Reflection Of Her

Chapter 13 – The Echo Between Worlds

The wind outside howled through the narrow cracks of the antique shop, carrying with it a cold that seemed to seep into Ariana’s bones. She was sorting through old ledgers when the lights flickered again — not from power loss, but as though something in the room was breathing with her heartbeat.

Every tick of the wall clock sounded off.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Then silence.

Then — tickticktickticktick.

Too fast. Too human.

Ariana stood abruptly. “Enough.”

She unplugged the clock, yet it kept ticking, steady as a pulse.

Her hands trembled as she reached toward it — and in that instant, the shop blurred. The walls melted into light, replaced by another scene: Damian’s study. She saw Selene — herself — standing before the same mirror that had shattered. Her twin’s lips were moving, though the sound came seconds late, like an echo traveling through water.

“Can you hear me?”

Ariana gasped. “Selene?”

The world tilted, her vision darkened. She stumbled backward, knocking over a box of antique photo frames that shattered on the floor — and with that sound, the vision broke.

But not entirely.

Among the broken frames lay one photograph that hadn’t been there before.

A young woman — their mother — holding two newborns wrapped in white cloth, marked with faint symbols along their foreheads.

Ariana’s breath caught. The date printed beneath it read June 21, 1997 — their birth date.

Yet the photograph looked at least fifty years older.

Her fingers brushed the paper, and warmth spread through her skin, rising to her eyes until everything shimmered. In the reflection of the shop window, she didn’t see herself — she saw time folding.

Two paths branching.

Two lives colliding.

When she blinked, the photograph was gone, but her pulse was still racing, and her reflection whispered softly — not in her voice, but Selene’s.

“Whatever happens, don’t change too much. Time doesn’t forget.”