[The Gymnasium – The Aftermath]
The chaotic brawl finally ground to a halt. It wasn't because the bell rang, or because we shook hands. It stopped because the gym coach, a man usually slow to move, had blown his whistle with such ferocity that it pierced through the haze of adrenaline, followed by a swarm of students rushing in to pull Jin off the larger boy.
I stood alone in the center of the court, an island of stillness amidst the receding waves of violence. My chest heaved, sucking in jagged breaths of air that tasted of rubber, sweat, and the metallic tang of violence. My mind was racing, trying to catch up with my body, trying to process the surreal nightmare that had just unfolded.
Ten feet away, Kang—the "King of the School," the untouchable tyrant—was still on the floor. He wasn't standing. He wasn't threatening. He was on his hands and knees, retching. A puddle of yellow bile mixed with blood spread on the polished wood beneath him. He clutched his stomach as if trying to hold his insides together, gasping for air that his bruised diaphragm refused to accept. His nose was a ruined mess, a mask of crimson that dripped steadily onto the floor. His minions, usually so loud and arrogant, were hovering around him, trying to help him up, but their eyes kept darting toward me. They weren't looking at me with anger anymore. They were looking at me with fear. Primal, naked fear. As if they had just watched a sheep tear out a wolf's throat.
"Ray!" Jin's voice broke through the ringing in my ears. He rushed toward me, his hair wild, his shirt torn at the shoulder, a fresh bruise blooming on his cheek like a purple flower. But he was grinning. A manic, adrenaline-fueled grin of absolute victory. "Did you see that?! Did you see his face?!" Jin shouted, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me. "We destroyed them! You sent him flying!"
Suddenly, Jin's expression shifted. The grin vanished, replaced by a look of sudden, sharp concern. He leaned in closer, his eyes scanning my face. "Ray..." his voice dropped to a whisper. "You're bleeding."
I blinked, confused. "What?" "Your nose," Jin pointed a trembling finger at my face. "It's bleeding. A lot."
I slowly raised my hand. I touched the area between my nose and upper lip. It felt wet. Slick. I pulled my fingers away and looked at them. They were coated in a thick, dark crimson liquid. It wasn't just a trickle; it was a steady stream. I frowned. I hadn't been hit. Not once. Kang's fist hadn't even grazed me. This wasn't a wound from the outside. This was internal pressure. My body... my human vessel... couldn't handle the surge of energy I had just channeled. The "System," the "Red Eye," whatever it was—it had pushed my nervous system and blood vessels past their breaking point.
Suddenly, a wave of vertigo hit me like a physical blow. The gymnasium floor seemed to tilt forty-five degrees to the left. "Bzzzzzzzt..." A high-pitched whine erupted inside my skull, drowning out the murmurs of the students and the coach's shouting. It sounded like a high-voltage wire screaming inside my brain. My vision blurred at the edges, tunneling into darkness.
"I... I need the bathroom," I muttered, my voice sounding distant and hollow, like I was speaking from underwater. I cupped my hand over my nose to catch the flow. "I need to wash this off."
"Do you want me to come with—" Jin started. "No!" I snapped, too quickly, too harshly. I softened my tone immediately. "I'm fine. Just... dizzy. I'll be right back."
Before he could argue, I turned and practically ran toward the exit, pushing through the crowd of stunned students who parted for me as if I were contagious. I needed to get away. I needed to hide.
[The Sanctuary of Tiles]
I shoved the heavy door of the boys' restroom open and stumbled inside. The silence here was sudden and jarring. The roar of the gym was cut off, replaced by the low, maddening hum of fluorescent lights and the dripping of a leaky faucet. Drip... drip... drip...
The room was empty, thank god. It was cold, smelling of bleach, stale water, and rusted pipes. I rushed to the row of sinks, gripping the cold porcelain edge with white-knuckled hands to keep myself from collapsing. My reflection in the mirror was a blur of motion, but I didn't look at it yet. I couldn't. I turned the tap on full blast. Water—ice cold and shocking—gushed out. I cupped my hands, filling them with the freezing liquid, and splashed it violently onto my face. Once. Twice. Three times.
I wasn't just trying to wash away the blood. I was trying to wash away the feeling. That sick, twisted, euphoric feeling that had blossomed in my chest the moment I heard Kang's bones crack. Why did it feel so good? Why did my heart race not with fear, but with excitement? I am not like this. I am Ray. I am a student. I am the victim. I am not a monster who enjoys breaking people.
The water in the white ceramic basin swirled, turning pink, then red, as the blood washed off my skin. It spiraled down the drain, carrying my guilt with it into the dark sewers below. I splashed my face one last time, scrubbing at my skin until it stung, trying to erase the sensation of the "Red Eye" that still pulsed faintly behind my eyelids.
I turned off the tap. The silence returned, heavier than before. I took a deep, shuddering breath, water dripping from my chin and the tip of my nose onto my soaked shirt. "It's over," I whispered to the empty room, my voice trembling. "Calm down. You just defended yourself. It's over."
Slowly... very slowly... I raised my head. I looked up into the mirror.
[The Reflection]
I froze. The blood in my veins didn't just run cold; it turned to absolute ice. The air in my lungs solidified.
The person looking back at me from the dirty, water-spotted glass... Was not "Ray".
It wasn't the scared, confused, pale teenager I knew. It wasn't the boy who had just been trembling over a sink. The entity in the mirror was standing perfectly straight, while I was hunched over the basin. It had my face. It had my wet black hair. It had my nose. But the expression... The expression belonged to a stranger. A stranger from a nightmare.
My reflection's eyes were not brown. They were glowing. A deep, vibrant, crimson red, shining with an internal luminescence that seemed to burn through the glass. There was no pupil, no iris—just pools of liquid fire. And the most terrifying part... It was smiling.
It wasn't a happy smile. It wasn't a nervous smile. It was a wide, calm, predatory grin. It stretched from ear to ear, revealing teeth that looked sharper, whiter, and more animalistic than mine. It was a smile of pure, unadulterated satisfaction. A smile of arrogance. It looked at me not as a reflection looks at its source, but as a master looks at a useful tool. Or perhaps... as a demon looks at the vessel it has finally broken.
I remembered seeing this face once before, in the reflection of a car window days ago. Back then, it had looked angry, scornful, screaming at me for my weakness. But now? Now, it looked at me with a twisted, fatherly pride. It leaned closer to the glass from the other side, its red eyes boring into my soul. I didn't hear a voice with my ears. But a voice—deep, ancient, and dripping with malice—echoed directly inside my skull:
(Well done...) The voice purred, vibrating against my thoughts. (You finally did it. You finally tasted it, didn't you?)(The sound of snapping bone... the look of terror in their eyes... the power.)(Doesn't it taste sweet? Isn't it better than being the sheep?)
I stumbled back, my heels slipping on the wet floor. I gasped, clutching my chest. "Who... who are you?" I whispered, my voice barely a squeak. "Stop smiling! Stop it!"
The reflection didn't stop. It didn't fade. It just widened its grin, the red light in its eyes intensifying until it bathed the dim bathroom in a bloody hue. It seemed to promise me more. More violence. More blood. More of this intoxicating, terrifying power.
"NO!" I screamed, squeezing my eyes shut. I raised my wet hands and rubbed my eyes violently, pressing the heels of my palms into my sockets until stars exploded in my vision. "Go away! Go away! You aren't real! I am tired... I am just tired!"
I kept my eyes shut for five seconds. Ten seconds. Breathing like a drowning man. Then, I forced them open.
The mirror was normal. The reflection was normal. Just a pale, terrified boy with wide brown eyes, water dripping from his face, looking like he had seen a ghost. No red glow. No demon smile. Just fear. Pure, human fear.
I grabbed a rough paper towel from the dispenser with shaking hands. I scrubbed my face dry, checking my nose. The bleeding had stopped. I threw the bloody paper into the bin, burying it under other trash as if hiding evidence of a murder. "Just a hallucination..." I lied to myself. I lied so hard I almost believed it. "Head trauma. Adrenaline crash. Low blood sugar. That's all it was."
But as I turned to leave, I avoided looking at the mirror again. Because deep down... I knew. Mirrors don't lie. They just show you what you refuse to see.
[The Walk Home]
I pushed the door open and stepped out into the hallway. Jin was waiting for me, leaning against the lockers, holding both our bags. When he saw me, his face lit up again. He had already bounced back from the concern, riding the high of our victory. "You okay, champ?" he asked, tossing me my bag. He clapped a hand on my shoulder, solid and grounding. "Took you long enough. Did you fall in?"
"I'm fine..." I caught the bag, slinging it over my shoulder. I forced a weak smile, trying to mask the tremors in my hands. "Just needed to clean up. Where is Kang? And the rest of the apes?"
Jin threw his head back and laughed, a loud, booming sound that echoed in the empty hall. He slapped his thigh. "Oh, man! You missed the best part! It was tragic comedy!" Jin adopted a mocking, whining voice, hunching over to imitate Kang: "He got up clutching his stomach, crying—literally crying tears—and wheezed: 'I swear... I'll make you regret this!' And then? Then he ran! He and his giant goons scrambled out of the exit like they had seen a demon!"
Jin laughed again, wrapping an arm around my neck as we started walking towards the exit. "We beat them, Ray! We actually beat them! The whole school is going to be talking about this tomorrow. Your face when you hit him... that cold, dead stare... it was legendary! You looked like a professional assassin!"
I smiled. But it didn't reach my eyes. It felt like a mask I was wearing. "Yeah... we beat them."
We walked out of the school gates and into the cool night air. The streetlights hummed overhead, casting long, orange shadows that stretched out before us. Jin kept talking, recounting every punch, every dodge, every second of the fight with enthusiastic detail. He was happy. He thought this was the end of the movie. The heroes won, the bully ran away, roll credits.
But I walked in silence beside him. I was thinking about that red smile in the mirror. I was thinking about the voice in my head. Kang ran away threatening revenge... that was true. He would come back. He would bring more people. He would bring weapons. But that wasn't what scared me.
What scared me was the monster inside me. It was smiling. It was smiling because it knew something I was trying to deny. It knew that this wasn't a school fight. This wasn't a game. This was the opening shot. The leash had snapped. The cage was open. And the real war... the war for my soul... had just begun.