The mirror waits for him.

  Not the mirror that showed three faces before. This one is sharper, colder, reflective in a way that makes him flinch.

  His jaw doesn’t line up right. His eyes are too deep, too wide. Every angle is slightly off. He doesn’t recognize the boy staring back. Not really.

  And then it hits him — he’s seventeen. Seventeen years old. Not the age he imagined in his coma. Not the phantom lives he thought he’d lived. Everything that happened before… none of it existed the way he remembered.

  He swallows. His throat dry. Moves to the console nearby. Maps, grids, flashing icons. The layout mirrors fragments from his dreams, distorted, almost familiar. But the details are wrong. Rooms that existed in his hallucinations are missing. Doors he thought locked are open. The hallways twist differently than memory suggests.

  And yet, he remembers. Every movement, every shadow. Every echo. Something isn’t adding up.

  Who took care of him?

  The place smells abandoned, old rot under antiseptic. Dust floats in beams from a cracked ceiling panel. No one moves. Nothing breathes. And yet… he survived.

  A chill crawls down his spine. He steps closer to a window. Outside, the world is dark. Moonlight reflects off broken glass, twisted metal, figures moving too slowly to be human. Infected.

  His stomach folds. He’s seen them before, in fragments, in memories that weren’t his. And now… they’re real.

  He tests the floor quietly, counting his steps. Each squeak, each scrape echoes through the empty hall. He moves room to room, scanning, mapping. Some infected are close, some far. But they’re coordinated. They sense him.

  He sneezes.

  Instantly, all attention shifts. Eyes glint from the shadows. One, two, three figures pivot toward him. The faint musky scent of pheromones trails behind them.

  Alan bolts.

  This isn’t like before. This isn’t the dream where he could find a route and escape. These creatures keep pace, faster than any human should. He’s weak. His muscles ache from immobility. His lungs burn from sprinting.

  He dives into a dusty supply room, slamming the door behind him. The infected pound. Vibrations rattle the floor.

  A cabinet rattles. He pushes against it, muscles straining. Pink pigment crawls along his arms, sinew knitting together at impossible speed. Assimilation spikes — faster than ever. His body absorbs mass like hunger realized in seconds. Pain lances, then dulls. DMT surges, and he almost laughs through the trauma.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Hours pass like minutes.

  When he opens his eyes, the cabinet is dented. The floor scuffed. He is sweating. His muscles ache in new ways. And above him, vents rattle.

  A tongue lashes down. He ducks, grabs it, twists, slams. The creature scrabbles, intelligent, fast. He’s dragged into the vent system. Panic spikes. Heart hammers. Every corner, every grate could be death.

  He fights. He loses.

  And then, the world tilts.

  He is hoisted, held up. Weight strains his shoulders. Arms stretch. He dangles like a puppet. The witch steps forward, impossibly graceful, eyes cold, trained, unrelenting.

  Face to face.

  And he understands the truth: this is no dream. No hallucination. No construct of memory. This is reality. And it is worse than he could have imagined.

  Alan presses his back against the mirror wall of the supply room, sweat and blood streaking down his arms. His lungs burn. His head spins. But the witch doesn’t wait. She moves, deliberate, calculated, testing. Every step she takes cracks the floor in his mind, every inch closer is a scream.

  He notices small details — the way her wrists flex, how her fingers curl and uncurl like preying mantis limbs, the faint gleam of something darker beneath her nails. Something that isn’t human.

  The infected around the building are drawn toward her. She doesn’t need to call them; the pheromones speak, whisper, command. Alan smells it now. Layered. Musky, pungent, intoxicating. They are hunters, but she is a conductor.

  He glances at the vent grate above. Too high. Too narrow. He needs leverage. His arms ache, still reshaping. Muscle knitting. Strength that should not exist. He pushes, pulls, kicks. He almost falls. Almost dies. But he gets a cabinet up against the door. Dented metal groaning under weight. Temporary safety.

  Breathing fast, he crouches, looking at the floor. One infected stirs near the doorway — thin, skin pale and slick, veins dark. He realizes it’s not like the others. Not fully feral yet. They’re learning. Adapting.

  He grips a pipe from the supply shelf. Adrenaline surges. He hits, cracks bone, feels the body’s warmth seep into his hands, and it is absorbed into him. Another surge of muscle knitting, of raw strength. He doesn’t have time to wonder if this is right. He cannot. He is alive. That is all.

  Hours blur. Sleep is impossible. Every second, every squeak, every scent is life or death. His assimilation quickens, painfully. He can feel the virus responding, adjusting, pushing him to survive. He tastes power he doesn’t want. Power he is not ready to control.

  The vents rattle again. He freezes. Above him, a shadow detaches from the dark ceiling. Tongue lashes. He rolls, barely escaping. He grabs, twists, slams. A struggle. Intelligence in the creature’s motions. More than a mindless infected. He is dragged. Hoisted. Through the maze of air ducts and steel.

  He lands. Pain radiates through his body. His strength fights the instinct to collapse. And then — the witch is in front of him.

  Not fully human. Beautiful in ways that terrify. Sharp in ways that kill.

  She tilts her head, studying him like he’s prey, but more than prey — an instrument. And for the first time, Alan understands: the hallucinations, the coma, the dreams, the memories of people he thought he knew… they were all setups, calibrations. Tests. A preparation.

  A warning, maybe.

  He swallows. Distantly, he hears footsteps. Not approaching, not yet. The Aries, maybe. The virus is learning him. He is the signal, the beacon.

  And somewhere in the dark, far from his sight, a voice hums through pheromones, subtle and commanding. Not human, but intelligible. Coordinated. Communicative. Observing.

  He braces.

  The witch smiles. And Alan knows — the first real fight of his life has begun.