Chapter Twelve: The Mirror Man
He opens his eyes, and it's like watching a star implode—silent, inevitable, and wrong in every possible way.
Same jawline. Same eyes. Same scar.
But what I see staring back at me from the stasis pod… isn't human. Not anymore.
His movements are too precise, too fluid. Like a machine wearing skin.
He steps out barefoot, water cascading from his suit. The lights flicker, as if the chamber can't decide whether to honor his presence or run from it.
"I was dreaming," he says. His voice is calm, identical to mine—but colder, like someone cut the soul out of it. "I was you."
Mira raises her rifle. "Don't move."
He doesn't even flinch. Just smiles—tight, knowing.
"I remember everything," he says, eyes still locked on me. "The missions. The kills. The defect. The girl." His gaze shifts toward Elin. "She always smelled like orange oil and fear."
Elin's hand grips my sleeve.
"What are you?" I ask.
"Kael Riven. Version One. The original intent." He tilts his head slightly, like he's inspecting a fracture in a mirror. "You were the failure. You ran. I… waited."
The coil in the upper chamber must've triggered the revival sequence. I'd unknowingly reactivated the first me—the purest, most dangerous iteration.
Mira speaks through clenched teeth. "Why keep you locked up?"
"To see if the defect would evolve," he answers. "To study freedom… through your eyes."
A shiver races down my spine.
He wasn't in stasis for preservation.
He was in stasis to learn.
"You're going back into that pod," Mira warns.
But he just smiles again—this time, wider. There's no malice in it. No cruelty.
Just certainty.
"You should have killed me before you grew a conscience," he says.
Then he moves.
Fast—too fast.
Mira fires. Elin screams. I lunge.
Everything happens at once.
A flash of red. A crunch of bone. My fist connects with something that feels like steel wrapped in flesh. We hit the floor, rolling. He's stronger than me—of course he is. He never broke. Never questioned orders. Never softened.
But I have something he doesn't.
Pain.
Real pain. The kind that scars, lingers, and teaches.
I grab a shard of crystal from the floor and jam it into his side.
He falters.
That's all I need.
Mira fires a second shot. This time it hits. Directly in the shoulder. He staggers.
Elin slams the emergency stasis protocol on the wall.
Gas floods the chamber. He roars—a sound more machine than man—as the pod pulls him back like gravity.
The door slams shut.
Lights dim. Silence returns.
I collapse against the wall, chest heaving.
Mira kneels beside me. "Is it over?"
I shake my head. "No. He was only the beginning."
Elin whispers, "How many more are there?"
I don't answer.
Because I've stopped dreaming of stars.
Now I only dream of shadows.