"What's Mirage City? Where were you when they appeared? How did they lock you in there?" Eunbin realized she was being unfair in bombarding her parents with questions, but she couldn't help it; she had a right to know everything.
"I'll save the first question for last. When the others first appeared, we were exploring Bastion to learn about its history, the fake Bastion, the one people are living in now, like Sunless seemed to do before moving to Raven Heart. Not the real one.
Normally, Eunbin would consider this value intel against Clan Valor for the upcoming war, but she couldn't care less about that right now.
"How did you not get caught by the king of swords? He had to have been somewhere close or at least sensed you," Sunless pointed out, to which Eunbin nodded and looked to her father for an explanation.
"He was away at the time, I have no idea where, though." Her father shrugged,
"I see, what happened then?" Eunbin asked, after she accepted his answer.
"Then, as we found a place to settle, a calm, beautiful lake, we killed the creatures lurking within there and cleaned ourselves, then set up camp for later that night. That was when they emerged, our reflections. I was out hunting for nightmare creatures to eat while your mother was setting up camp, at least until I came back after seven hours of exploring and heard her movement." He looked at the mirror and shuddered, then put it back in the ripped paper and continued speaking.
"I went up to the creature pretending to be your mother, who was sitting by the fire staring at it with a blank expression, in hopes of seeing if she would notice my presence, not realizing that your real mother had gone out to look for me out of worry since I was taking so long. While your mother was gone, that thing had seemingly emerged from a reflection somewhere and took her face, her clothes, her mannerisms, everything."
"What did you do then? Did you notice anything strange about her?" Sunless leaned forward with an intense expression. Her father met his gaze and shook his head,
"No, I didn't at the time, and so I did what anyone else would do. I called out to Jessandra. She noticed me and silently motioned for me to come over, with a neutral expression. The keyword being 'neutral' should have been an alarm bell in my head, as your mother is a talker and always smiling. I thought something had happened, so I, being unaware of its true identity, sat down next to the creature like a fool."
"This was a nightmare creature unlike anything you've encountered before, you couldn't have known," Eunbin reminded him with a firm tone.
"But, how did they get out? The reflections couldn't have appeared on their own; otherwise, humanity would have been long gone by now." Sunless pointed out, to which Eunbin nodded in agreement.
"It was because of me," Her father said quietly,
"What?" Eunbin gasped in shock, causing her father to begin explaining.
"After I found Nightmare Creatures that we could have for food and killed them, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to explore the castle. Not many people were there, since most of humanity was still in the waking world at the time."
"So I traveled throughout the place for three hours before finding a set of stairs and going down them. That was when I made the grave mistake of coming across a large object covered in a canvas that looked like a mirror." Her father hung his head in shame and didn't meet her eyes.
Eunbin silently listened, her expression unreadable, as Sunless' eyes widened in shock while her father continued to speak about what had transpired.
"Thinking it was an ancient artifact that I could draw in my notebook, I unfastened it and took off the canvas and grabbed my notebook before I stopped as I saw a desolate landscape drenched in moonlight underneath a fractured moon. A cold, still lake that reflected countless stars and harbored unfathomable creatures in its depths. I stared at it in wonder, not knowing that I had allowed the others to cross into this reality and run free."
"After a few seconds, I put the canvas back on the giant mirror and left for the campsite. But a few seconds was already far too much time, we were lucky that only our reflections emerged. Still, I…I had no idea that, simultaneously, your mother was walking with my reflection, which had emerged from somewhere near the castle when I took off the canvas to the mirror. The reflection of your mother emerged from somewhere as well and made its way to the camp, waiting for someone to stumble across it." His shoulders shook as he paused, took a deep breath, and continued.
"And your mother, who found my reflection that had emerged from somewhere near the castle, thought she had caught me trying to find a way in and explore the castle, brought my reflection back, and began walking back to camp with it, not knowing that I had already come back and was at the campsite. So it's my fault that you thought we died and that you had to grow up without us. It's my fault that we've been trapped in that place for over two decades. I understand if you hate me."
Hate him? Is that what he thought this entire time?
"Hate you? No, I don't hate you, Father. I'm just glad to have you both back. You made a mistake, as I said before; you had no way of knowing any of that would happen." She hugged him as he trembled, and her mother moved closer to hug them both.
They sat there for who knows how long.
After a long while, Eunbin was about to speak to break the silence when her father held up a hand, signaling for her to wait a moment as he recovered and pulled away from the hug.
"I know you were about to say something, honey, but I need you to listen to me when I say this. Please listen as well, Sunless, as this is crucial information. The others have no rank or class; some are as weak as a mundane human, while some are as strong as a sovereign. If you see one come to life, leave immediately. If you can't go, you'll be fine so long as you don't look at them or speak to them. Do not answer the reflection if it asks you something; The longer you acknowledge its existence, the stronger you will make it."
"Gods help you if it is somehow stronger than that. Just be careful around any mirrors, please." Her father gestured to the covered mirror with a warning, then looked at Eunbin and motioned for her to say what she had been about to say.
"Since they are reflections, then their personalities must be the complete opposite of the person they are reflecting, correct? That surely has to be a red flag and a way to spot them, right?"
"Correct, but you have to know that from what we've observed over the decades, at their base functions, they are hollow. What I mean is they don't understand the concepts of staying alive, the fear of pain, being torn apart, having your soul devoured, or being maimed. They don't even react to pain, which is why I don't think they're intentionally evil, at least not at first. It's like you said, sweetheart: their personalities are the opposite of the original person, since they are reflections. If the real person is kind and welcoming, then the reflection will be harsh and closed off."
"Yes, I get that, but are they just puppets being controlled by something else?"
"I don't know, but this leads to what I said earlier, from what we've learned over the years. It's that the longer the others exist or the longer someone acknowledges their existence, whether that's from speaking to them or just being around them, any of those is how they become more powerful and sentient."
"So when they become more aware, it's also easier for them to be indistinguishable from the person they are reflecting. Now, I take it that some can be clever and pretend if they want to, while some of them don't bother at all, at least that's how I assumed it was with the ones you two encountered." Sunless finished her father's train of thought with a look of interest.
"You're invited to the next family dinner we have," her father smiled, letting out a short chuckle.
"That was quick,"
"You already made a good first impression today. I hope you like beef stew."
"I'm glad to hear, but I have to ask. What's beef stew?" Sunless asked, prompting her father to shoot him a look of mock disgust.
"You're no longer invited."
It was clear that he was trying to ease the tension of speaking about their experience, but Eunbin could hear the shakiness in his tone.
"I'm here, father." Sensing his nervousness, Eunbin leaned her head on his shoulder as she took in the information, and that seemed to relax him as he steeled himself, took a deep breath, then put his arm around Eunbin's shoulder. Her mother did the same, wrapping her arm around Eunbin's shoulder.
"Right, thank you, sweetheart, now continuing with the story. I…I froze in terror when I saw myself walking with her towards the campsite. This other thing had my face, my clothes, and the bracelet you made for me on his left wrist, but switched it to his right as he smiled and laughed. It was the most frightening thing I encountered in my life."
"What did you notice, mother?" Eunbin asked, and her mother leaned against her with a trembling sigh.
"The reflection of your father was cold, so cold that I thought I had done something to offend him without realizing it, or that he found something that he didn't want to talk about. But, as we walked back to the camp, I saw glimpses of his normal self now and then."
"I was confused and terrified when I saw your father sitting next to this creature that copied my face as I was walking to the camp with someone I thought was him the entire time. Your father went pale and wide-eyed when he saw me."
"Did you attack?"
Her father nodded,
"Yes, but it was futile; they were strong, scarily intense, they had the strength of a fallen nightmare creature, and easily subdued us, then dragged us through passages that were beneath the castle and into an underground chamber that was dark and silent." Her father said with a shudder, and her mother took over for him again.
"Then they took us all the way to a large, dozens-of-meters-tall mirror, covered by the canvas, and took it off, and we saw the desolate landscape your father mentioned earlier."
"The others threw us in there, then took us to a mirror maze where we were eventually led through a long hallway that seemed to stretch on forever until we came across another great mirror, and then we suddenly woke up in Mirage City." Her father, having taken back over again and finished their side of the story, leaned back with a sigh.
"I see. Now, with that finally out of the way, onto my first question, tell me what Mirage City is."
"Right, okay. It's… It's a place in a great mirror underneath Bastion, the real Bastion. It turns out that the desolate place I told you about earlier was the real Bastion, and the one we were in when I found the great mirror was a mirage, a fake."
Eunbin stole a glance at Sunless to gauge his reaction to the information and was surprised to see that his expression remained calm, as if he hadn't heard it.
'Mordret likely told him already,'
"At the time we had been there for a decade, drifting in and out of who we truly were, trying to escape each time we did remember, the place was far different back then; it was still Mirage City, but was nowhere near as 'modern.' It was more like a kingdom. "
"Wait, wait, slow down, drifting in and out? What do you mean?" Eunbin asked, raising her hands.
She was already trying to understand all the information that was being thrown at her.
"When we were thrown into the mirror, we took the places of our reflections and therefore had their memories, their jobs, their hobbies, their childhood, their marriage vows, everything, and we couldn't remember who we truly were. While our reflections roamed in the real world with our memories and took our place, that was until a nightmare gate opened on top of them and they were killed."
"Anyways, another few months passed, and we gained once again full clarity on where we had been trapped, and once again we tried to run, but the entire population of the place chased after us. So naturally we stopped and tried to go about our lives while desperately using our true names to anchor and remind ourselves that this wasn't real." Her father put the mirror down and took a breath, then continued.
"Then two years passed, and the place suddenly changed into a city that hadn't been seen since the 21st century. The people changed as well. This new city we came to know was a result of something or someone. Once we saw it happen, we waited a few days and tried to escape again, but that was until a fifteen-year-old boy suddenly came to us."
"What did he say?" Eunbin asked,
"He told us that he had been watching us over the past few days and that he could see that we didn't belong here, so he told us that we had to keep pretending to be ignorant of our surroundings and go about our 'lives' as normal, otherwise we would be killed."
"What? Why?" Eunbin asked, with a seldom fearful tone.
"We don't know, but he told us that every single person here was a reflection of someone, it didn't matter if they were alive or dead, and he also told us that he had been here for the past two years and that he was the reason the place changed and that it looked the way it did."
That's why they were so afraid of reflections; they were trapped with an entire population of reflections, possibly millions of them, for over two decades.
'Gods, I can't imagine,'
"So, over the next fifteen years, he slowly helped us find a way out of there without arousing suspicion. There were far too many close calls, but as you can see, we made it out. If it weren't for him, then we would still be trapped there. The young man, well, he was an odd boy; there was something off about him that we couldn't place. But regardless, we are still grateful for him." Her mother finally spoke up in a soft voice, finishing her father's sentence.
"What did he look like?" Eunbin asked with a rare somber expression.
"Silver eyes, Raven black hair, tall, pale, he wore a stylish suit and always had a polite smile on his face. When we got out, which was only a few months ago, he had just turned thirty, and he was also a charming young man." She smiled, then frowned slightly as her eyebrows furrowed in thought.
"Oh, goodness, I feel terrible that I can't remember his name, considering how much he did for us. I've tried to forget everything about that godforsaken place, really. I hope the boy made it out of there," Her mother described with a distant expression, and Eunbin sat between her parents, wide-eyed at the information she had received.
Meanwhile, Sunny almost fell off the couch in shock at the description Jessandra gave about the man. It was Mordret, it had to be; it was his exact description. Eunbin knew this as well, as he saw her eyes widen in recognition.
Sunny was now more than used to seeing the real Eunbin, rather than the calm, seductive, and aloof facade she put on in front of everyone else as a mask, including Sunny when he first met her in Antarctica and when he moved to Raven Heart.
This was only a facade to uphold her image as The Most feared Saint in the world, Beastmaster, but it seemed to act as a barrier as well. But that was before, and things were very different now, as they had become much closer in the past few months.
Far closer than Sunny had ever anticipated, really, so much so that he could call her a friend. She had also let him in and recently showed her vulnerable side to him about her parents, whom she thought were dead, so he wasn't surprised when she nearly shouted at the new information.
"What?! I just asked if you met a man wearing a suit and had an affinity for reflections, and you said no." Eunbin shot up from leaning on Kain's shoulder, promptly sat up, then began pacing the room.
"He wore a suit, but he had no affinity to reflections dear; he didn't have an aspect at all, no one did. He was a mundane man and the CEO of a fictional version of Valor in Mirage City. When he led us out of there and to the great mirror, we told him to come with us, but he refused, saying that he was told to stay here for his safety."
That didn't make any sense, as Mordret was in Raven Heart. Something wasn't adding up, and Eunbin figured that too, her face twisting in thought as she fixed her jewelry and paced.
"What's wrong, honey?" Jessandra asked, confusion written over her beautiful face.
"There's a man in Raven Heart with that exact description, mother," Eunbin told her with a conflicting expression of gratefulness and a frown. However, her parents lit up like a star at the information.
"I was hoping that boy made it out. But you don't seem to be happy about that, Bin." Kain pointed out, raising an eyebrow.
"I believe what you both told me, but something isn't sitting right with me, Father. Mordret would have told me that he met you all before, let alone that he spent the past fifteen years helping you all get out of Mirage City. He's also not the kind of man to help random strangers out of the kindness of his heart. What you said he did for you is extremely out of character for him."
"Oh? Well, he seemed like such a nice kid, though. He never got mad about anything, not once, honestly. It was very strange." Kain commented as he got up and moved to put the mirror back in his safe.
"Did he get sad?" Eunbin questioned, tentatively, her brows knitting together in thought as she watched Kain leave the room.
"Yes, plenty of times," Jessandra leaned back into the couch and nodded without hesitation.
"That's not right, not at all," Eunbin shook her head and continued to pace.
Sunny silently agreed. What they were saying about Mordret was nothing like the one he knew, not in the slightest. Even if Mordret was using them for something, why would he go through all the effort to get them out? For what purpose? It didn't make sense.
"How come, baby?" Jessandra wondered with a growing look of concern.
"Because Mordret never gets sad, not over anything."
Just then, Kain returned with a more upbeat expression, but his eyes were red and puffy; it was clear that he had used the excuse of putting away the mirror to cry.
"Ah, well, we'll worry about that another time. We've already spent far too much time talking about the past, so let's talk about the future, huh? Starting with you, boy. What do you mean you don't know what beef stew is?! You can't call yourself a cook if you don't know what that is."
"What are you trying to say, Mr. Kain? That I'm a fraud?" Sunny frowned.
"Eunbin, what else does your boyfriend not know about?"
"He didn't know what a donut was," Eunbin shrugged and sat next to Sunny again, a little closer than before. She looked at him, gave a beautiful smile, and laughed when she heard someone trip.
But wait, hang on. This was the third time Eunbin's parents had referred to Sunny as Eunbin's boyfriend. Eunbin had yet to deny it; in fact, she didn't even bother to correct them and say that they were friends!
Then again, Sunny didn't bother to either.
"What?! Boy! Get in this kitchen right now! How can I call you a future son-in-law if you don't know what a donut or beef stew is?!" Kain shouted from the kitchen.
"Father, will you quit?!" Eunbin stormed into the kitchen with clenched fists, and soon pots and pans were heard clashing onto the floor along with a heavy thud.
"Wait, wait! It was just a joke, sweetheart! Ow!"
Jessandra looked at Sunny and sighed, shaking her head with a small smile, one that he returned.
What an eventful day this turned out to be.
This chapter took far longer than I wanted; I kept rewriting it over and over because I wasn't satisfied with how it was turning out. Anyway, I know this chapter was heavy on the dialogue, so I hope it wasn't too dull.
I told you there wouldn't be another cliffhanger :)