Reflection
Cycle: Unrecorded
Status: Fragmented
Simulation Integrity: Broken
---
Jonah
The alley feels too tight.
Shadows stick to the walls. Time drags. Jonah's chest is heavy.
Her face. Caleb's laugh. Too clear. Too sharp. Were they ever real?
He looks at Elias. Still moving. Still pushing forward. But carrying something Jonah can't see.
"Where are we going?" Jonah asks.
Elias scans ahead. "Answers. We need answers."
Jonah nods. Doesn't believe it. The loop never ends.
Then—he sees it.
A mirror. Cracked. Hanging on a wall.
He stops.
"What the hell…"
Elias pulls him. "Let it go."
But Jonah can't.
The reflection is off. Not delayed. Not glitching.
Wrong.
The face in the glass—his face, but not. Skin warped. Eyes too wide. Like something pretending to be him.
He leans closer. The reflection leans too.
Then it speaks.
"You never left."
Jonah's blood turns to ice.
He looks to Elias—but Elias is frozen, staring back in horror.
The mirror shatters.
---
CONCORDIA SYSTEM LOG
Subject 32A: Memory Spike
Subject 47B: Emotional Cross-Tether Breach
Simulation Core: Overload Threshold Crossed
Purge Imminent
---
Elias
Everything cracks.
Jonah slams into the mirror—glass everywhere. The air is thick. Still. Dead.
Elias moves—but it's like swimming through ash.
The voice again. Not Jonah's. Not anyone's.
"You never left."
It hits like static in the bones.
Jonah's eyes are empty. Hollowed out.
"You were never real," he says.
Elias steps back.
Jonah is disappearing in front of him.
---
CONCORDIA SYSTEM LOG
Critical Failure: Subjects 32A/47B
Containment Reset Required
---
Jonah
He can't move.
Can't breathe.
Trapped in a maze of mirrors and voices. All versions of himself. None of them real.
"Jonah."
He turns.
His reflection smiles.
Too wide. Too knowing.
"You never left."
He crumbles. Everything goes black.
---
The world holds.
And Jonah is still here.
---