I. The Mirror Wasn’t Hers
As she stared into the mirror, a stranger’s eyes met hers.
Not unfamiliar — not monstrous — just wrong. Slightly off. A tilt to the jaw that didn’t belong to memory. A softness in the mouth that she never remembered owning. Behind her, the room stayed still, untouched by morning. But within the glass, a subtle tremor ran through the image — like a dream trying to correct itself.
She blinked. The stranger blinked.
The reflection obeyed — but didn’t agree.
She had given up on love, convinced that her flaws were too many to overcome. Flaws. That word again. As if she were a window that needed polishing, or a threadbare dress in need of mending. She had always felt like a sketch — sketched by someone else, for someone else. Never quite filled in.
That night, she didn’t dream.
She fell.
II. The Maze of Reflections
She awoke inside silence. Not emptiness — silence. It hummed.
Corridors of smoke and glass stretched endlessly, each wall a mirror, each step an echo. The air pulsed like breath.
She moved forward, and her reflections followed — thousands of versions of herself, walking with her, beside her, ahead of her, behind. Some looked back. Some did not.
On the 7th corridor, a reflection paused. It didn’t blink. It didn’t follow. It only stared.
“You let yourself become who they needed.”
Her breath caught. The mirror clouded. The reflection smiled.
And then shattered.
III. The Shadow Weaver
He appeared when the floor crumbled beneath her — a figure made of silhouettes and lace. No face. Just glimmers. Just the smell of old stories and thunder.
“Name it,” he said. “Or be named.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“You will,” he answered. “But only if you stop hiding behind who you think you are.”
With a wave of his thread-like hand, the mirrors melted into mist. In their place rose doors — golden, iron, velvet, and bone.
“Each door is a version of you. Some are lies. Some are truths.”
“Choose.”
IV. The Nightmares Within
Behind the velvet door: a childhood bedroom, half-lit by moons that shouldn’t be there. Her mother’s voice, singing a lullaby she never learned. A closet that whispered her real name.
Behind the golden door: a wedding that never happened. A lover with no eyes, holding her like she was made of glass. Everyone clapped. No one spoke.
Behind the door of bone: a version of herself, radiant and terrifying, saying:
“I am who you buried to become liked.”
Each realm collapsed as she left it. The dreams, persistent and hungry, wanted her to forget. To sleep. To silence.
But the echo of her footsteps reminded her — she was still walking.
V. Unlocking the Labyrinth
When she returned to the central chamber, only one door remained. The mirror-door. The first. The only.
She stepped through.
And she found herself not in a corridor — but standing in front of herself.
The real her. The incomplete her. The one who mourned and grieved and laughed too loudly and wanted more than she dared admit.
They stood. Not opposite. Not mirrored.
Together.
“You’re not broken,” she said. “You’re becoming.”
And the labyrinth sighed.
The woman opened her eyes. Morning. Same room. Same mirror. But this time, the reflection looked back with her — not at her.
She smiled.
She was no longer a stranger to herself.
Step beyond the veil 🌹
Open a story, and let it open you. The Library of Dreams awaits — where every tale is a portal to your becoming.