Mia walked leaning against Arthur's shoulder.
It wasn't dramatic support — it was necessary.
Her hand gripped the fabric of his clothes tightly enough to leave marks, as if letting go would mean falling. The weight wasn't only physical; it was in the way she breathed, short and uneven, trying to keep pace with a place that seemed determined to remain still.
Arthur kept his arm firm around her, holding more than just her balance. His eyes scanned the corridor ahead, but it felt as if the Monte had lost the will to reveal itself.
There was no proper echo.
No response.
The stones no longer "looked" back.
The silence there was not empty — it was indifferent.
— Are you okay? — he asked quietly.
Mia took a moment before answering.
— I… think so. — She inhaled slowly, as if searching for air inside her own throat. — But it's strange.
Arthur felt a chill crawl up the back of his neck.
— Strange how?
She frowned and touched her chest lightly with two fingers, as if looking for a pain that had no shape.
— Like… something is missing. — Her gaze drifted for a second. — I remember falling. I remember the cold. I remember you screaming my name somewhere… and then… it's a gap. A blank space that doesn't feel like a dream.
Arthur swallowed hard.
He was about to say it was normal. About to say the Monte twisted memories, that the body erased things to survive.
But the words died before they formed.
Because he felt it too.
Only his wasn't a gap.
It was a shadow with an outline.
— It's probably shock — he lied with the calmest voice he could manage. — We'll remember later.
Mia nodded — not because she believed him, but because she was too tired to argue.
They continued walking.
The corridor narrowed and widened as if breathing out of rhythm. Some ancient inscriptions repeated themselves, interrupted by gaps — as if someone had begun writing and then stopped. In certain places, the walls were unnaturally smooth. In others, rough like scar tissue.
Arthur ran his fingers over a mark on the right wall.
Cold stone.
Nothing responded.
— Before… I could feel the path — he murmured, not realizing he was speaking aloud.
— Feel it? — Mia lifted her head. — What do you mean?
Arthur didn't answer.
Because at that exact moment, something ahead caught his attention.
The corridor curved gently, and at that bend there was a surface unlike the rest. Not a door. Not a crack. Not a symbol.
A slab of dark stone — too smooth to be natural, polished as if touched by water for centuries… or by something cleaner than water.
It did not reflect like a normal mirror.
It seemed to delay reality.
The faint light in the air stretched across it in trembling lines, as if space itself was trying to recognize its own image.
Arthur stopped.
Mia took one more step and stopped when she felt his arm go rigid.
— What is it? — she asked.
Arthur didn't take his eyes off the surface.
— Nothing. — The word came out automatic, hollow.
He stepped closer.
And the "mirror" responded.
Not with light.
With distortion.
His image appeared first like any reflection: face, hair, dust on his skin, tired eyes.
But there was an error.
An error his stomach recognized before his mind did.
Mia was not there.
In the reflection, his shoulder was empty.
His arm supported no one.
Arthur froze.
— Arthur? — Mia called, confused. — You're scaring me.
He didn't answer.
Because his reflection… moved a fraction too late.
As if it had chosen the moment.
As if it had been waiting.
The version in the "mirror" slowly raised its face.
And Arthur felt the blow before he saw it.
The look.
The expression wasn't exhaustion.
It was rage.
Not hot, explosive rage.
Ancient, accumulated rage — solid rage, the kind that belongs to someone who had no choice and learned not to ask permission to feel.
The eyes were the same… until they weren't.
The left iris glowed blue.
The right burned red.
Two different histories trying to occupy the same face.
And beneath the skin of that version, something flowed like living shadow — a dark energy Arthur had felt before, but never within himself. It was the same cold presence that had emanated from the Black King. The same force that consumed rather than wounded.
The reflection opened its mouth.
The voice did not travel through the air.
It spoke inside his mind.
— How did you manage?
Arthur's entire body went rigid.
Mia heard nothing.
Mia only saw Arthur staring at a smooth wall.
— What? — he whispered, more to himself than to the voice.
The version in the "mirror" took a step forward.
And in the reflection, the world behind it seemed darker, as though the shadow coating it drained the surrounding light.
— What did you do? — the voice insisted.
Arthur felt his heart slam against his ribs.
This wasn't curiosity.
It was accusation.
The version tilted its head — a small gesture, almost human… and at the same time wrong, like someone imitating a gesture they no longer fully remembered how to make.
— Why is she there?
Arthur lost his breath.
Because now he understood what was being said without being said.
That version looked at the empty space beside him in the reflection… and then, as if it hurt, looked at Mia outside the surface.
At the real Mia.
As if she were an offense.
Arthur felt something rise in his throat — a raw urge to deny, to shout, to demand explanation.
But the reflection offered no room for dialogue.
The other version raised its hand.
Its fingers touched the surface of the dark stone.
And the "wall" rippled.
Like water.
Like membrane.
Like the skin of the world.
Arthur saw the pressure build — the stone pushing outward a centimeter, then two, then three… as if something were forcing its way through from the other side.
Mia frowned.
— Arthur, are you— — She glanced at the wall. — Are you seeing something?
Arthur felt panic try to turn into anger.
The shadow around the reflection intensified, flowing down the arm pressing against the surface. The air seemed to lose temperature, and for an instant Arthur had the sensation that the entire Monte held its breath again — not for him… but for that.
The version leaned closer to the "mirror," so close that the mismatched eyes seemed ready to pierce through the stone.
— You saved what I buried — the voice whispered, almost inaudible. — So tell me… how.
The surface pushed further outward.
Arthur didn't think.
He reacted.
His fist closed and shot forward in a dry, direct punch, with all the strength he had — not against the reflection, but against the idea that something like that could cross over.
CRAAACK.
The wall shattered in luminous fractures that held no clear color — fragments of light and shadow breaking apart like splinters of reality itself. For a brief second, Arthur saw the other version's face distort, as if being dragged backward by invisible chains.
The eyes — blue and red — narrowed in hatred.
And then vanished.
The surface returned to stone.
Ordinary stone, cracked, marked by impact.
No open portal.
No passage.
No proof.
Just a broken wall.
Arthur stood there breathing hard, his knuckles burning. A thin line of blood ran from his skin.
Mia looked at him as if she were seeing someone slightly different.
— Why did you punch the wall? — she asked, her voice low, cautious. — Are you… okay?
Arthur didn't answer right away.
Because inside him, the question still echoed like a tooth biting the same place again and again:
— How did you manage?
He inhaled slowly, trying to steady his hands.
— It was nothing — he said at last, his voice harder than calm. — I just… thought I saw something.
Mia tightened her grip on his shoulder, anchoring him to reality.
— Then stop thinking you're seeing things, okay? — She tried to smile, but the smile faltered halfway. — I don't have the energy to deal with you losing it.
Arthur nodded.
Not in agreement.
In fear of saying more.
They resumed walking.
Behind them, the cracked wall remained motionless.
As if nothing had happened.
As if the Monte itself pretended it had seen nothing.
But Arthur knew.
That wasn't imagination.
It was a possibility looking back at him.
And even shattered, the sense of presence did not disappear completely — it merely receded… like something patient enough to wait for the wrong moment to become the right one.