Chapter 34 The Mirror of Ends
I stared at the man in the chair. He had no face, only a mirror. In that reflection, I saw my father. He looked tired and old, holding a heavy gun to his own temple. The room smelled like burnt paper and cold electricity.
"The last chapter is yours, Elara," the reflection said. Its voice wasn't coming from the mirror. It was coming from inside my own head. "Pull the trigger, or let the story repeat forever."
My heart felt like a trapped bird hitting the bars of a cage. Behind me, Xavier was growling, his golden eyes fixed on the man. Leo and Elias were shaking, their silver light dimming as they looked at the bedroom. This wasn't a lab or a castle. It was a prison of ink and pixels.
"Don't do it, Mommy!" Leo cried out. "If he dies, do we disappear?"
"He isn't the author," I hissed, my claws digging into my palms. I felt the black scales on my neck start to burn. "He’s just another mask. Another lie to make me feel guilty."
I looked at the mirror again. My father’s finger was tightening on the trigger. He looked so real. I could see the sweat on his forehead. I could see the sadness in his eyes. This was the man who had supposedly died in the lab. The man who had been turned into a dragon.
"If you kill him," the voice in the mirror whispered, "you are just like the Agency. You are a murderer. Stay in the story, Elara. We can go back to the hospital. We can make the tumor go away. We can give you the quiet life."
"I don't want a quiet life built on a lie!" I roared.
I didn't lunge at the mirror. I looked at the computer on the desk. The cursor was still blinking. The words on the screen were changing in real-time. It was writing our conversation as we spoke.
Elara hesitated. Her heart was breaking for the father she lost...
"I’m not hesitating," I said to the screen.
I grabbed the computer monitor with my scaled hands. The glass was hot. I didn't smash it. I closed my eyes and let the blue spark, the virus inside my blood, pour into the machine.
"If we are just a story," I whispered, "then I’m rewriting the ending."
The room began to shake. The young man in the chair started to flicker. The mirror face cracked, and pieces of silver fell to the floor like snow.
"What are you doing?" the man screamed. His voice was no longer my father’s. It was the flat, cold voice of the director. "You'll crash the system! You'll erase everything!"
"Good!" I yelled.
Xavier jumped forward, his golden claws ripping into the desk. He wasn't just a wolf anymore; he was a force of nature. Together, we tore the room. We ripped the curtains that were made of code. We smashed the floor that was made of memories.
Suddenly, the young man in the chair grabbed my throat. He was strong, stronger than any Alpha I had ever fought. His hands felt like cold metal.
"You think you’re free?" he laughed. "Look at the window, Elara!"
I looked. Outside the bedroom window, there wasn't a street. There were millions of other windows. Each one showed a different version of me.
In one, I was a maid in a billionaire’s house. In another, I was a wolf being sold at an auction. In another, I was the queen of a fallen kingdom.
"The Silver Line is a franchise!" the man hissed. "You are in a thousand books! If you destroy this one, you just wake up in the next one. The readers will always want their revenge. They will always want your pain."
He squeezed my neck harder. My vision began to blur.
"Then I'll break all of them," I choked out.
I reached for the locket around my neck, the one Mark had given me. It wasn't just a key to the Core. It was a bomb. I focused all my rage, all my love for Xavier, and all my hunger for revenge into that tiny piece of silver.
"Xavier! Grab the boys!" I screamed.
Xavier didn't ask questions. He scooped up Leo and Elias and lunged toward me.
I snapped the locket.
A wave of pure, white fire exploded from my chest. It didn't burn my skin, but it burned the world. The bedroom melted. The man in the chair vanished. The millions of windows in the sky shattered into a billion pieces of glass.
We were falling. Truly falling.
Then, we hit the ground. Hard.
I opened my eyes. I smelled wet dirt and real pine needles. I heard the sound of a real bird chirping. I looked at my hands. They were human. No scales. No blue sparks. Just skin.
I looked at Xavier. He was lying in the grass, his chest heaving. He looked human, too.
"Is it over?" he asked, his voice rasping.
I looked around. We were in a forest. A real forest. But then I saw it.
Standing in a circle around us were people. They weren't wearing lab coats or armor. They were wearing normal clothes, hoodies, jeans, and t-shirts. They were holding phones and tablets, all of them pointed at us.
One girl stepped forward. She was crying. "Oh my god," she whispered. "It's really her. She actually made it out."
I stood up, pulling Xavier to his feet. "Who are you, people?"
"We're your fans," the girl said. She looked at her phone. "The book just ended. But the sequel just started in the real world. Look."
She turned her phone toward me. It was a live news report.
Breaking News: Mass disappearance at the Global Research Center. Thousands of test subjects were found in a forest. They claim to be 'werewolves' and 'dragons.'
Then, the girl’s phone began to glow red. A message popped up on the screen.
Project re-entry: phase 1. Capture the virus.
Suddenly, the girl’s eyes turned red. She dropped her phone and pulled a silver pistol from her hoodie.
"I'm sorry, Elara," she said, her voice turning mechanical. "But I need to see what happens in the next chapter."
She pulled the trigger.