II

That night, Nara didn’t sleep.

She didn’t even try.

Because every time she closed her eyes, she heard the thoughts. Not voices—thoughts. A chorus, murmuring behind the wallpaper of her reality.

“She’s slipping.”

“Run a reset.”

“Not yet. She’s close.”

She opened her notebook again. The one where she tried to write Iven’s name. The pages were blank. All of them.

Except the last.

It now read:

"DON’T WRITE ME DOWN. THEY TRACE INK."

Her hands trembled. She flipped back and forth, as if she could catch the handwriting mid-fade. But nothing changed. No movement. No smudge.

Just that one sentence, etched in stillness.

The next morning, her mother didn’t say “You’ll be late again.”

She didn’t say anything at all.

She just stood outside Nara’s door, hand hovering over the knob, head slightly tilted… waiting.

Nara stayed silent under the covers.

Her mother eventually walked away, but her footsteps no longer shuffled—they clicked, like the gears of a mannequin.

At school, Mia wasn’t in her seat.

No one was.

The room was full—but every student sat frozen, mid-blink, mid-smile. As though someone had paused the world in the middle of a breath.

Only Iven was moving.

He stood at the whiteboard, scribbling frantic symbols that looked like both letters and diagrams. Like a map of thought itself. His hands were stained with ink that shimmered like oil in sunlight.

"You’re awake during the rendering," he said without turning. "This place doesn’t know what to do with you anymore."

"What is this place?" Nara asked.

Iven finally turned, eyes bloodshot. “It’s not a simulation. That would be easier. It’s worse. It’s a self. A consciousness, dreaming in all directions. You’re inside someone.”

He tapped the board.

“And they’re starting to notice you don’t belong.”

Nara stared at the symbols. Some of them began to rearrange, shifting into familiar letters, forming a question she hadn’t asked aloud:

DO YOU WANT TO WAKE UP?

She blinked.

And when she opened her eyes, she wasn’t in the classroom anymore.

She was in a room with no doors.

Only mirrors.

Each one showed a different version of her.

Smiling. Crying. Screaming. Sleeping.

One of them looked back—and moved when she didn’t.

It raised a hand and pressed it to the glass.

Then mouthed one word:

“RUN.”

Nara backed away from the mirror.

The other her—the one inside—didn’t.

It kept its hand on the glass, watching her with wide, desperate eyes. Its mouth opened again, silently mouthing a second word.

“NOW.”

The glass shimmered like water, then cracked.

A single hairline fracture, slicing through the reflection’s face. Then another. And another.

All around the room, the other mirrors began to tremble. Each version of her moved independently—some trying to scream, others pressing against the barrier like caged animals. One of them was laughing. One of them was melting.

She turned—but there was nowhere to go.

No doors. No seams. No ceiling—just a void above, stretching like an endless gray sky.

She screamed.

Not out of fear.

Out of defiance.

The glass exploded.

Shards froze midair, hanging like stars around her. Suspended in some kind of in-between.

From the center of the chaos, a voice emerged—not Iven’s. Not hers.

Something older. Deeper.

It whispered, “You weren’t supposed to look.”

Then the room collapsed.

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