She closed her eyes as she was tired and unknown to most of the palace's secrets. She was still thinking about it all though.
After like four hours
Elira's eyes snapped open.
The heavy stone ceiling… was gone.
No arches. No torches. No lingering scent of scorched marble or dragon smoke.
Instead — white paint. Familiar cracks on the wall. The faint hum of electricity.
Her bed.
Her tiny lamp.
The patterned curtains she hated.
She blinked rapidly, heart hammering in her chest. She was in her bedroom. Her real bedroom.
"…What?" she whispered aloud, slowly sitting up.
Sunlight filtered through her window like it always did in the late morning. Her small shelf of fantasy books sat undisturbed. Her mirror — the old, freestanding one — stood quiet and still in the corner.
"It was… it was a dream?" she muttered. "All of it?"
Her mind reeled.
The palace. The prince. The mirror. The beast. The dragon.
Gone.
She flung off the blanket and rushed to the door, gripping the handle with clammy hands — only to find it wouldn't turn.
Frowning, she jiggled it harder. "What the—?"
Click. Clack. Still locked.
Then she tried the deadbolt. Nothing. It was locked from the outside.
"Elric?" she whispered instinctively, then shook her head. "No… no, he's not here."
She turned toward her nightstand and grabbed her phone — but the screen stayed black. It wouldn't turn on. Wouldn't even vibrate.
Dead.
"No, no, no. This isn't right."
She hurried to the window and yanked at it — glued shut. The other one was the same. She tried her bedroom closet. Nothing but clothes. She tried the bathroom — mirror, toothbrush, soap. All there.
But something was off.
Everything looked normal.
But felt wrong.
Like a stage made to look like her world.
A perfect replica.
Her fingers began trembling. "I'm still in it… aren't I? The mirror world. Some twisted part of it."
Suddenly, the mirror in the corner flickered—not in light, but in reflection.
She turned slowly.
And in the mirror—
—she wasn't alone.