I wake to the scent of old wood and colder air.
Sunlight seeps through cracks in the boarded windows, warm where it touches my skin. For a moment, I forget where we are; just long enough to think the nightmare is over. That this room is safe. That the weight in my chest isn't real.
Then I see Ren.
He's standing by the table, the pendant in his hand.
His face is pale. Eyes wide, unfocused. Like he's seeing something that isn't there.
I sit up slowly. "Ren?"
He flinches.
The pendant pulses once—just a flicker of light—and then it dims. He drops it like it burns him.
"I'm fine," he says too quickly. "Just… a bad dream."
But he's lying. His hands are shaking. And he won't look at me when he says it.
We barely speak as we explore the rest of the house. It's worse in daylight. The walls feel too close. The hallway longer than it should be. I swear there were only two doors last night.. now there are five. Six. I lose count.
We pass paintings whose eyes follow us.
A kettle on the stove that's still warm.
This place is wrong. It hums with something just beneath the floorboards. Like a heartbeat.
Then we find the attic.
The stairs groan as we climb them, dust rising with every step. Ren opens the door first, shoulder tense like he expects something to leap at him. It doesn't.
The attic is silent. Empty. Almost.
In the corner, half-covered by a sheet, stands a tall mirror.
I should turn around. I don't.
Ren walks toward it like he's drawn. He reaches out and pulls the sheet back.
At first, I don't see anything wrong.
And then I realize the mirror isn't showing us.
It's showing them.
Me... but not me. Dressed in gold and obsidian, a crown on my head. My eyes glowing like a dying star. My hand in someone else's—the God of Death, smiling like he owns me.
And behind me…
Ren.
Chained. Kneeling. Bleeding from the mouth. His eyes locked on mine. Empty.
My reflection lifts her head slowly.
She looks at me.
And she smiles.
"You made your choice."
The words don't come from the mirror. They come from inside me.
The glass cracks down the center. A thin, perfect fracture.
I stumble back. Ren catches me, but his touch is stiff. Distant.
He's still staring at the mirror. Still silent.
"I'm not her," I whisper. "I'm not that version of me."
But I don't know if I'm saying it to him… or to myself.
We go back downstairs.
Neither of us says what we saw.
He doesn't ask why the mirror shattered.
I don't ask what he remembered when he touched the pendant.
But everything between us feels different now.
Not broken.
Just waiting to be.
And I can't shake the feeling that we're being watched—not by the house, or by a person.
By the past.
And it's getting closer.