SPLINTERED REFLECTIONS

SPLINTERED REFLECTIONS
POV: Mira

The mirror doesn’t always tell the truth. Sometimes it tells the story you fear most, and the longer you stare, the more it begins to look like prophecy.

That night, after the leak had detonated across the city and Valen’s immaculate mask began to show cracks, I couldn’t sleep. The compound breathed too loudly; machines humming, phones vibrating with newsfeeds, the world clawing at the walls even in silence.

I walked the corridor like a shadow in my own skin. The air smelled of steel and antiseptic. My footsteps dragged me to Evaine’s chamber. She lay still in her coma, skin pale, her face carrying the history of too many wars fought in secret. Tubes and monitors framed her like cruel jewelry.

I pressed my palm lightly against the glass. “If you knew what your Committee had built me for, would you even fight for me?” I whispered. The silence didn’t answer. Her chest rose and fell, a stubborn rhythm that reminded me she was still here, and that scared me more than if she hadn’t been. Because if she woke, she would bring knowledge… truths that could make or unmake me.

I was still there when the sound came. A faint scrape, almost playful, from the far end of the corridor. I turned, my body tight, my instincts sharpening like knives unsheathed.

And there she was.

The Doppelgänger. My shadow. My replacement. My ghost made flesh.

She leaned against the doorway, smiling with lips that looked exactly like mine. Her hair was slightly darker, her posture looser, but the resemblance was uncanny enough to steal the air from my lungs.

“Well,” she drawled, her voice a corrupted echo of mine, honey dipped in poison. “Look at you. Standing over mommy’s bed like a dutiful daughter.”

My heart kicked hard in my chest. “Why are you here?”

“To remind you what you are.” She stepped forward, each movement designed to mock me. “Insurance. A tool. The Committee’s little contingency plan. They made you to replace Ava if she broke. They made me to replace you when you failed.”

The words were knives, but knives I’d already seen hanging over me. Still, hearing them aloud from her mouth twisted something deep.

“You think Leon loves you?” she asked, circling me like a predator teasing its prey. “You think Ava trusts you? No. You’re tolerated. A useful shadow. A weapon to point when convenient. I’m what you were meant to be; untainted. Loyal. Perfect.”

“You’re a puppet,” I spat, though my throat tightened. “A mirror without a soul.”

Her grin widened. “Better a puppet than a mistake.”

For a beat, I wanted to lunge at her, to tear that smug reflection apart with my bare hands. But rage doesn’t cure terror, it just masks it. And she knew it. Her eyes glittered with satisfaction as though she’d already won by making me flinch.

“Stay away from them,” I warned, voice low.

“Oh, Mira.” She leaned in, close enough that I could smell the faint sweetness of her perfume. My perfume. “That’s the fun part. I don’t have to go near Leon or Ava. All I have to do is be seen. Just once. By the right eyes. And they’ll start asking the wrong questions about you. And when Ava finally breaks? Leon won’t be able to tell if it’s because of you.. or me.”

She tapped her finger against my chin like an insult, then melted into the corridor’s shadows. Gone as suddenly as she’d appeared, leaving only the echo of her laughter bouncing down the hall.

I stood there, shaking. Not with fear alone, but with something worse: recognition. Because for all her cruelty, she wasn’t lying. She was my ghost, built from the same bones, designed for the same purpose. And she was right, I could already feel Ava’s suspicion, Leon’s unspoken questions. My very existence was a threat, and the Doppelgänger had only sharpened it.

\---

By the time I collapsed into Leon’s office, my body was trembling. He looked up from the chaos of screens and data maps, his eyes immediately narrowing. He crossed the room in two strides, his hand gripping my shoulders before I even found words.

“What happened?” His voice was sharp, clipped, but underneath I heard the thrum of fear he would never admit aloud.

I tried to speak, but my throat burned. The memory of her finger on my chin made my stomach churn. Finally, I managed, “She’s real. The girl. The one who’s been following me.”

His jaw hardened. “The Doppelgänger.”

“Yes.” My voice cracked. “She… she said she was made to replace me. To erase me. That she’d make Ava believe, make you believe that I was the enemy.”

For the first time in months, I saw hesitation in Leon’s eyes. A flicker, quick as lightning, but it sliced me open.

“Leon.” My voice was desperate now, my hands clutching his shirt. “You have to believe me. You have to.”

He cupped my face, thumb tracing my cheek with a gentleness that was lethal in its own way. “I believe you. But that doesn’t mean Ava will.”

The door creaked open behind us. Ava stood there, silent, her eyes sharp with suspicion and hurt.

“What don’t I believe?” she asked.

The silence was suffocating. Leon’s hand slipped from my cheek. His jaw locked, his body tense. He turned toward her, but his hesitation was enough. I saw it in her eyes… the seed of doubt taking root.

And in that moment, I hated the Doppelgänger more than I hated the Committee itself. Because she hadn’t just threatened me. She’d planted poison in the one place I couldn’t fight it… inside the fragile, breaking trust between us all.

—

The night ended with me alone in my room, knees pulled to my chest, staring at my reflection in the mirror. For the first time, I didn’t recognize myself. Not because I’d changed. But because someone else now wore my face and I didn’t know if the people I loved would know the difference.

And maybe, a cruel voice whispered, they wouldn’t care.