The elevator doors opened to a world of absolute, terrifying stillness.
Floor 8: The Ocean of Reflections had no sky, no horizon, and no land. It was an infinite expanse of water that was perfectly flat and silver, like liquid mercury. The only light came from beneath the surface, a soft, ghostly glow.
[SYSTEM ALERT: FLOOR 8 ENTERED]
[ENVIRONMENT: THE SEA OF SELF]
[WARNING: DO NOT LOOK DOWN.]
"Do not look down?" Barnaby repeated from his jar. "That is precisely the sort of instruction that makes one want to look down."
The First Son stepped out of the elevator. His massive wooden foot touched the water. Ripple.
But the water didn't splash. It held his weight like solid glass.
"It's solid," Aryan said, testing the surface with his boot. "But..."
He looked down.
He expected to see his own face—tired, scarred, with the mahogany arm and the sleepless eyes.
Instead, the face looking back at him was smiling.
It was Aryan. But this Aryan had no scars. His arm was flesh and blood. He wore a clean white sweater, not a tattered trench coat. And standing next to him, holding his hand, was Ananya. Alive. Happy.
"Aryan?" the reflection mouthed. The voice didn't come from the water; it echoed inside Aryan's skull. "You look tired, brother. Come in. It's warm here."
Aryan froze. His heart hammered against his ribs. It was the "Happy Ending" he had lost.
The Attack of the Better Versions
"Oh my," Rhea gasped. She was looking at her reflection.
The Reflection Rhea wasn't a bard carrying a lute. She was an Empress. She sat on a throne of music, surrounded by adoring fans. She looked confident, powerful, and utterly devoid of the fear that Rhea carried every day.
"Why struggle?" Reflection-Rhea sang. "You are just the backup singer. I am the Soloist. Swap with me."
And then, there was Barnaby.
The fish floated over the water in his jar. He looked down.
His reflection was not a goldfish.
It was a Merman. But not just any merman. It was a muscular, six-packed, trident-wielding, devastatingly handsome fish-man with flowing golden hair.
"Greetings, tiny one," the Reflection-Barnaby boomed, flexing a bicep the size of a watermelon. "I am Barnaby the Swole. I drink protein shakes made of Kraken ink. Join me. We have leg day."
"PREPOSTEROUS!" Barnaby screamed, his gills flaring purple with jealousy. "LOOK AT HIM! HE IS OBJECTIFYING ME! HE HAS ABS ON HIS FINS! IT IS UNNATURAL!"
"They aren't just reflections," Sarah whispered, backing away from her own reflection (which was a courageous, laser-wielding Valkyrie). "They are the versions of us that succeeded. They are our insecurities weaponized."
Suddenly, the surface of the water broke.
SPLASH.
The Reflections didn't just talk. They climbed out.
Perfect Aryan stood up. Empress Rhea stepped out. Barnaby the Swole surged from the depths.
[ENEMY: THE MIRROR PARTY (LVL ?)]
[OBJECTIVE: REPLACE THE ORIGINALS.]
"You are flawed," Perfect Aryan said, his voice smooth as silk. He raised his hand. It didn't have the [Red Pen]. It held a [Blue Pen]. "I made the right choices, Aryan. I saved her. You failed. Let me finish the story."
Blue Pen vs. Red Pen
Aryan looked at the Blue Pen.
[ITEM: THE BLUE PEN OF CREATION]
Power: Can create anything perfect.
"You saved her?" Aryan asked, his voice low. "In your timeline, Ananya lived?"
"Yes," Perfect Aryan smiled. He waved the Blue Pen. A table appeared, set with tea and biscuits—his mother's recipe. "I didn't fight. I compromised. I gave the Architect what he wanted, and he gave me peace. Swap with me, Aryan. You can rest."
For a second—just a second—Aryan hesitated. The exhaustion of 72 floors weighed on him. The grief. The guilt.
But then, Mira stepped forward.
Her reflection was a Queen—beautiful, cold, and flawless.
But the real Mira... she was messy. Her dress was torn. Her hair was windblown. And her eyes were fierce.
"Compromise?" Mira spat. She drew her Twin Daggers. "A peace bought by slavery isn't peace. It's a cage."
She slashed at her reflection.
CLANG.
Queen-Mira blocked it with a scepter.
"You are weak!" Queen-Mira laughed. "I am the Anchor of a Perfect World!"
"No," Aryan realized, watching Mira fight. "Perfection isn't real. Perfection is static. It's a dead end."
He looked at Perfect Aryan.
"You didn't save her," Aryan said, drawing Excaliburn. "You just wrote a fan-fiction where you didn't suffer. But suffering is the ink, you fake."
Perfect Aryan's smile vanished. "Then I will delete you."
He slashed the Blue Pen.
[CREATE: DIAMOND WALL.]
A wall of diamond materialized instantly, trapping Aryan.
Aryan raised his mahogany hand.
[SKILL: THE RED PEN.]
[EDIT: MATERIAL > GLASS.]
CRASH.
Aryan smashed through the glass wall.
"You Create!" Aryan roared, charging. "I Edit! Creation is messy! Editing is brutal!"
They clashed. Blue light against Red light. The Perfect Aryan summoned dragons; Aryan deleted their wings. The Perfect Aryan built fortresses; Aryan erased the foundations.
The Battle of the Fish
Meanwhile, the most important battle was happening near the First Son's ankles.
Barnaby (in his jar) was facing off against Barnaby the Swole.
"Surrender, shrimp!" The Merman thrust his trident. "I have optimized my macros! I am the peak physical form!"
"YOU ARE A MEATHEAD!" Barnaby shrieked. "I AM A POET! I HAVE DEPTH! YOU ARE JUST A GYM BRO WITH SCALES!"
Barnaby focused. He didn't have muscles. He had Chaos.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT]
[TRIGGER: AGGRESSIVE BUBBLE BLOWING.]
Barnaby blew a stream of bubbles shaped like insults.
The bubbles floated toward the Merman.
POP.
[EFFECT: REALITY LAG.]
The Merman froze mid-flex. The System couldn't handle the sheer audacity of Barnaby's ego clashing with his reflection.
The Merman's texture file glitched. His muscles deflated like balloons.
"No!" The Merman cried, his voice turning high-pitched. "My gains! My pump! It is deflating!"
"Brain over brawn!" Barnaby declared. "The pen is mightier than the protein shake!"
The Rejection of Perfection
Aryan and Perfect Aryan were locked in a stalemate. The Blue Pen and Red Pen were grinding against each other, sparks of raw narrative flying everywhere.
"Why fight it?!" Perfect Aryan screamed. "I am you, but happy!"
"You aren't happy," Aryan gritted out. "You're boring. Look at your eyes. They have no fire. You never lost anything, so you never found anything!"
Aryan reached into his pocket. He pulled out Fragment #3: The Eraser's Cube.
"I don't want a perfect draft," Aryan said. "I want the rough one. The one with the mistakes. Because the mistakes are mine."
He jammed the Eraser's Cube into the chest of his Reflection.
[SYSTEM: DELETION PROTOCOL INITIATED.]
[TARGET: FALSE NARRATIVE.]
"No!" Perfect Aryan gasped. cracks began to form on his porcelain skin. "If you destroy me... you have to live with the pain!"
"I already do," Aryan said. He pushed the Cube deeper. "And I'm carrying it to Floor 100."
SHATTER.
The Reflection exploded into a thousand shards of silver glass.
Around them, Empress Rhea, Queen Mira, and the Deflated Merman also shattered.
The ocean calmed. The mirrors were gone. The water was just water now—dark, deep, and real.
The Loot in the Deep
Where Perfect Aryan had stood, a glowing object remained. It hovered over the water.
[ITEM: ARCHITECT'S FRAGMENT #4]
[THE MIRROR OF TRUTH]
Passive Skill: Reveals the true form of any monster, item, or lie. Resistance to Illusions +100%.
Aryan grabbed it. It dissolved into his eyes, turning his amber irises slightly silver.
He blinked. The world looked sharper. He could see the wireframe code behind the water. He could see the [Health Bar] of the universe itself.
"We did it," Mira breathed, sheathing her daggers. She looked at Aryan. "You okay? He... he had Ananya."
"He had a ghost," Aryan said, his voice hard but steady. "We're going to get the real thing. Or at least, the real ending."
Barnaby sighed, looking at his own reflection in the jar glass. "I must admit, I do miss his abs slightly. But his conversation skills were atrocious."
[SYSTEM: FLOOR 8 CLEARED.]
[NEXT DESTINATION: FLOOR 9 - THE GRAVEYARD OF GENRES.]
"Graveyard of Genres?" Sarah asked, reading the prompt.
"It's where dead stories go," Aryan said, stepping into the elevator. "Rom-Coms that got cancelled. Horror movies that weren't scary. It's a mess."
"Sounds fun," the Stove clanged. "Maybe we'll find a Cookbook there."
The elevator rose.