Ha-eun's breath hung in the frigid air, a delicate fog swirling around her as she trudged forward, her jacket bearing the scars of their last battle.
Torn and singed. At her side, Vega forged ahead, her rifle slung casually over one shoulder, her golden eyes keenly surveying the horizon.
The Architect's ominous influence loomed heavily in this desolate place, the atmosphere thick with a static charge that prickled against Ha-eun's skin and set her teeth on edge.
"This place reeks of the Architect's games," Vega muttered, her boot kicking a shard of glass that shattered into a myriad of pieces, each fragment reflecting a haunting vision of Ha-eun's father, crying at a candlelit shrine.
"Don't stare. It'll get in your head," Vega warned, her voice a low growl.
Ha-eun turned her gaze away, but the image lingered in her mind like a ghost.
"How long has he been waiting? Does he still have hope?" she pondered, her heart heavy with the weight of unanswered questions.
As they meandered through the maze of mirrors, their reflections fractured into a chaotic array of versions.
Some displayed Ha-eun as she once was vibrant, with eyes sparkling from laughter, hands stained with ink from late-night study sessions, juxtaposed with memories of pure horror.
Other reflections warped into nightmarish visions, where she transformed into a Voidborn, her skin peeling back to reveal a monstrous form.
"Great, now I have to worry about more," Ha-eun muttered, her boot crashing down on a mirror, shattering it with a high-pitched scream that echoed through the void.
Vega smirked. "I told you not to stare."
The further they ventured, the more the mirrors proliferated, forming a dense labyrinth that leaned ominously against the walls.
The air grew colder, their breaths crystallizing into icy flecks. Strange symbols glowed faintly on the glass—ΔΣ—repeating in patterns reminiscent of her knife and the lab.
"What are those symbols?" Ha-eun thought, the question echoing deep in her mind.
ΔΣ. Vega glanced at the symbols and sighed.
"Alpha and sigma," she began, her voice steady.
"They represent the Architect's innate powers. First and constellation are their meanings."
"First constellation ," Ha-eun echoed, her eyes tracing the symbols.
"We're being lured," Vega said, pulling Ha-eun from her thoughts, her finger poised over her rifle's trigger.
"The Architect loves a good trap."
As if on cue, the ground trembled beneath them.
The mirrors wobbled and shifted, coalescing into a narrow corridor that led to a central clearing.
At its heart stood a broken spike, its surface humming with bioluminescent veins pulsing like a heartbeat. Someone awaited them beneath it.
"Hello, Ha-eun. I've waited so long for you to come to me," a voice resonated from every direction, echoing ominously throughout the area.
Vega aimed her rifle at the sound while Ha-eun drew her pistol, both weapons trained on the same spot.
"Who are you? Show yourself!" Ha-eun demanded, her voice steady despite the fear curling in her stomach.
"Don't worry, Ha-eun. I'm not here to harm you; I'm only here to talk," the mysterious voice replied, dripping with insincerity.
"I don't trust that. Ever since I crash-landed into this stupid world, everything has tried to kill me," Ha-eun countered, her grip tightening on her weapon.
"If you don't show yourself, I swear I'll blow your skull off," she threatened, her resolve firm.
"How sweet," the voice crooned. "If that's what you want…"
Ha-eun's breath hitched in her throat as horror washed over her.
What she saw was a twisted reflection of herself.
There she stood.
Ha-eun, but not as she knew herself.
This was a grotesque imitation, her face a distorted mirror image, stretched and warped as though viewed through water.
One eye was a hollow socket oozing black ichor, while the other glowed violet—a perfect mimicry of her infected eye. Her body was a sinister amalgam of human flesh and Voidborn shards, obsidian scales grafted to her skin like armor.
She smiled, revealing teeth sharpened to needle-like points.
"Little spark," Echo crooned, her voice layered with the Architect's dissonant echo.
"You're late."
Ha-eun's grip on her knife tightened. "What the hell are you?"
"My name is Echo. I am you," the creature replied with a smile that only deepened Ha-eun's dread.
"I'm not so sure about that," Ha-eun retorted, still in shock. "I don't have a face like yours; I have a better face than you."
"Is that so?" Echo replied, her tone dripping with mockery.
Echo tilted her head, the movement unsettlingly insect-like. "A gift. A lesson. The Architect thought you might need… motivation."
Vega raised her rifle, her voice steady. "Motivation to do what? Die, you wretched creature?"
Echo's violet eye flared with malice.
"To surrender."
Echo moved first, a blur of shadow and jagged light.
She lunged at Ha-eun, claws slicing through the air where her throat had been. Ha-eun ducked and rolled behind a mirror, only for Echo to shatter it with a brutal backhand.
Shards of glass rained down, reflecting Echo's snarling visage in every fragment.
"You said you wouldn't kill me?" Ha-eun cried out, panic rising.
"Don't worry, dear," Echo purred mockingly. "I won't kill you; I'll just dismantle your limbs one by one."
"F*ck you!" Ha-eun spat, evading another attack and landing a blow to Echo.
Vega fired, her energy rounds tearing through Echo's shoulder. The creature hissed, the wound sizzling, yet it began to knit itself shut almost instantly.
"Aim for the core!" Vega barked, urgency lacing her voice.
"Where?!" Ha-eun shouted, dodging yet another swipe from Echo.
Echo laughed, leaping onto a floating pillar. "You'll have to find that answer yourself."
The spire above pulsed, its veins glowing brighter.
The labyrinth shifted again, mirrors folding inward to encase Ha-eun and Vega. Echo vanished into the reflections, her laughter echoing from all directions.
Ha-eun's breaths came in ragged gasps, her muscles burning with exertion.
Each mirror presented a version of her failure: her father's hollow eyes, Vega's corpse decaying in the void, Earth consumed by the Architect's relentless vines.
This isn't real. None of this is real.
But doubt seeped in, cold and insidious. What if she couldn't win? What if this was all she would ever be?
a broken thing fighting a war she didn't understand? Ha-eun hesitated for a moment, the weight of despair pressing down on her.
Echo materialized behind her, claws rending through her jacket. Ha-eun cried out, blood welling hot and stinging against her skin.
"Weak," Echo taunted, her voice dripping with disdain. "The Architect's true heir would never bleed so easily."
Ha-eun rolled, plunging her knife into Echo's ribs. The blade sparked against the Voidborn scales.
"I'm nobody's heir and certainly not someone else's f*cking property," she retorted defiantly.
Vega climbed a floating ruin, her rifle unleashing blue fire at the spire's pulsating veins.
"Ha-eun! The core's in the spire! Bring it down!" she commanded.
Echo shrieked, abandoning Ha-eun to pounce on Vega. "You ruin everything!"
Ha-eun didn't hesitate.
She sprinted toward the spire, glass cutting into her palms as she climbed.
The veins lashed at her like serpents, but she drove her knife into the structure's base. The spire trembled, cracks spiderwebbing upward.
Echo slammed Vega into the ground and turned, her violet eye wide with fury. "No! You dare!"
"No, I dare," Ha-eun declared, twisting the knife deep into Echo's heart to reach the core. "Burn and die, ugly me."
The spire erupted in a catastrophic explosion, a shockwave of brilliance and sound ripping through the labyrinth.
Echo dissolved into ash, her final scream melding with the Architect's furious roar.
Ha-eun collapsed, her vision blurring. Vega, blood streaking her face, dragged her upright. "Up, kid. We're not done yet."
The void trembled ominously.
Above them, the Architect's fractal form materialized, its edges devouring the remnants of the mirror field.
"YOU WILL REGRET THIS," it thundered, a chilling promise that sent shivers down their spines.
Ha-eun grinned, blood staining her teeth. "I already regretted it a long time ago."