The broken mirror lies heavy in my hands, its jagged edges reflecting the dark sky above.

The cracks
shimmer, each fracture capturing a tiny piece of me, fragmented and distorted. I stare at the reflection
—at the person I’ve been running from for so long.
She looks back, her eyes hollow, her face shadowed by something I don’t want to name. This is the
moment. The moment I’m supposed to understand. But nothing comes.
All I feel is an emptiness.
The air around me seems to thicken, the forest closing in like it’s waiting for something. The silence
presses against my ears, and for the first time in this dream—or whatever this is—I don’t feel the urge
to move. There’s no more running left in me. No more questions or searching. I’m just… here.
I lower the mirror, holding it against my chest, and close my eyes. I don’t want to look at myself
anymore. I don’t want to see the cracks, the broken pieces. I just want to feel whole again. But the
weight of the mirror presses into me, a reminder that I can’t turn away from this. Not now. Not ever.
“You’re still afraid.”
The voice comes from behind me, soft and familiar. Her voice.
I don’t turn around. I know who it is. The other me. She’s always there, lurking just at the edge of my
mind, waiting for the moment I’ll finally break.
“I’m not afraid,” I say, but the words feel hollow. I know she can hear the lie in my voice.
She steps closer, her presence like a cold shadow at my back. “You’ve been running for so long,
haven’t you?” she whispers, her tone almost gentle, like she’s trying to comfort me. “Running from
yourself. From the truth.”
I squeeze the mirror tighter, the cracks digging into my fingers. “What truth?”
She doesn’t answer at first. Instead, I feel her hand on my shoulder, cold and unfamiliar. “That you
don’t belong anywhere else,” she says quietly. “Not in the waking world. Not even here. You’re caught
in between.”
Her words sink into me like stones, heavy and unrelenting. I want to argue, to deny it, but something
deep inside me knows she’s right. I’ve always felt out of place—adrift, like I didn’t quite fit into the
world I was born into. This place, this dream, has become more real to me than anything outside of it.
But even here, I’m not truly at home. I’m just… stuck.
“You can’t keep pretending,” she says, her voice almost kind now. “You can’t keep hiding from what
you are.”
“And what am I?” I ask, my voice trembling despite myself.
Her grip on my shoulder tightens, and I feel the cold seeping into my skin. “Lost,” she whispers.
“You’re lost. But you don’t have to be.”
I open my eyes and look down at the mirror again. My reflection stares back at me, fractured and
broken, and I wonder if there’s any way to put the pieces back together. If I can ever be whole again.
“Let go,” she says, her breath cold against my neck. “Stop fighting it. This is where you belong. You’ve
known it all along.”
I shake my head, even as tears blur my vision. “I don’t want this,” I whisper, my voice barely audible.
“I don’t want to be here.”
But even as I say the words, I can feel the truth gnawing at the edges of my mind. The pull of this place
is undeniable. The peace it offers, the way it wraps around me like a familiar blanket, is tempting.
There’s no pain here, no confusion, no harsh edges. Just the soft blur of dreams and shadows, where
nothing is quite real but nothing is truly terrifying, either.
“You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” she says, her voice low and soothing. “You don’t have to fight.
Just let go.”
I close my eyes again, trying to shut out the sound of her voice, trying to block out the pull of this
place. But it’s too strong. It’s always been too strong.
“I can’t,” I whisper, but the words feel weak, like I’m trying to convince myself more than anyone else.
“You already have,” she replies, her voice a breath of cold air.
I open my eyes and look at the mirror once more. My reflection is still there, broken and shattered, but
something is different now. The cracks don’t seem as harsh. The pieces don’t feel as jagged. It’s like
I’m looking at something familiar, something I’ve always known was a part of me.
I exhale slowly, the weight in my chest loosening just a little. Maybe I have been running too long.
Maybe this is what I’ve been running from—this part of me, the one that’s broken, the one that doesn’t
fit into the world I thought I belonged to.
I let the mirror slip from my hands. It falls silently to the ground, sinking into the moss at my feet. I
don’t need to hold onto it anymore.
For a long moment, there’s just silence. The forest is still, the air heavy with waiting. I stand there, my
eyes on the place where the mirror disappeared, and I feel something shift inside me. Not a breaking,
but a release.
And then she speaks again.
“You’re ready now.”
I turn around, and there she is—the other me. But she’s different now. Her eyes are softer, her face no
longer twisted with that cruel smile. She looks like me, but not the broken version I’ve been running
from. She looks like the person I used to be.
“I don’t know what happens next,” I admit, my voice trembling.
She steps closer, her gaze gentle. “Neither do I,” she says. “But it’s time to stop running.”
I nod, though fear still gnaws at the edges of my mind. The forest feels alive around me, watching,
waiting for my decision.
“I don’t want to stay here forever,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
She smiles, and it’s almost kind. “You won’t.”
Before I can say anything else, the world around me begins to blur. The trees melt into shadows, the
ground dissolves into mist, and the air grows thin. I feel myself sinking, falling backward, weightless.
And as the darkness takes me, I hear her voice one last time, soft and fading.
“You’ll wake up when you’re ready.”