Kaine woke in the infirmary, drenched in sweat and shaking. Nurse Marla hovered over him, lips thin and pressed.
"You had another episode," she said. "You were found in the west corridor. Again."
"I didn't walk there," Kaine whispered. "It brought me there."
Marla's eyes narrowed, but she said nothing else. Just turned and left.
Later, Elara found him in the recreation room, sitting alone near a broken chessboard.
"You saw it, didn't you?" she asked.
Kaine didn't answer.
"The other version of you," she continued. "It's what the mirror shows. Not what you are, but what you could be if everything inside you went wrong."
"Why is it showing me these things?" he asked quietly.
Elara leaned in. "Because the mirror feeds on guilt. On secrets. You think you buried yours deep, but it's pulling them out."
Kaine looked up. "You know what happened to Lena, don't you?"
Elara didn't answer. But the silence was confirmation enough.
That night, Kaine decided to find someone else who'd seen it. Anyone. He started asking around, quietly, cautiously.
A quiet man named Thomas older, with trembling hands finally responded.
"I went into the room," he whispered, eyes darting. "Years ago. Saw my wife. She'd died… and she screamed at me. She said I pushed her."
Kaine felt cold all over. "What did you do?"
Thomas stared at the floor. "I stopped looking. That's the trick. If you keep looking into the mirror, it starts to see you too clearly. It gets inside you."
Kaine opened his mouth to ask more, but before he could
Thomas didn't show up the next morning.
They said he'd been discharged.
But no one saw him leave.
His room was still made.
His suitcase still under the bed.
And on his pillow…
Was a shard of broken mirror glass.