Jordan sat on the rooftop of a derelict house overlooking Zarifa's southern bazaar. The cracked lens left behind by the Mirage Man dangled from his fingers, spinning slowly in the wind like a compass that refused to point north. Below him, life moved like it didn't know what had happened in the alley. And maybe it didn't. Maybe the whole city is under some kind of illusion.
He squinted.
No — it wasn't an illusion. It was memory. The Stand, Shatterview, had shown him something buried. Someone screaming… his name.
He didn't remember anyone who should've screamed his name like that.
"Who the hell are you?" he muttered to himself.
The answer came not in words, but in sound — a sudden, violent crash from a nearby alley. Glass, again.
He bolted from the rooftop.
In the narrow corridors of the Lower Circle, light barely reached. Yet something gleamed ahead — a figure on the ground, writhing. His body — no, his reflection — shattered in pieces like a pane of glass. Jordan stopped short.
A child, no older than twelve, stared at the broken man with wide, hollow eyes. She held out her hands — they shimmered unnaturally, like the air around them was bending.
"Stay back," Jordan warned, stepping forward.
Her voice was quiet. "He touched me. He looked at me. Then I saw him crack."
"Crack?" Jordan asked.
She looked at her own reflection in a puddle.
Then it shattered — despite the water being still.
Jordan's body tensed. His Stand activated on instinct, grains of sand coiling subtly at his feet.
A chuckle rang out behind him. Smooth. Confident.
The Mirage Man was perched on the ledge above, legs crossed like a bored god. "Beautiful, isn't it? Reflections are fragile. Like people. One memory out of place and…" — he snapped — "shatter."
Jordan turned, Dust Mirage half-emerged beside him. "You hurt a child?"
The man smiled behind the mirrored veil. "I showed her the truth. Her father's truth, to be precise."
The girl whimpered.
Jordan didn't hesitate.
"Dust Mirage — Blast Pattern!"
A wave of pressurized sand burst upward. The Mirage Man leapt back, cloak fluttering, but a shard of glass snapped off and embedded into the stone behind him. Jordan wasn't trying to kill.
He was aiming to mark.
The Mirage Man disappeared in a flash — but the shard hummed with residual Stand energy.
Got you, Jordan thought. Next time, I follow the crack straight to your heart.
To Be Continued...