Eva sat on the floor now, knees to her chest, her eyes locked on the door like it might turn into smoke at any second. Jian paced the room, energy rolling off him in nervous waves.
Before either of them could speak again, a sound split the silence.
Knocking.
But not from the door. From the ceiling.
Jian froze.
Eva looked up, slow, her breath shallow.
Three measured knocks. Hollow. Like bone on wood.
Then silence.
Eva stood abruptly. "This house… it's not right, Jian."
He nodded, his dropped lower, almost a whisper. "It hasn't been… since Mael entered this house."
Eva's eyes snapped toward him.
"…Mael?"
Jian met her gaze, then paused. Her face was unreadable. Not confused… but blank . Like a clean slate freshly wiped.
"Yes. Mael," he said carefully.
She tilted her head, eyebrows pulling in.
"Who's Mael?"
The room seemed to contract around them.
Jian stared at her. "What do you mean… who's Mael? He was just...he was here. With us. In the kitchen. You… were scared of him, remember?"
Eva's lips parted, but nothing came out. She was staring at Jian like he'd said something foreign.
"I don't…" She blinked hard. "I remember tea. I remember you. I remember Mom. But there wasn't no one else came."
A heavy silence settled between them.
Jian's heart thudded. Once. Then faster.
"Elara," he muttered. "She said something weird too, didn't she? Back downstairs. She whispered the same Like she don't remember him too …"
He trailed off.
Eva said nothing. Her eyes dropped to the floor.
Jian's breath caught. He stepped toward her, voice strained. "Eva… are you sure you don't remember Mael?"
"I'm telling you," she said softly, too softly, "there was no one here."
Jian stepped back.
His mind raced.
Elara. Now Eva. Why is no one remembering him except me?
Something wasn't right. It wasn't just memory loss, it was surgical.. Targeted، Selective.
Suddenly, Eva went rigid.
Her eyes locked on the mirror across the room.
"Eva?" Jian called, alarm sharpening his voice.
She didn't move. Didn't blink.
Then, slowly like something had clicked into place inside her.. she spoke:
"Someone's rewriting something…"
Jian stared at her, heart hammering. "What?"
Her eyes didn't leave the mirror.."And I think it's this Mael," she said. "The one I don't remember. I think I should remember him. But I don't. Like there's a hole. Something was cut out and I can feel the missing edges."
The light flickered.
Jian turned toward the bulb swinging faintly overhead.
When he looked back, Eva's reflection in the mirror was delayed by a second. Then two.
Like time was misaligned.
And then her reflection moved, even though she hadn't.
Eva gasped and stumbled back from the glass.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
"…Jian," she whispered. "That's not me."
Jian moved in front of her, shielding her from the mirror. But the reflection just stood there still looking at them.
Its head tilted slowly. Then… it smiled.
A quiet voice whispered from nowhere and everywhere at once:
"She's beginning to see it now."
Jian grabbed Eva's hand. "We have to move. We can't stay here."
Eva's fingers tightened around his.
"There's someone else," she said quickly, shaking. "I felt it earlier. Just for a moment. It was her . The one watching from the outside."
"…Voox?" Jian said, barely daring to breathe the name.
Eva nodded. "But she didn't appear. She didn't speak. Just… a presence. Like a warning." She looked around. "Whatever's happening here… it's not just us."
Jian glanced back at the mirror.
The reflection was gone.
But the crack down its center hadn't been there before.
Neither had the symbol scratched faintly in the corner, three curved lines circling an empty center.
He swallowed hard.
"I think we're inside something else's story now," he said. "And someone's editing the ending."
--------------------
Elsewhere..., beneath the Eclipsed Archway…
Raven's boots scraped against the wet stone, the underground corridor humming with residual magic. Pale glyphs pulsed along the walls like a dying heartbeat.
He turned a sharp glance at Damien, who leaned against the arched doorway with arms crossed.
"She's not in the void chambers. Or the Mirrorway," Raven muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. "No trace. Not even a ripple."
Damien's expression was grim. "Voox doesn't just disappear."
"She did now," Raven snapped. "No warning. No energy signature. No portal spike. Just gone."
Damien looked up at the black crystal embedded in the ceiling...faintly cracked, like something had clawed its way out from the inside.
"She didn't vanish," he said. "She ascended. Or she's hiding. Either way… she's not done."
Raven's eyes narrowed. "We need to find her before she finds them "
---------------------
Back in Elara's house, the air seemed heavier, like the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Jian turned to speak, but something in the mirror caught his eye.
He froze.
Completely still, like someone had paused his soul.
"Jian?" Eva asked, her voice shaky.
He didn't answer.
She stepped closer, her eyes tracing the path of his gaze.
Then she saw it.
Her breath hitched.
There, in the mirror, not behind them, not in the room, only in the glass stood
She looked like a ghost: faint, flickering, almost translucent. Her eyes were glassy with sorrow, tears running silently down her cheeks. Her lips moved slowly, shaping words… but no sound reached them.
Jian leaned in, instinctively. "Elara…?" he whispered, but still no voice came.
And then—
Another figure slid into view, behind Elara in the reflection.
She wasn't flickering. She wasn't ghostlike.
She was radiant. Solid. Smiling serenely, ominously. Like she knew exactly what was happening.
She tilted her head at Elara with something between tenderness and cruelty.
Then, slowly, deliberately, she moved her lips too.
No sound.
But Eva saw it.
Her eyes widened. Her body went rigid.
And then—
She collapsed.
"Eva!" Jian shouted, catching her before she hit the floor. "Eva...Eva, talk to me!"
She was out cold, face pale, breath shallow.
He looked back at the mirror.
Empty.
Only their reflections now.
--------------------
Meanwhile…
Atop the tower of relics, Raven turned to Damien.
"If Eva doesn't remember Mael," he said, "then someone rewrote her mind. Not with a spell."
"With a character omission ."
Damien's eyes widened. "You mean like cutting someone from the script ?"
Raven nodded. "Mael was edited. By something that controls narrative flow."
They both turned to the sky, and saw it ripple.
A name etched itself faintly across the stars.
CINDERHOLD.
-------------------
Back in Eva's room...
A few minutes passed in heavy silence.
Then—
Eva stirred.
Her lashes fluttered, breath catching. She opened her eyes slowly to the soft sound of her name.
"Eva?" Jian whispered, still cradling her in his arms on the cold wooden floor.
She blinked up at him, dazed. "Jian…" she murmured, her voice shaking. "I saw her. Voox. She was in the mirror. Her lips were moving, but I couldn't hear anything. Nothing. Just her eyes… and this look… like she wasn't even looking at me."
Jian's grip tightened slightly. "What do you mean?"
Eva's voice dropped to a whisper. "She was looking at something. Not straight ahead... to her right. Like something was there."
Jian froze.
His eyes widened. "Eva… that side, the right...that's where Elara was standing in the mirror."
Eva's breath caught. "What?"
"She was crying. Her mouth was moving too. I couldn't hear her either. But she was looking right at me."
Eva sat up slowly, shifting from Jian's arms and steadying herself. "You saw Elara… I didn't. And you didn't see Voox?"
Jian shook his head, silent.
Eva stared at him. "I didn't see Elara at all."
A pause. They both stared at the mirror.
Then—
together, in perfect sync, they whispered:
"We saw different things, but…"
Jian finished it, his voice hoarse: " It connects. Somehow."
The silence returned, thicker than before.
Eva wrapped her arms around her knees. "The house feels… wrong. Empty. Where's Elara?"
Jian looked around slowly, expression grim. "I don't know. She was downstairs ."
Eva's eyes flicked toward the hallway. "And that other one… you said someone else was here?"
Jian's voice was quiet. "Mael. We left him in the guest room."
He stood quickly, helping Eva up. "We need to check."
Jian reached out and pushed the guest room door open..
And both of them froze.
The hallway beyond was not the same.
The paint on the walls was gone, stripped down to decayed stone veined with deep, black cracks. The warm, amber light that once lit Elara's home had vanished, replaced by a low, pulsing blue glow that flickered like a heartbeat.
The corridor stretched out longer than it should have, impossibly long. The floor beneath their feet had changed too...no longer wood, but old tiles, fractured and uneven, each etched with unfamiliar, arcane symbols.
Eva stepped back, breath trembling. "What is this place…?"
Jian slowly shook his head, voice low. "This… this isn't the house anymore."
A soft hum vibrated through the air, like the walls themselves were alive. Or… listening.
Eva's eyes widened. "Jian, this feels like…" Her words caught. She couldn't explain it, but something inside her pulsed in recognition..like a half-remembered dream clawing its way to the surface.
Jian turned to her. "You felt that?"
She nodded. "It's familiar. But not mine."
Then—
footsteps.
Echoing from deeper within the new hallway.
But they weren't rushing.
They were calm. Deliberate. Like someone who had all the time in the world.
"Mael?" Jian called out cautiously.
No answer.
Just the soft steps, coming closer… and then, suddenly...Gone.
Cut off mid-step.
Eva stepped forward, against her instincts, peering into the corridor. "This place...it shifted around us. Like we crossed some kind of veil."
Jian was staring at the arcane symbols carved into the walls now. "This wasn't an accident," he muttered. "This place was waiting. For one of us to open that door."
Eva turned back toward the hallway behind them, only to find...It was gone.
A solid wall stood where the hall had been. No doors. No windows.
Just more etched stone.
"We're trapped," she whispered.
"No," Jian said, eyes narrowing. "We're being drawn in ."
To be continue ...