STARLIGHT UNBOUND by Deus Ex Machina - HTML preview
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STARLIGHT UNBOUND
spiking in his throat. Nothing. The glass remained empty, a void where he should have been.
His fingers clasped the edge of the sink, grip tightening. I’m tired. It’s nothing. It’s… stress.
But when he looked again, the emptiness remained. Vast. Unrelenting.
A cold prickle crawled up the back of his neck. Slowly, he turned his head, glancing over his shoulder. The room was exactly as it had been moments ago —small, cramped, unremarkable. But when he looked back at the mirror, his stomach lurched.
Someone was there now.
Not a stranger. Him.
But not him.
The reflection staring back at him was younger —smaller, more fragile. A boy, wide-eyed and still, hair slightly unkempt, his face untouched by the weight of the years that followed.
Lucien ’s breath hitched. That’s me. That’s me as a kid.
The boy didn’t move. Didn’t blink. And yet his presence was suffocating, too much for the tiny space of the bathroom.
Lucien ’s thoughts scrambled for reason, for logic. Why are you here? What does this mean?
A thought surfaced.
The boy ’s head tilted. Almost as if he’d heard Lucien’s thoughts.
But his eyes—his own eyes—held something deeper, something wrong. There was knowledge there, a glimmer of something old, something that had no place in the face of a child.
Lucien staggered back, his breath coming fast. This isn ’t real. It can’t be real.
He turned away, squeezing his eyes shut, grounding himself in the rough texture of the towel against his skin, the warmth lingering on his shoulders. When he finally forced himself to look again —
The boy was gone.
And for the briefest moment—just long enough for doubt to take root— something else stood in his place. A dark silhouette.
He didn ’t have time to register what it was before his own reflection returned, as if nothing had happened.
Lucien stared at himself, heart hammering against his ribs. Water dripped from his hair, his skin still flushed from the heat of the shower. He looked… normal. Ordinary.
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