The loop has a heartbeat. I can hear it now."
Kael stepped closer.
More images came—dozens of timelines, all nearly identical, but with one terrible difference:
In each one, Kael died… but someone else paid the price.
In one loop, Juno took the hit. In another, it was his brother. In the worst one—it was Maya, burned to ash trying to pull him out of the Rift.
He staggered back.
"This isn't just showing me," he gasped. "It's punishing me."
Juno turned to him. "What if it's trying to make you remember the truth?"
Kael gritted his teeth. "What truth?"
From behind, Luma whispered: "That you're part of the loop."
He turned to her.
She pointed at the floor.
In the reflection of the sphere, Kael wasn't Kael.
He was something else.
The sphere glitched. The images inside it began to spin faster. The room vibrated with energy. Lights burst overhead. Luma screamed and fell to her knees, clutching her ears.
Kael tried to pull her back, but the room dragged her memory into the shards—flashes of her brother, her parents, her first moment holding a gun.
Juno stepped in, trying to stabilize the output. "It's too much! The room is reading us raw!"
Suddenly, Kael heard a voice.
"You never left the Rift."
He turned, but no one had spoken aloud.
"You are the fragment. The thing they pulled out. Kael died… and you replaced him."
The room went cold.
The air cracked with reality splinters.
Kael fell to his knees.
"No," he whispered.
Juno rushed to him. "Kael? What is it?"
He looked at her, eyes wide, hands trembling.
"I'm not the real Kael," he said. "I'm the loop's creation."
Silence fell.
Even the room seemed to pause.
Then came a slow, soft clap.
From the far side of the chamber, a figure emerged—tall, cloaked in shadows, face half-covered by a red mask made of bone.
"Bravo," it said. "You figured it out."
Juno aimed her weapon. "Who the hell are you?"
"I've had many names," the figure said. "But I go now by the one most feared in the loops: Echo."
Kael stood. "You're the one rewriting the timelines."
"Not rewriting," Echo said. "Perfecting. Every failed version of you becomes fuel. Each loop is one attempt closer to salvation."
Juno's eyes narrowed. "Whose salvation?"
Echo looked at her. "Yours. You just don't remember asking for it."
He snapped his fingers.
All the mirrors in the room shattered at once.
Light poured out.
Memories exploded into the air—like stars breaking open. The room roared with overlapping screams and forgotten words.
Kael grabbed Luma and shielded her.
Echo walked calmly through the chaos, unaffected.
"I'll see you again," he said. "Many, many times."
And then—he vanished.
When the light finally faded, the room was destroyed.
The sphere lay in fragments. The walls cracked.
Juno helped Kael up.
"You okay?" she asked.
Kael didn't answer.
He looked down at his own hands.
They flickered.
Only for a moment.
But long enough to prove something terrible:
Part of him wasn't real anymore.
He looked at Luma, who stared at him like she didn't fully recognize him now.
"Who am I, Juno?" he asked quietly.
She touched his shoulder. "We'll find out together."
But even her voice trembled.
And somewhere far above, back on the surface—
Reesa Myka watched the sky crack open, as another rift bled into the clouds.
This time, it wasn't alone.
To be continued...