The time had come.

  Outside, the world was silent. The kind of silence that felt wrong.

  No footsteps on the street. No rumble of traffic. No laughter from the courtyards. On the day of the Selection, the city held its breath.

  Thirty seconds passed, but nothing happened.

  Rain's heart was pounding out of his chest, his throat felt tight, and the dryness was spreading to his eyes as he stared at his ceiling, waiting for the moment.

  A minute passed, though it felt like an eternity, but the world stayed the same.

  'I wasn't selected.'

  The gravity of this thought would have brought him to his knees, as his all too quiet room felt suffocating, pressing against his throat. Only the ticking of the clock and his pulse filled the air.

  'I wasn't selected.'

  Leaning over, he sat up on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees. His mind in turmoil. While it whispered relief, no Selection meant no death, but his chest felt heavy, almost... disappointed. Was this it? Was he meant to waste away in the slums? All those visions from earlier, would they fade into the abyss? At this point, he would rather die fighting in the Mirror than await his imminent doom in the slums.

  'I'll get some fresh air... Maybe visit Granny for a bit.'

  He stood up, reaching for the door.

  The instant his fingers touched the handle, his skull felt like it had cracked open.

  White-hot pain seared through his head, sharp and endless, like every thought in his mind had been smashed into glass. His hands flew to his temples, his nails digging in. His jaw locked in a silent scream.

  'What the hell is this?!'

  The walls swam in his vision, and the floor tilted as his body staggered backward toward the bed. A piercing screech ripped through his ears, drowning out even his ragged breath, like nails dragging down glass, over and over.

  And then, Rain understood.

  'Is this... the Selection?'

  This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Everyone he'd spoken to had said the same thing: they'd blacked out the second the clock hit ten. But this... This was torture.

  A minute of agony stretched into forever, sweat running down his face, dripping onto the floor, and his mind felt like it was splitting in two.

  The pain eased, though only for a short respite, and Rain finally felt like he could breathe again.

  Managing to stand up, he stumbled toward the faucet in the bathroom, catching himself in the mirror again, only this time, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Looking at his reflection, it looked no different than he did. Something felt wrong. Breathing heavily, he saw his eyes in the mirror stop reflecting the light, taking a step back in terror, his reflection tilted its head before widening its smile in amusement. He felt his heart stop for a split second, and before he could think, a deep darkness swallowed him whole as a single sound echoed throughout him: the sharp, ringing shatter of a breaking mirror.

  Rain lay face-down on something that didn't quite feel like ground.

  The high-pitched whine clawed at the inside of his skull, vibrating through his teeth, making every muscle in his body shiver.

  Slowly, the sound began to fade.

  Breathing came easier. Thinking came back, though his mind and body both felt like they'd snap if pushed even slightly.

  Opening his eyes, the scene in front of him startled him beyond belief. He discovered a world completely devoid of anything: just an endless white expanse laid bare before him. Struggling to his feet, Rain stood up and began investigating this strange place.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  'So... this is the Selection?'

  His Selection had been delayed by a couple of minutes and was far more painful than he had heard. But it seemed that now the stories aligned.

  'What the hell was that...I thought I was going to die.'

  The lightless yet bright white expanse stood before him, perfectly misaligned, as if Rain were standing outside of time and space itself. It was clear that one could easily lose their orientation if not careful.

  Looking around the empty expanse, Rain focused his eyes on the space behind him.

  It looked exactly the same as the rest of the endless white plane, except Rain could see his own tiny reflection, as if the entire world behind him were a gigantic mirror.

  Taking a quivering breath, he pushed on.

  'Calm down...this is only the beginning...follow the mirror.'

  Shaking off his nerves, Rain walked toward the endless mirror, his reflection growing ever nearer. Luckily, it remained unchanged for now, mirroring him as it should. Just thinking back to that moment in his apartment sent shivers down his spine.

  'Do I normally look that creepy?'

  Nevertheless, he had to continue, reaching towards the mirror, without any sound, his hand slipped through the surface like a cold gel, the glass fracturing into countless shards, yet never breaking apart. He pulled it back, and the glass reverted in time, becoming a clean surface again.

  Bracing himself, he closed his eyes and let his whole body walk through the gel-like surface of the Mirror, gliding through it without resistance. He opened his eyes, revealing countless reflections on either side spanning endlessly across.

  'It's a lot easier than I thought.'

  After managing to pass through what felt like a building's width of the gel-like substance, Rain emerged feeling a little cold. His surroundings hadn't changed except for one thing.

  He noticed a metal apartment door standing in front of him, silently floating. The door seemed fake. Circling, he found nothing. Just the door.

  Taking a step toward the misplaced door, that strange tug in his chest returned. The shape, the handle, the dull metal, it was oddly familiar.

  A sudden wave of nostalgia hit Rain as he touched the cold metal handle.

  'This... is home.'

  A surge of emotions stirred inside his body: happiness, pain, surprise, fear, all of them striking chords in his heart, seemingly pulling it apart.

  Forcing his mind to focus, he clawed for a single detailed image of his parents, anything to bring them into focus. But nothing came.

  He had been too young when they were gone. Time had eroded their features, their voices, until there was nothing left to hold onto. This wasn't the first time he had tried. And like all the times before, failure was no easier to swallow. With a slow breath, he pressed the handle down. The hinges creaked, and Rain stepped into his childhood home.

  It was wrong.

  Not completely, just enough to feel unsettling. Like a painter who had stopped before finishing the work. The entrance walls were beige, speckled with darker spots, real enough to touch. But further down the hallway, the colors blurred, losing texture.

  The wooden shoe rack to the left was perfect, exactly as it had been. On the right, he couldn't quite remember...a cabinet? Shifting his gaze to his right, he saw a dark wooden cabinet, warped, its legs bent at strange, impossible angles. The picture frames above it were mostly blank. A few showed him as a boy, standing beside two hazy silhouettes.

  Rain realized what was happening.

  'So, the Mirror is using the memories I have to recreate our old home. I barely remember it, so...it looks like this.'

  He kept walking, hoping the other rooms might appear, but to no avail.

  The hallway stretched further and further, the walls fading, peeling away, repeating itself. Furniture bled into the surface until nothing was left. His temples started throbbing as the floor warped, sloping up like a mountain ahead and dropping away behind, but his legs kept moving as if the path were straight.

  Slowly, the walls tore away completely, leaving only an endless black void. Rain was getting nervous; the apartment was gone by now. Where was his memory to relive? Looking down, he noticed a faint, almost swallowed by darkness, mote of light. He stopped in his tracks, that mote of light holding all his attention.

  'It feels out of place. Why is that there?'

  The warped floor behind him began to split. In a panic, Rain ran forward as fast as he could. The splitting floor slowly getting closer, and so, in a split-second decision:

  'I hope I don't regret this!'

  He let himself fall, aiming for the light.

  The drop felt wrong, no rush of air, no weight in his stomach. Just the shrinking silhouette of the hallway above him until it disappeared entirely.

  He was close now. The light was no bigger than a golf ball, drifting in the black. Reckless or not, it was the only thing here, so it had to be important. He reached for it, and the instant he did, his vision went blindingly bright.

  And suddenly, Rain found himself sprinting through a forest.

  "Rain! We have to treat his wounds! He's bleeding out fast!"

  A sharp female voice cut through his ears.

  A forest stretched in all directions. Towering trunks rose like pillars, their crowns blotting out the sky. His feet slammed into the earth, scattering fallen leaves and snapping branches.

  Something heavy pressed against his back, throwing off his balance. Blood ran warm down the side of his face, dripping past his jaw.

  Behind him, the sound of thunder followed.

  Rain tried to stop, to look around, to understand anything.

  'Where the hell am I?!'