The Fractured Reflection Part 1: The Eye Inside the Blade

March 26, 2025

"They deleted the rewrite. But they weren’t the only ones who walked away from it…"

The sky above Astralis pulsed wrong.

Not in color or shape—but in rhythm. As if the heartbeat of the realm was beating off-tempo, just a little too slow. Just a little too loud. Clouds glitched at the edges. The sun blinked twice between breaths. Somewhere nearby, a bell tower rang—but the sound arrived before it was felt.

Lazul ignored it.

She stood on the outer wall of the floating city, her necrocrafted arm resting on the stone. The wind here was sharp, electric, thick with leyline residue from the battle. She stared out at the fractured horizon—where the Midnight Flats melted into black geometry—and tried not to think about the Godcore.

Behind her, Xander muttered to himself.

Not words. Not quite.

“Thread not found. Redirecting input to shell root. Shell root denied.”

Lazul snapped around with a hiss, “Xander.”

He looked up. His arcane visor hung around his neck, useless now. His bare eyes shimmered with wrong light—hollow glyphs flickering across his irises like code unraveling mid-stream.

“1’m f1n3,” he said, too quickly. “Just h34r1ng th1ngs. 0r r3m3mb3r1ng th1ngs.”

“You’re glitching again.”

“N0t gl1tch1ng. Upgr4d1ng.”

He smiled. It wasn’t convincing.

Lazul hated this.

They had escaped the dungeon. Defeated the Medusa. Taken the Godcore. They had won.

So why did it still feel like they were losing? And why did he stare at her like that? So sad…

The Static of Silence

Down below, Astralis limped toward normalcy. The streets were less looped now. NPCs had resumed their clockwork routines. The Arcanist had returned to the Temple of Threefold Light and assured them that “time was stitching itself back together.”

But it wasn’t.

The city was still… remembering things that hadn’t happened. Or maybe hadn’t happened yet.

A child kicked a ball across a cobbled street. The ball bounced. A dog barked. The sound arrived in reverse order.

Orrin cleaned and checked his keytar beside a fountain that sprayed water up in perfect hexagonal arcs. He kept adjusting the dials, but the vibe was never right.

“Something’s wrong with the weave,” he said, not looking up. “It’s like the song of the city forgot its chorus.”

Xander gave a half-laugh.

“Not funny.”

“Didn’t say it was.”

Lazul left them both behind.

She didn’t want answers. She wanted silence.

She got neither.

The Door That Wasn't There Yesterday

It called to her.

Like a whisper against her bones. A soft pull, and then a compulsion.

On the southern edge of the city, beneath the abandoned tower of the old Concordance Guild, Lazul found a stairwell that hadn’t existed the day before. Spiral. Dustless. Lit by lanterns that burned with slow violet fire.

She descended without thinking.

At the bottom: a door. No handle. No seams.

Only a mirror.

It wasn’t a reflection.

Her own face stared back—but didn’t move with her.

The moment she raised her hand, the mirror melted.

The Chamber of Versions

No walls. No floor. Just a vast, dark space of glass and glitchlight.

Her boots rang with every step, but there was no echo.

Then—motion.

Figures emerged from the gloom like projections: wireframe ghosts strung together by memories. A dozen versions of herself, flickering in and out of sync. Some with armor she’d never worn. Others scarred. One missing both arms. One crowned in fire.

And her—

She stepped forward.

Identical, except for the arm.

Where Lazul’s was witherbone and rune-etched marrow, hers was metal. Smooth, mirror-bright, inlaid with glowing sigils Lazul couldn’t read.

The reflection spoke first.

“You remember this place differently.”

Its voice was hers. But colder. More precise.

Lazul squared her stance. “Who are you?”

The copy smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“I’m what you used to be.”

The One Who Didn't Run

Lazul didn’t flinch. “That’s a lie.”

“No,” the reflection said. “It’s the truth beneath the lie you built.”

She gestured to the arm. “You remember it being given to you. A gift. A tool. A way to survive.”

Lazul’s fingers twitched. The bones in her arm hummed.

“You traded everything for it. Your memories. Your honor. Your name. I’m you, before you made that trade.”

“That’s not possible.”

“And yet.”

Behind her, the other versions flickered and glitched.

Orrin’s voice buzzed through the static, faint in her ear.

“Laz. Where are you? Your signal’s fracturing. I’m getting bleed from every version of you—are you in a loop?”

Then Xander’s voice, full of static:

“mirrorDimension.protocol active. if she fights, she syncs. if she syncs, she breaks.”

The reflection stepped forward. “Let me back in.”

Lazul drew her blade.

The Eye Inside the Blade

Her reflection smiled.

“Fine.”

She raised her own sword—identical in shape, but its core fizzled with pixelated white, like sparks of molten light. Not death. Not necrotic energy.

Creation.

The clash was instant.

Steel sang against steel, sparks flying in slow motion. The room bent around them, every strike echoing in fractal shards of memory. Each blow summoned visions—of ruins, of fires, of faces Lazul didn’t recognize but somehow knew.

The arm burned.

Not just with pain. With recognition.

The reflection drove her back. “You think you’re whole? You’re a cut piece. A fragment.”

“I survived!” Lazul spat.

“You forgot.” The reflection’s sword carved sparks from her shoulder. “You erased yourself to become strong enough to fight them. But strength without memory is just hunger—vanity.”

Lazul’s next strike split the reflection’s arm at the wrist.

It hissed.

Lazul paused—uncharacteristically surprised.

The reflection smirked. What does she know?

“I hope you’re ready for what’s coming.”

The chamber cracked.

Reality folded.