Chapter 7: The Shadow Beneath the Glass
The mirror fractures beneath your palms.
Where were you before the mirror?
Go find out.
👇
Not with the familiar shatter of glass, but with the sickening give of flesh peeling from bone.
The surface ripples, cracks spiral like veins across your vision, and the church tilts sideways—gravity forgotten.
You fall.
The world folds inside out, and when it snaps back—
You're still in the church.
But it’s not the one you left.
The pews rot where they stand, splintered wood crawling with black moss that pulses faintly, as if breathing. The stained-glass windows weep streams of oily liquid, the saints depicted within smeared and unrecognizable, their faces melted into masks of grief.
Above, the rafters creak—not with wind, but with the shifting weight of unseen things crawling just beyond the fractured ceiling.
The air hangs heavy with incense and decay. Your lungs fill with the cloying scent of burnt prayer books, mildew, and old blood.
Your boots sink into the fog curling along the chapel floor—a mist so dense it clings to your skin like cobwebs.
And then you see it.
Your Shadow.
It stands by the altar, taller than you, body stretched like a reflection warped in rippling water. Its skin shimmers with that same sickly, mirrored sheen, veins etched in silver beneath its translucent surface. Its face—your face—grins with a mouth that splits too wide, jagged and unfinished, as if something inside is still sculpting it.
Its eyes?
Polished obsidian. Twin mirrors.
And they’re staring straight into you.
"You thought you could leave me behind?" it croons, voice dripping with distortion, familiar but corrupted.
"You cracked the glass. Now I crack you."
The chapel groans underfoot. Wooden beams above flex like ribs under strain. The fog recoils from your Shadow, tendrils slithering away from where it stands.
Your chest tightens. Your pulse drums behind your eyes.
The hymnals left scattered across the floor flutter open, pages rustling without wind. The words printed on them rearrange, spelling messages that gnaw at your sanity:
“The Well never forgets.”
“The Well always feeds.”
Something creaks behind you.
You whip around.
No one’s there.
But in the warped reflection of a broken stained-glass pane, your Shadow stands inches from your back, smiling.
You spin—and it’s still by the altar, unmoving.
Your stomach flips.
This place doesn’t follow rules.
Your Shadow doesn’t lunge—it explodes toward you.
Your Shadow moves without warning.
A blur of limbs, its body contorting mid-air, bones cracking in directions yours never should. The fog tears away in its wake, revealing warped floorboards beneath, pulsing with blue light like veins snaking through rotted wood.
You dodge left, but its claws graze your shoulder—a flash of searing pain—and slam into the pulpit behind you. Wood shatters like brittle bone.
You stumble. Your heart jackhammers.
It grins. Too wide. Its jaw unhinges, mirror-shard teeth grinding against each other like glass on glass.
"Always the coward," it hisses, voice jagged with static.
"You break everything. Let me finish it for you."
The floor bucks beneath your feet, the church groaning like it’s collapsing under centuries of guilt.
Your Shadow rushes again—impossibly fast—claws slicing the air. You duck, roll, kick at its legs, but your foot connects with a body like fog made solid.
It barely staggers.
You scramble toward the mirror shard near the altar, but it’s there first—slamming you to the ground with an unnatural force.
Your back hits the floorboards. Hard.
The fog swirls above you. Your Shadow straddles your chest, knees pinning your arms down like steel restraints.
Its face inches from yours.
No eyes. Just pools of liquid mirror. You stare into yourself—and see every failure, every fracture, every wrong turn.
Its breath is cold. Rotten. Whispering your own fears back at you.
"You were never strong enough to hold me back."
Its claw rises, sharp and glistening with fragments of your reflection.
You twist, panic rising, but you’re pinned—weight crushing your lungs, vision blurring. You gasp, struggling beneath it, pulse hammering in your ears.
Your mind screams:
This is it. You’re losing. You’re breaking.
But something glints beside your head—just within reach.
The mirror shard.
Hope, jagged and fragile.
The Shadow’s claws hover at your throat. Its weight crushes your chest, breath sour with rot and static. Your limbs shake, pinned beneath it.
But your mind races.
You have mere seconds.
Your fingers brush the floorboards, skimming the jagged edge of broken glass—the mirror shard.
And behind your eyes, the journal whispers—a phrase etched in blood and ink, the one buried in your memory since this nightmare began.
The fog thickens.
The church leans inward.
Your Shadow smiles wider, teeth too sharp, too numerous.
Your body’s screaming. But you still have a choice.
Option 1: Whisper the Journal’s Words
The journal—the one that’s followed you, bled ink, pulsed with life—you remember the phrase buried in its pages. Maybe the words have power. Maybe they’re your last weapon. If the well still speaks… maybe it’s listening.
Option 2: Grab the Mirror Shard
Your fingers stretch, trembling, straining for the jagged edge of glass. Reflections cut both ways. If this thing is you, maybe you know exactly where to make it bleed. But glass never chooses sides—and neither does the dark.
The fog coils tighter. Your Shadow’s claw sinks toward your skin.