The snowstorm rages around me, yet I feel a strange calm emanating from the pearl pressed against my chest. Its warmth spreads through my body, threading courage into my trembling limbs. The figure ahead doesn't move yet, but its golden eyes glint with a mixture of amusement and warning. I know now—it is not a stranger. It is a part of me I thought I had buried forever.
"You…" I gasp, voice shaking. "You're… me?"
The shadow tilts its head, a slow, deliberate movement. Its smile is sharp, yet not cruel, more like the smile of someone who knows secrets too dangerous to tell. "I am what you hid," it says softly, but the echoes in its voice make it sound like thousands are speaking at once. "The part of you that remembers every failure, every fear, every choice you ran from in the rain. I am the truth you refused to face."
I clutch the pearl tighter, feeling its heat spike sharply. "Why are you here? What do you want from me?"
"Why am I here?" it echoes, stepping closer. The snow beneath its feet doesn't bend or sink—it floats above it, giving the impression of walking on air. "Because you cannot hide. You cannot forget. The mirror brought you here, yes, but it did not create me. You did. And now, it's time to remember."
I stumble backward, knees buckling. My reflection… my shadow… it is real. And terrifying. My chest feels tight, my pulse racing. "I don't understand," I choke. "I don't remember—"
"Exactly," the shadow interrupts. "You chose the rain, and in doing so, you erased yourself. You thought you were escaping, but all you did was bury a part of your soul. Now, you face me."
The pearl grows unbearably hot, burning through my coat. I drop to my knees, clutching it, and a strange vision flashes behind my eyelids: me, under the neon lights, alone in the storm. The shadow from the streetlamp, the mirror, the dragon engraving—it all crashes into my memory at once.
I gasp. "EG…" I whisper. "It's you, isn't it?"
The shadow's golden eyes flare. "EG is not me, and yet… I am EG. I am the fragment left behind when you chose forgetfulness. The pearl you hold carries the seal—the bond that connects the mirror, the rain, and the hidden truth of yourself."
I shiver violently, the weight of understanding pressing down on me. "So… the mirror… the rain… the man… he—he brought me here because of you?"
"Not because of me," the shadow says, voice now low, almost intimate. "Because of yourself. The man only guides you. He cannot interfere with what you must confront. And now… you must choose: fight or surrender. Face me, face your fears, face the part of yourself you abandoned—or be consumed by the emptiness you've tried to escape."
The snow swirls violently, and I feel the pearl's warmth surge, connecting me to the shadow, connecting me to the rain, the mirror, the unknown man, and everything I've tried to ignore. My breath comes in ragged gasps. My limbs shake. But slowly, a spark ignites inside me—a determination I didn't know I had.
I straighten my back, gripping the pearl like a lifeline. "I… I choose to fight," I say, voice trembling but steadying with every word. "I will face you. I will remember everything. I will not hide anymore."
The shadow studies me for a long moment. The air around us vibrates with tension. Then, without warning, it lunges forward. Its movement is impossibly fast, yet graceful, like a ripple in water taking shape.
I raise my hands, clutching the pearl. The heat surges, spreading outward like fire, and the snowstorm explodes around us, blinding and brilliant. I feel my heartbeat sync with the storm, with the pearl, with the shadow that is me.
And in that moment, I realize this is not just a confrontation. It is a reckoning.
The world holds its breath.