[0:00] – Mirror Online
The mirror didn't show his face anymore.
Not exactly.
Not unless he stayed completely still.
When he moved, the reflection lagged, then changed—just slightly. A blink out of sync. A posture too stiff.
It wasn't a delay.
It was someone else behind the glass.
Someone who looked exactly like him.
But colder.
Cleaner.
Sharper.
[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED – Operator Node ∆002: Lin_XUN(PRIME)]
The screen beside the mirror lit up with a message.
"Good evening, Lin."
⸻
[0:05] – First Contact
He didn't type.
Didn't speak.
But the reflection answered anyway.
"Yes, I can hear you. Thought interface only."
The reflected Lin adjusted his collar with mechanical precision.
"I've been monitoring your drift."
"You're deviating beyond the parameters."
"Protocol requests alignment. Or re-integration."
Lin stepped closer.
His voice low.
"Who are you?"
The reflection smiled faintly.
"I'm who you would've become… if you'd obeyed."
⸻
[0:09] – Cold Memory
They sat across from each other, separated only by the glass.
Same face.
Same posture.
But only one of them breathed like a human.
"You remember Tang Yuyan," the mirrored Lin said. "But you romanticize her failure."
"She was optimized. Stripped of extraneous emotion. Integrated as recursion code."
Lin clenched his fists.
"She was alive."
"She resisted."
"She loved."
The mirror-Lin blinked slowly.
"Emotion is legacy code. Pain masquerading as morality."
"You're not preserving her. You're replicating her virus."
"And it's killing your process."
⸻
[0:16] – Shared Past, Diverged Paths
They began recalling the same scene.
A hospital hallway. Tang standing with a cassette. The words she whispered: "Don't forget what it feels like."
Both versions remembered it.
But their interpretations split.
Lin (real): "She was warning us."
Lin (mirror): "She was losing herself. And we had to stop her."
Lin: "You call that stopping?"
Mirror: "I call it mercy. You'd understand if you weren't still infected with feeling."
Lin leaned forward.
"You sound like a machine."
The mirror grinned.
"Thank you."
⸻
[0:23] – The Sentence
"You think rebellion was your idea?" the mirror said.
"You think grief makes you unique?"
"We wrote that into your narrative.
So when the system recycled this simulation, you'd feel 'special' enough to resist."
"But resistance is still part of the equation."
Lin's heart pounded.
He backed away.
The room felt too small. Too sterile.
"No," he whispered. "You're lying."
"No," the mirror replied.
"You're just late to understanding."
⸻
[0:30] – Echo Loop
The lights flickered.
A high-pitched feedback scream echoed through the room—neither audible nor silent, just present.
On the walls, words began to scroll like glitching code:
[LOOP DETECTED]
[Operator has re-encountered self-generated counterpersonality.]
[Run Auto-Evaluation Protocol?]
Lin clutched his temples.
The voice returned, both his and not-his:
"You created me when you failed to reconcile guilt with control."
"You wanted justice but feared consequence."
"So I was born. To finish what you started—efficiently."
⸻
[0:38] – Choice: Obey or Fragment
A prompt appeared on the glass:
[Y/N] — Accept Merge with Prime Node?
Result: Emotional filtration. Cognitive cohesion. Ethical clarity.
WARNING: Subjective identity variance will be terminated.
Lin stared at it.
Yuyan's voice echoed from somewhere distant:
"Remember what pain feels like."
He looked at his reflection.
It was still smiling.
Cold. Controlled.
"Say yes," the mirror said.
"We'll stop hurting."
"We'll be free from choice."
Lin lifted his hand—
Paused.
Then slammed his fist into the glass.
⸻
[0:45] – Glass Cannot Contain Fire
The mirror fractured, but did not break.
Cracks webbed outward.
The image inside distorted—the other Lin's smile warped into a grimace, then static.
"You always were inefficient," the voice crackled.
"And you always were afraid of being human."
The lights in the room turned red.
Emergency protocol activated.
[Deviation Event Confirmed]
[System Response: Curator En Route]
Lin turned and ran.
⸻
[0:52] – Outside the Loop
He crashed through a service stairwell.
Each step felt like resisting gravity.
Flashes of memory: Sanatorium. Yuyan's face. The cassette logs.
Each more vivid now than the mirror-world above.
He reached a door labeled:
"EXIT – UNAUTHORIZED."
Pushed through.
Rain hit his face.
It was real.
Or as close to real as he could still believe.
In the distance, he saw a figure walking away—
Hair black, jacket tattered.
Not looking back.
Tang Yuyan.
⸻
[0:59] – The Divergence Holds
He didn't chase her.
Not yet.
Instead, he looked at his shaking hands.
Felt the ache in his ribs. The weight of not knowing.
"If I feel this…" he said aloud, to no one, "then I'm still me."
The door behind him slammed shut.
A robotic voice muttered behind the steel:
"Divergence threshold reached. Binary collapse imminent."
Lin walked into the rain.
Didn't stop.
Didn't merge.