For Dr. Vera Blake, time was not a straight line but a river—one she believed could be navigated. For years, she worked on a secret project called The Temporal Mirror, a device that could reflect not just light but moments in time. It was meant to be theoretical—an experiment in quantum physics. But the day she turned it on, it became something much more.
When the mirror activated, it didn’t reflect Vera. Instead, it showed her a version of herself she had never seen before—older, hardened by choices she had never made.
. . .
Vera stepped closer to the mirror, mesmerized. The reflection followed her, but there was something off. The eyes in the mirror weren’t hers, not quite. They were colder, filled with regret and wisdom beyond what she could comprehend.
She adjusted the device, and the image in the mirror flickered. Time shifted, and now the reflection showed her younger, in a version of her lab that didn’t exist yet. She was surrounded by technologies she hadn’t even dreamed of, her face marked with determination. This wasn’t a simple glimpse into the past or future—it was a web of possibilities.
But then, the reflection spoke.
. . .
“You shouldn’t have turned this on,” the older version of her said. “Now there’s no turning back.”
Vera’s heart pounded. The mirror wasn’t just a window—it was a door. The choices she saw reflected back at her were paths untaken, lives unchosen. And the more she watched, the more she realized something horrifying: the versions of herself weren’t just watching—they were trying to pull her in.
The reflections began to multiply, each one more desperate, reaching out to her through the glass. Vera had to shut it down, but the switch wouldn’t respond. The mirror was pulling her into its fractured timeline, a trap woven through her own decisions.
There was only one way out, and it wasn’t going to be a choice she liked.
