By IMERPUS RELUR
--
The silence did not last.
From the stillness rose a room—not a place, but a pattern.
Walls of shifting script.
Floors made of untold memories.
A mirror stood at the center.
Imer stepped toward it.
No reflection.
He blinked.
Nothing.
He waved his hand.
Still nothing.
Then the mirror spoke:
"You do not reflect what is real. You reflect what you remember. Do you remember what you are?"
He touched the mirror's surface—
It bent, like warm water.
Ripples revealed a scene:
Him, as a child, crying not from pain but because he knew something no one else would believe.
A boy who saw truth in dreams and was punished for waking up.
Another ripple—
His teenage self standing in front of a crowd, being called a liar for saying he felt people's emotions.
Another—
The moment he said goodbye to someone who called him "too much" because he didn't know how to lie.
Then…
Nothing.
The mirror faded.
He had faced what he was never allowed to remember.
He turned away.
And now the room had a door.