It began in the shower.
Aika wiped the fog from the mirror—
but her reflection didn't follow.
It stayed still.
Smiling.
And then whispered:
> "You weren't supposed to survive."
---
She screamed.
Ran from the bathroom.
Ren burst in with a blade in hand.
But there was no one there.
Just the mirror.
Fogged again.
But this time, something new had appeared—
carved into the glass from the inside:
> "She's still watching from the other side."
---
That night, Aika sat on the balcony.
She watched strangers walk below.
And noticed something strange.
A man stood behind a couple.
Close.
Too close.
But they didn't see him.
He stared directly at her—
And mouthed:
> "Your face is borrowed."
---
She told Ren everything.
He listened carefully.
Ran tests.
No Spiral activity.
No implants.
No signs of signal bleed.
But one anomaly:
> A phantom neural echo spiking every time Aika looked into a reflective surface.
---
Ren stared at the results.
"This isn't Spiral."
Aika: "Then what is it?"
He hesitated.
Then pulled out the one folder he never opened.
The one marked:
> "ORIGIN-Z"
Pre-Spiral Research | Project: Mirrorghost
---
He read aloud:
> "Before Spiral, before memory recalibration…
a team of neurologists tried to treat identity loss with visual reframing.
They built mirrored therapy rooms.
But the more time patients spent looking into 'themselves'—
the more they saw things that weren't them at all."
---
Aika stared at him.
"You think I'm seeing ghosts?"
He shook his head.
"No.
You're seeing versions.
The ones Spiral didn't erase, because they never lived in memory.
They lived in mirrors."
---
That night, Aika did something reckless.
She turned off all lights in the apartment.
Stood before the bathroom mirror.
And whispered:
> "If you know who I am… then show me who you are."
---
The lights exploded.
The mirror cracked.
And through the shattered glass—
A woman stepped out.
Same face.
Same voice.
But eyes full of hatred.
---
She didn't walk.
She floated.
Hair rising.
Fingers twitching.
And her voice?
It was Aika's.
But fractured.
> "They made me from what you couldn't handle."
"I held the anger.
I kept the betrayal.
I screamed for the mother you forgot."
---
Ren burst in—
But couldn't move.
The air was heavy.
Like gravity had broken.
The woman stared at him.
> "You love her because she was softened.
But I was the original.
I was the one who lived through the dark without flinching."
---
She turned back to Aika.
> "Let me in.
And I'll make you whole.
Or keep pretending you're strong without me."
Aika fell to her knees.
Tears falling.
And whispered:
> "You're the part of me I erased in silence."
The mirror woman nodded.
> "And now I'm all that's left of what you won't say out loud."
---
The room darkened.
But the woman didn't attack.
She just stepped backward.
Into the mirror.
And vanished.
---
On the glass:
A new message written in condensation:
> "One version lived.
The other watches.
But neither forgets."
---
Aika whispered:
> "I thought Spiral deleted me.
But maybe… I just never looked deep enough."
The first call came from a school.
A teenage girl had jumped from the rooftop.
No suicide note.
No final message.
Just four words scrawled on a desk in nail-scratches:
> "I am not her."
---
The second case came from an elderly man.
Found wandering through traffic.
Repeating:
> "She walks when I sleep.
She's my face, but not my name."
---
Ren collected the reports in silence.
All Spiral survivors.
All mirror episodes.
All describing the same phenomenon:
> Seeing a version of themselves
that spoke with memories they never lived.
---
Aika sat across from him.
Her hands trembling over the newest file.
A boy—age 10—who refused to look into puddles.
Because his reflection told him:
> "You belong to Spiral.
Your mother gave you away."
---
Ren slammed the file shut.
"This isn't residual trauma.
It's external."
Aika: "You mean someone's activating the reflections?"
He nodded.
> "Someone—or something—is using reflective surfaces to hijack identity traces.
Not memories. Potential versions.
Things Spiral could've overwritten, but didn't."
---
They followed the pattern.
All victims had visited the same district in the last week.
A quiet part of the city.
Abandoned buildings.
Boarded-up windows.
At the center:
a closed museum.
> The Kisaragi Institute of Human Form.
Aika froze.
"That's… my name."
Ren's voice went dry.
"It was funded by Spiral's original shareholders."
---
They broke in at night.
No alarms.
Dust undisturbed.
But inside?
Walls lined with mirrors.
Not glass—memory glass.
The kind used in high-end neurotherapy.
The kind that could scan a person's full identity layer—
past, present, suppressed, and theoretical.
---
Aika stepped close to one.
At first, just her.
Then—
four versions of her appeared.
One crying.
One angry.
One laughing with a knife.
And one silent, staring at the floor.
They all turned to her in unison.
And whispered:
> "We were left behind."
---
Ren approached a second mirror.
And saw himself—
as a doctor in a bloody coat.
As a father.
As a killer.
As a child.
All of them said the same thing:
> "We're still waiting for your permission to live."
---
Suddenly—
The mirrors began to speak together.
Not aloud.
But inside their heads.
A synchronized voice:
> "Welcome to the Archive of What Was Possible."
"This is where Spiral stored unauthorized selves."
"You deleted memories.
But never potential."
"And potential does not sleep forever."
---
The lights exploded.
The building began to hum.
A wall cracked open.
Inside—
A chamber of faces.
Literal 3D face-prints.
Stored identities Spiral rejected.
Aika saw one labeled:
> "Kisaragi.A - 4C-Hostile/Unfit for Implantation"
She touched it—
And felt every version of herself scream inside her bones.
---
Ren staggered back.
> "These weren't ghosts.
They were kept in limbo.
Held like scrap data—waiting to be overwritten."
---
Suddenly, all mirrors began to vibrate.
Reflections moved on their own.
And then—
People began walking out.
Not clones.
Not real.
But mirror-versions made solid through bio-memory stimulation.
They stood in a ring around Aika and Ren.
Not attacking.
Just watching.
Waiting.
---
Then one of them stepped forward.
A version of Aika with white eyes.
And whispered:
> "Let us have names.
Or we'll keep taking yours."
---
Ren's hand went to his sidearm.
Aika held him back.
"They're not monsters.
They're abandoned versions."
She stepped forward.
Her own voice—clear, steady:
> "You're right.
You were left behind.
But not because you were unworthy.
Because I didn't know how to carry you with me."
---
The mirror-woman blinked.
Then nodded.
She and the others stepped back.
Fading into the glass.
But one final message remained on every surface:
> "She remembered us.
That's all we ever wanted."
The first note was simple.
Folded neatly.
Unmarked.
No seal.
No ink smudges.
Slipped under Aika's apartment door at exactly 3:33 a.m.
Ren picked it up.
Opened it.
And read:
> "They won't believe you, Aika.
They'll call it hallucination.
But you already saw the garden before they built it."
---
Aika stared at the handwriting.
Perfectly hers.
Down to the curl on the lowercase "r."
But she never wrote that.
Never thought it, even.
---
The second note arrived a night later.
Under the pillow this time.
She hadn't left the bed.
Hadn't moved.
And yet, it was there.
> **"I tried to tell them.
Before Spiral began, I warned the White Room.
They locked me in Mirror D.
The others watched.
And said:
'She remembers too much for someone who doesn't exist.'"**
---
Ren tracked every camera.
Every door sensor.
No one entered.
No disturbance.
No reflection anomalies.
Only this:
> A spike in Aika's theta brainwaves during sleep.
The same signature found in precognitive dreamers.
---
She started seeing things.
A woman on the train—
with her face.
Not quite.
Eyes a little too wide.
Hair a little too short.
But familiar.
And when she stood?
She left behind a piece of paper.
Aika grabbed it before the train doors closed.
> "You weren't supposed to become the host.
I was.
But you hesitated.
So I watched Spiral grow through your skin."
---
That night, Aika sat in front of her old high school mirror.
The one from before Spiral.
She looked into it.
Whispered:
> "Who are you?"
No answer.
Just a fog spreading across the glass—
and a single word etched in condensation:
> "Witness."
---
She confronted Ren.
"I don't think I was Spiral's first Aika.
I think I was their successful one.
The version who survived."
Ren didn't speak.
He pulled out a drive.
Slotted it into a hidden reader behind his desk.
Opened the folder:
> "ARCHIVE: A1-Ka//MIRROR PROTOCOL/Fail_List.txt"
Hundreds of names.
Most crossed out.
Some starred.
One marked:
> "Aika-0X — Mirror Protocol Resisted.
Claimed to see pre-Spiral events.
Sealed in Mirror D for contamination."
---
Aika's voice cracked.
"She was me…
but before me.
She saw Spiral before it began."
Ren nodded slowly.
"Which means she didn't just remember what Spiral did—
she remembered what it was going to do."
---
That night, the final note came.
Pinned to the wall of Aika's mirror.
Carved from the inside.
> **"We are all versions.
But one of us saw the first door open.
Come to Mirror D.
I've been waiting since before memory was written."**
---
Ren traced the location.
Facility Zero had no room labeled Mirror D.
But the blueprints showed a sealed sub-basement
beneath the original Spiral Research Wing.
Accessed only once.
Sealed ever since.
---
They went there.
Flashlights flickering.
Elevator groaning.
Walls buzzing with static they could feel.
They reached the door.
Heavy. Steel. Sealed by voiceprint.
Ren stepped forward.
But before he could speak—
The panel lit green.
> "Welcome back, Witness."
---
The door opened.
Inside:
A room of mirrored walls.
Ceilingless.
Endless.
And in the center:
A girl.
Tied to a chair.
Eyes open.
Unmoving.
But smiling.
Her voice echoed in their minds—
> "You came late.
But I still remember before the forgetting began."