For the next three days, Lyra barely left her room.
The rain hadn't stopped—but it hadn't started either.
It just... hovered.
As if time had lost the part of the script that moved weather forward.
She'd stopped trying to convince herself this was just paranoia, just a neurological glitch, just her brain playing tricks on her.
It was too consistent. Too… targeted.
Everything she touched—phones, radios, recorders—spoke back. Not all at once. Not loudly. But always with intent.
Her voice. Her father's. Others.
Familiar strangers calling her from frequencies are not meant for this plan.
The file on her laptop—
DECODE_YOURSELF.zip
—contained everything and nothing.
It opened like a puzzle box.Each image revealed another when mirrored.Each soundbite reversed into a different voice.Each document looked blank—until she blinked, and then lines of text appeared in the periphery.
She started using sticky notes to track fragments.
So far, she has had five critical phrases:
You are not the original.
Echoes cannot forget the source.
Layer 7 is the fulcrum.
Do not answer your name.
Mirrors are broadcasts, not reflections.
She hadn't told anyone.
She couldn't.
She tried calling Juno again, but her number was… gone. Not blocked. Not inactive.
Just not registered.
No trace in her contact list, text history, call logs.
And yet—she remembered Juno's birthday. Her laugh. Her chipped blue nail polish.
Had Lyra imagined her?
Or had someone unmade her?
She searched for old photos.
Juno was missing from every single one.
Just a blank spot where a person should have been. The background bent around the emptiness like a lens smudged with purpose.
Lyra's heart raced.
They weren't just watching her.
They were editing her.
That night, she set up her laptop camera.
She needed to know what happened while she slept.
She let it run.
Six hours of footage.
She watched every minute.
At 2:47 a.m., she sat up in bed—eyes open, but asleep. Her mouth moved silently. Her hands moved in slow, repeated gestures. As if typing invisible code into the air.
She got up.
Walked to the mirror.
Touched it.
Then...
Another Lyra stepped out.
Not from behind the mirror. From within.
The sleeping Lyra turned and faced her.
The reflection Lyra leaned close and whispered something directly into the camera lens.
The feed was scrambled.
When it returned, there was only one Lyra again, asleep in bed.
The time was 3:03 a.m.
Sixteen minutes unaccounted for.
She zoomed in, frame by frame.
Right before the camera glitched, the mirror Lyra had said something.
She read the lips.
"You must become a broadcaster."
She didn't sleep again after that.
The next morning, Lyra opened her window. The rain finally stopped—but in its place hung a low, humming fog. It vibrated, like tuned air.
Her radio, untouched since childhood, switched on by itself.
The frequency knob spun counter-clockwise.
Then, a voice. Robotic, layered with analog grain.
"TRANSMISSION RESTART INITIATED."
"Layer 5 terminated. Layer 6 unlocked."
"Primary subject: Lyra Solane."
"Signal: rewritten."
The speaker sparked. The window cracked. Her phone exploded with notifications—all in symbols she didn't recognize.
Then a final chime from her laptop.
📩 New File Received:
MANUAL_OVERRULE.key
It opened into a command line interface—black background, blinking cursor.
A single prompt waited:
Do you consent to receiving the rewritten signal?[Y/N]
She hesitated.
Her heart told her no.
But her body typed:
Y
The screen flashed white.
And suddenly—she wasn't in her room anymore.
She was standing in the hallway of her school.
But everything was wrong.
The hallway stretched too far. Lockers hovered a few inches off the ground. The posters on the walls shifted messages when not directly looked at.
And the people walking around weren't people.
They looked like outlines—3D blueprints of classmates. Faces blank. Movements are smooth but unnatural.
A simulation.
She touched one figure. It didn't flinch.
She whispered, "Can you hear me?"
It stopped moving.
Turned.
And said in her own voice:
"Do not speak inside the rewrite."
Then the world began to bleed at the edges.
She backed into a door—Room 212. Chemistry.
She stepped inside and gasped.
Her father stood at the whiteboard.
But not her father exactly.
This version looked older, greyer, his eyes dim with glitching static.
He didn't turn around.
"Lyra. Version 17-A. Welcome to Rewrite Loop 3."
"We don't have much time."
"You've already breached five layers. You'll need to fracture the anchor in Layer 6 before it loops again."
"Do you remember your original broadcast date?"
She shook her head.
Her voice trembled. "What is this place?"
Finally, he turned.
Half his face was missing—a smooth black surface stretched with red grid lines.
"It's a patch between forgotten versions. You weren't supposed to enter it consciously."
"You're leaking."
She tried to reach him.
But her hand phased through his body like mist.
The lab started to shift—chairs melting, tables vanishing, light bending like liquid. A siren echoed from nowhere.
He looked at her one final time.
"Your frequency will determine your outcome."
"Rewrite it... or be overwritten."
Then the room collapsed inward like a crumpled page.
She awoke in her bed again.
Sweating. Trembling.
But something was different.
A new object sat on her desk.
A cassette tape.
Once she hadn't seen before.
It was labeled in a child's handwriting:
"Lyra's First Broadcast - Age 6"
She didn't remember ever recording anything at age six.
Hands shaking, she inserted the tape into her father's old recorder and pressed play.
At first—static.
Then a soft voice. Her voice. But young.
"Hi Daddy. Today I learned that mirrors aren't real. They are just doors you can't open."
"But I found the code."
"And I'm going to keep it safe until you need it."
"Bye-bye."
Silence.
Then—
"P.S. If you hear this, it means the world isn't yours anymore."
Lyra sat in the quiet room, her breath shallow.
The code was embedded in her.
Since childhood.
Maybe even before.
And she was being rewritten—version by version—because her signal refused to match the script.
She looked at her hands.
They flickered—just for a second.
The skin beneath wasn't skin.
It was data.