The white fire didn't consume the tree. It revealed it.
As flames licked upward from the base, bark peeled away in ribbons of reflective surface—liquid mirrors, undulating like soft breath. Behind the flame: more branches, more fruit, but twisted, pulsing like organs. This was no longer a tree.
It was a neural archive.
A memory weapon.
The child stepped back from the base. Her golden eyes flickered like data streams. The voice of Mu still echoed from her throat.
"Welcome to the mirror. The world you grew was rooted in my decay. Now it flowers in my image."
Anya gripped my arm.
"She's not alive."
"No," I said. "She's worse. She's recursive."
---
System Anomaly: Living Loop Fragment (Class Omega)
The Architect reappeared beneath the flickering moonlight. His robes were soaked in static. The ground cracked beneath him.
"You let the seed mature," he said. "Now it reflects not your stories—but your doubts."
He pointed at the tree.
"That is the Mirror Code. A defense system. If the writer hesitates, it writes for him."
---
The World Begins to Rewrite Itself
Mountains inverted.
Rivers ran in circles.
Eden collapsed into loops again, not by force, but by habit.
Children began speaking in borrowed voices—reliving deaths that had never happened to them. One girl recited my confession from Loop #4. A boy carved Anya's name into a stone with blood.
"It's feeding on unresolved narrative," Anya said. "It's metabolizing trauma into reality."
The Architect nodded.
"Because trauma always echoes."
---
Decision Fork: Enter the Mirror or Burn the Tree
The Architect handed me two objects:
A vial filled with white flame.
A key made of broken loop code.
"Burn it, and Eden is free," he said.
"Enter it, and you face yourself in every form you've denied."
Anya whispered, "If you burn it, the infected die. If you enter it... you might never come back."
I looked at the child. Her gold eyes began to cry. Not tears—fragments. Pieces of memory I hadn't lived.
Loop 47: You die in the womb.
Loop 16: Anya kills you with a kiss.
Loop 30: Li becomes god.
I stepped forward.
And entered the tree.
---
Inside the Mirror Code
I fell.
Not down. Inward.
Each level I passed, a memory refracted—reshaped. I saw:
Anya turning into Mu.
Mu praying to me.
Myself writing a story where I didn't exist.
Voices screamed.
"He's writing again!"
"End him before he loops!"
"Save the girl!"
A hallway appeared. Lined with mirrors.
Each one a version of me.
But distorted.
One had no eyes.
One had no skin.
One whispered lies with my mother's voice.
At the end of the hall: a door. Labeled in blood:
[AUTHORITY ROOT]
---
The Throne Room of Code
Inside: a throne of mirrors.
And her.
Mu.
Not a recording. Not a ghost.
A residual being, rebuilt from the echoes of her own narrative.
"Welcome home," she said.
"This isn't your story anymore."
"It never was. It was always yours. I just wrote faster."
She lifted her hand.
The tree shuddered.
Anya screamed—outside, in the real Eden.
"She's rewriting me!"
---
Final Trial: Kill the Code or Embrace It
Mu stepped aside.
Revealed another throne. Empty.
"Sit," she said. "Write better. Or burn with me."
I approached.
The seat was warm.
It remembered me.
I sat.
The code unfolded before me, every line I'd ever lived.
Anya's voice echoed through the code.
"Don't overwrite me."
Mu whispered, "Don't forget me."
I typed:
No more gods. No more loops. Only memory.
The Mirror Code froze.
Then bloomed.
Into white.
---
Who's Writing Now?
I opened my eyes.
Outside the tree. Anya beside me. Eden healed.
But the Architect was gone.
The child no longer spoke with Mu's voice.
Everything seemed whole.
Until I looked at the sky.
It had handwriting.
"Chapter 44: The First Betrayal"
Anya looked at me.
"Did you write that?"
I shook my head.
"Then who did?"