the boy stood on the edge of a shifting plain, the orb heavy in his pocket and glowing now with three lights—each pulsing with its own rhythm, like echoes from lives he could almost remember. The second had warned him:
"She walks where mirrors lie."
And so he came here—to the place called Verrah Hollow.
The landscape was wrong. Trees grew upside down, their roots threading the sky. Pools of still water rippled from silent winds. And at its heart, there was a house—built entirely from glass.
It had no doors. Only reflections.
The boy approached, each step sending shivers through the ground. As he neared, the panels of the house flickered—not from light, but from memory. In each sheet of glass, he saw a version of himself: younger, older, frightened, angry… alone.
But then one panel changed.
A girl stood within it—not a memory, but a presence. Her hair floated like ink in water, and her eyes shimmered silver-blue.
She looked at him from behind the glass. "You're late."
He blinked. "You're the third."
"No," she said, voice laced with sorrow. "I was the third. Now… I'm what's left when you break a promise to yourself."
The orb pulsed violently in his pocket.
She pressed her hand against the glass. "We swore we'd never come back here. That we'd leave this place sealed. But you chose to remember. So I've been waiting—trapped in the mirror that won't shatter."
He stepped forward. "Then let me free you."
She shook her head. "Not with your hands. With your truth."
Suddenly, the world around him bent, folding in upon itself. The glass house tilted. The trees wept shards instead of leaves. The reflections spoke:
"What did you forget to protect?"
"What did you lie about to survive?"
"Who were you, before the Act?"
The orb flew from his pocket, suspended midair, spinning fast. Then—snap!—a crack split the panel before him.
The girl stepped through. Her real form now glimmered with fractured light, like a soul held together by will alone.
She looked at him with quiet recognition. "The fourth waits in the heart of the storm."
Then she touched the orb, and the final light flared to life.
Above them, thunder roared—and the sky ripped open.
Four lights. One storm. And a truth that might shatter everything.
Shall we walk into the tempest for Chapter 6… or pause to peer deeper into the meaning of the Act itself? This next step feels like a turning point. ⚡🕯️