CHAPTER TWO

The heavy metal doors slowly slid apart. The elevator was completely empty. There wasn't a single person, a single object, or even a note left behind. After taking in the oppressive atmosphere inside the cabin, my gaze drifted instinctively to the mirror directly across from me. The heavy feeling pressing down on my chest told me that something was terribly wrong. There was something deeply unsettling about the mirror... Flames began climbing from the bottom of its frame, spreading across the glass with frantic urgency that somehow felt unnaturally slow. At first, they licked at the mirror with a fierce, dangerous crimson glow. They climbed higher, swallowing my reflection as they rose. And the taller they grew, the more their color transformed. That blazing red gradually faded away, giving way to the cold union of navy blue and black. Beginning at the floor, the flames rose while tracing the anatomy of a human figure. By the time they reached the torso, they had already shaped broad shoulders and a powerful chest, as though sculpting a statue from fire. As the flames engulfed the figure completely and surged upward, every detail of the navy-blue armor came into sharp focus. Etched across its metal plates were the phases of the moon, already beginning to darken beneath streaks of smoke. Then the figure emerged in its entirety, stepping out from the smoke and the pitch-black darkness. In the freezing air of the elevator, I couldn't even feel the familiar warmth of my own breath condensing before me. Was this a hallucination... or were my eyes deceiving me? The armored figure held a metal lighter in one hand. With a single flick, it snapped the lid open, releasing a blue flame into the darkness. Somehow, I could sense the armor tightening, the unseen mouth hidden beneath the helmet slowly curling upward. It wasn't a human smile. It was the silent, metallic satisfaction of a hunter staring down the prey it had already cornered. My pupils dilated at the sight before me, yet I couldn't move. Even so, instinct urged me to retreat. I began taking slow, cautious steps backward, trying to put as much distance as possible between myself and the mirror. The armored figure snapped the lighter shut. A sharp metallic click echoed through the corridor. Then it started walking toward me. My steps grew quicker as I desperately tried to escape. It wasn't chasing me. It simply walked at an unhurried pace behind me. Yet despite that, the distance between us closed with an unnerving speed. When I reached the end of the corridor, I made a sharp turn to the left. The corridor I had left behind was nothing but an endless stretch of emptiness. I drew a sharp breath into my lungs, and the moment I turned my gaze forward again, I saw it. It was already standing ahead of me, blocking my path. It was as though it had warped time and the space between us. Silent, motionless, and regal. How had it crossed a distance that even the shadows themselves could never have traversed? The navy-blue silhouette began effortlessly rolling the metal lighter over the joints of its fingers, as casually as someone flipping a coin across their knuckles. My eyes locked onto the rhythm. Every metallic tap against its armored fingers transformed into the ticking of a hypnotic clock within the corridor's hazy air. Click. Click. Those mechanical beats did more than pound against my eardrums. They seeped through the concrete beneath my feet and vibrated through my bones. Every click heralded the end drawing closer. This was no ordinary echo. With each strike, gravity seemed to grow heavier, while the cold radiating from that blazing flame burned straight through my body. It stopped. Pulling the lighter's lid back, it split the darkness once again with that freezing blue flame. Without interrupting the motion, it resumed rolling the lighter across its fingers. The flame licked at the armored gauntlet, yet it left not the faintest scorch mark upon the metal. It wasn't playing with…