I… could hardly believe my own eyes.
The image reflected in the mirror before me made my breath catch. The mirror stood tall not far away, adorned with intricate golden patterns—far too exquisite to belong in this old, dilapidated wooden room. The stark contrast only made it seem more out of place, as if it had never belonged here to begin with.
And inside the mirror… there was a boy.
A mysterious boy I had never known.
He was well-proportioned, his height about average for a fifteen-year-old. His face was neat and composed. Short black hair was streaked with strands of white, like traces left behind by the passage of time. His golden eyes glimmered quietly—not with the innocent gaze of an ordinary child, but with something deeper, something difficult to put into words.
"…"
I couldn't utter a single sound. It was as if something had tightened around my throat. My thoughts came to a complete halt, leaving nothing but emptiness behind.
Only one question surfaced in my mind—
Who exactly is that boy in the mirror?
Even as I asked myself that, I already knew the answer all too well. I simply didn't have the courage to accept it.
"…The one in the mirror… is me, isn't it?"
I murmured softly, as though hoping the words weren't true. But the evidence before me was far too cruel to deny.
My hand slowly rose of its own accord. My fingers hesitated, moving sluggishly, before reaching out to touch the cold surface of the mirror—to confirm that what I was seeing was not an illusion.
And of course… the figure in the mirror moved in perfect sync with me.
It made sense. After all, he was me.
Yet even so, a new question immediately replaced the last.
"How did I become him?"
The question echoed deep within my subconscious, but there was no answer. No voice replied, no sign pointed the way. There was only me, left to ponder it alone.
Could this be some kind of experiment? An experiment that altered the human body? But I felt no abnormalities at all—both body and mind were far too clear for this to be a side effect of experimentation.
Or was I dreaming?
Perhaps all of this was nothing more than a long dream—an illusion too vivid to be real. And yet, no matter how I looked at it, everything felt far too grounded in reality for me to deceive myself.
If that was the case, then only one final possibility remained.
"…Another world? Or reincarnation?"
It sounded absurd—a concept I'd only ever encountered in anime, novels, or other works of pure fiction. Things I used to laugh at, dismissing them as impossible.
But now… what I had once thought to be mere imagination stood before me as undeniable reality.
"Hah… I used to think other worlds or reincarnation didn't exist at all."
"…Yet I'd also thought about wanting to go to another world."
The contradiction was so blatant that I let out a bitter laugh.
Because now that it had actually happened, I could hardly accept it at all.
Losing my old world—my former life, everything I had done, everything I had built—it was as if all of it had been erased in an instant.
And what weighed heaviest on my heart wasn't just having to face an unfamiliar new world, filled with strange things, hidden dangers, and an unpredictable future.
It was… guilt.
Guilt over the possibility that I had taken everything away from the original owner of this body.
A life that might have been happy—family, home, society, friends, perhaps even his entire world—everything could have vanished because of my arrival.
And yet…
If I weren't in this body, I would already be dead.
And the past cannot be undone. Even if it could, I doubt I would choose to do so.
Who would willingly give up their own life just to return it to someone they didn't even know?
Only a fool would make such a choice.
"…It's practically impossible."
I murmured to myself. Those thoughts were like a fragile suit of armor I'd constructed to protect my mind—to console myself against the harsh reality I had to face.
In the end, I chose to stop thinking about it and tried to focus on something else instead—the matter of this new world.
Even so, I still couldn't be certain that this truly was another world.
Or perhaps… there were other possibilities I hadn't yet considered.
All the answers would have to wait for me to discover them myself, from this moment onward.
Though a trace of guilt still lingered, well…
I had made my decision. There would be no room for that feeling in my heart anymore.
Drowning in guilt builds no future—only moving forward does.
I slowly inhaled, then exhaled just as slowly, as if organizing my thoughts, before taking a step ahead.
The scent of dust and wood brushed against my nose—the ordinary smell of this place.
I turned my back on the mirror, leaving my reflection behind, and walked toward whatever awaited me next.
A single wooden door stood firmly within the room.
There was only one door here—if it wasn't an exit, then this place was a sealed room.
I walked forward slowly…
The sound of my footsteps echoed against the wooden floor in the silence, as if affirming my acceptance of this new world—a world I knew nothing about yet.
It was strange, really. I hadn't expected myself to accept reality this quickly.
I smiled faintly to myself, then reached out and grasped the doorknob.
And slowly… I turned it.