The basement of the institute smelled of metal and mildew, a mixture of old machinery and long-forgotten intentions.
Nobody had mentioned the basement to me until I noticed that the lift panel had a button marked 'B2'. This wasn't listed on the staff directory.
Curiosity, or perhaps instinct, prompted me to press it.
The doors opened onto a corridor that shouldn't have been there: narrow and silent, it was lined with lights that flickered on one by one as I walked past. The air felt thicker down there, as if something invisible were moving through it and displacing the oxygen.
I could hear a faint hum behind the walls.
Not electricity.
Resonance.
The Archives Below
At the end of the corridor, there was a glass door marked 'Restricted Access: Cognitive Resonance Unit'.
My ID card shouldn't have worked, but it did.
Inside, there were shelves stacked with sealed boxes labelled only with codes, such as 'R-02', 'M-07' and 'P-12'.
Somewhere in the middle, I found a dusty metal case stamped with my mother's initials. When I opened it, the smell of ozone escaped, as though lightning had once passed through it.
Inside were pages of handwritten notes and diagrams, as well as broken optical lenses.
The title page read:
Experiment Log: Mirror-Layer Interference Protocol'.
Below that, in my mother's neat handwriting, it said:
'Objective: Induce controlled consciousness entry into the residual memetic field of the deceased subjects.'
My fingers trembled slightly.
This was no psychiatric experiment — it was a doorway.
The Equations of Memory
The log described a machine called a 'Vision Resonance Array' — a device that could synchronise brainwave frequencies with reflective surfaces, thereby bridging the gap between conscious and residual awareness.
'The dead retain fragments of perception within optical interference layers — mirrors, glass and still water. Through precise resonance, entry may be possible.'
I read the next line twice before my brain processed it:
'Subject M-07 achieved partial contact. Signal unstable. Pulse pattern resembles heartbeat rhythm."
M-07.
The same code appeared again in a later entry, this time underlined.
Beside it, a name was written in pencil: Lucas Yuan.
The Voice in the Static
The humming in the walls grew louder.
For a moment, the fluorescent lights dimmed and then flashed in time with a steady pulse of twelve beats.
It matched the rhythm in my mother's notes.
I closed my eyes and listened. The sound seemed to come from beneath the floorboards, vibrating through the soles of my shoes.
In the low frequency, I could almost make out words.
A whisper.
A breath.
'Evelyn, you shouldn't be here.'
I turned sharply, but the corridor behind me was empty.
Then, faintly, through the speaker of an abandoned intercom on the wall, I heard a distorted male voice say:
'If you can hear this, don't look into the light.'
It was Lucas.
But Lucas was hundreds of kilometres away.
The Mirror Chamber
At the end of the archive room, hidden behind a torn blackout curtain, I found another door.
This one was round and reinforced, like the entrance to a vault.
Inside was a small circular chamber with walls covered in mirrors of every shape and size. Most of the mirrors were cracked, but one stood intact at the centre, mounted on a metal frame.
Wires ran from the mirror to a console filled with dormant lights.
When I brushed away the dust, the console flickered to life and began projecting data streams into the air.
Lines of code.
And a message:
Refraction Sequence: Offline. Awaiting Signal M-07.'
My pale, motionless reflection appeared in the central mirror.
Then it blinked before I did.
The Shattered Light
I should have turned away.
Instead, I reached out.
The moment my fingertip touched the mirror, the light split into dozens of thin rays, refracting through invisible angles and cutting across the room like shards.
Each beam contained an image: fragments of memory, frozen in the glass.
My mother's face.
The ruins of the old Beijing laboratory.
And Lucas, standing in a dark room with his eyes closed and wires trailing from his temples.
He opened his mouth as if to speak.
The sound that came out wasn't human. It was the same pulse that I had heard in the walls: twelve beats, then silence.
The console screen blinked again, displaying a new line:
Connection established — mirror layer active.
A cold wind rose from nowhere.
The reflections on every surface began to move, no longer mirroring me but acting of their own accord.
In the ensuing static, I heard my mother's voice say,
'Every mirror remembers the moment it broke. You're standing inside one."
Then everything turned white.
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the chamber.
The walls around me had changed — they were lightless, soundless and endless.
It was like a city skyline inverted, like a photograph developed in reverse.
And my reflection stood beside me, smiling softly.
'Welcome to the mirror, Evelyn.'