The next morning, the storm had thickened into a white shroud. Snow beat softly against the reinforced windows like fingertips. No one spoke of the night before. But their silence said enough.
Elena didn't mention the voice behind the door. She wasn't even sure it had been real. Maybe it was the isolation. The atmosphere. The journal.
But then she saw the others.
Adler's hands trembled as she poured coffee, knuckles white as frost. Karpov muttered in Russian under his breath, repeating fragments of a poem. And Reznik—stoic, skeptical Reznik—had deep circles under his eyes.
"Something woke me last night," he admitted at last. "I thought I heard... my mother. Calling my name."
"She's not here," Elena said flatly; she stared at her hot cup of coffee, catching a glimpse of her reflection on the surface, who smirked; she blinked and rubbed her eyes; there was nothing on the surface, not even her reflection. She sighed, thinking it was just fatigue, before glancing at Reznik.
"No," Reznik said. "She's been dead for twelve years." the atmosphere was quiet; you did not have to be wise to realize that something wasn't adding in this place.
They all turned to look at the same place: the west wing. The sealed hallway. Room 313.
.
They spent most of the day breaking through the welds. Karpov deciphered schematics that didn't exist. Davis used a portable drill to pierce the steel. Each layer peeled away like scar tissue.
The door groaned as it opened. Cold poured out, unnatural and sharp. A stench followed it—like ammonia and old paper, burned hair and ozone.
Inside, the chamber was circular. Perfectly so.
And at the center stood a mirror.
Not a mirror. The mirror.
It stretched from floor to ceiling, ringed by tarnished bronze. Symbols were etched into the frame—some mathematical, others resembling runes. No reflection showed in the glass. It was black. Infinite.
Elena stepped forward. "Is this one-way?" her flashlight scanned through the mirror in search of anything that might give her a clue.
"No," Davis whispered. "It's nothing. It doesn't reflect because... it isn't a surface. It's a void." Elena and others eyed him before looking back at the mirror.
Adler was already backing out of the room.
Karpov approached the edge of the mirror. "This wasn't made by us," he said. "Not by the Soviets. Not by anyone I know," he concluded.
Reznik shook his head. "You're saying this was here before the facility?"
Elena stared into the darkness. Something pulsed within it—like light trapped beneath water, too deep to reach.
"I think," she said slowly, "this is what the whole facility was built around." she slowly wandered towards the mirror-
Then she saw it.
Her own face. But not hers. The eyes were wrong. The mouth smiled just slightly. Her reflection blinked when she didn't.
She stumbled back.
And her reflection stayed still.