They say every system needs at least one unbreakable rule—not because it’s impossible to break, but because the moment it is, the system unravels. Like pulling the keystone from an arch or whispering a forbidden name into a still room. In the Institution, the rule was simple:
Do not enter Room 917.
No exceptions. Not for janitors, not for researchers, not even for Director Halstrom himself. There were no keys to the door, only warnings posted in six languages and an armed drone stationed at either end of the corridor. Everyone knew the rule. Everyone obeyed it. Until I didn’t.
I wish I could say it was heroism, or curiosity, or even a well-placed dare. But the truth? It was boredom. Nine years as an archivist in the most secretive research facility on Earth, and I got bored.
The door wasn’t locked—not in the traditional sense. After the lockdown glitch during last month’s firmware update, there was a fifteen-second window where the security drones reset. Fifteen seconds. That’s all it took. I ran the numbers. Did the math. I wasn’t even supposed to be on sublevel nine, but no one questions the archivist with a clipboard.
I pressed my palm against the cold metal of Room 917.
It hissed open.
And then everything changed.
At first, I thought I’d stepped into the wrong room. The lights were low, the air thick with the scent of ozone and something… older. Like dust and rust and distant rain. The floor was black glass, the walls curved and featureless, and the only thing inside was a pedestal. A single object rested atop it:
A mirror.
Not ornate. No filigree. Just a rectangular mirror, four feet tall, framed in brushed steel. It was… humming. That’s the only way I can describe it. A low, vibrating sound that buzzed somewhere between my bones and my thoughts.
I looked in.
And it looked back.
Not my reflection.
No, that would’ve been too simple. What I saw was me but changed. Older. Worn. My hair was streaked with white, my eyes sunken and hollow. But that wasn’t the terrifying part. The terrifying part was the look of absolute hatred in the reflection’s eyes.
It raised its hand, palm outstretched. I did not.
It mouthed something. I couldn't hear the words, but I felt them like static across my skin: You let it out.
Then the glass cracked.
A single hairline fracture. Then another. Then dozens. The humming became a screech, the lights pulsed, and the floor began to ripple like a disturbed lake. I staggered back as the mirror shattered—not outward, but inward, as though something on the other side had sucked it in like water down a drain.
I turned to run.
Too late.
When I came to, I was lying in the corridor outside Room 917. The door was gone. Not closed—*gone*. The frame was now a seamless continuation of the corridor wall, like the room had never existed.
But I remembered.
So did the world.
The first sign came at 3:12 p.m. GMT. All clocks stopped. Not froze stopped. They began counting forward at random intervals. Some moved faster, others slower. A few ticked backwards. GPS systems failed. Planes grounded. Internet timestamps became unusable. But that was just the beginning.
By sunset, everyone on Earth had dreamt of the same place: a black-glass room with a mirror that wasn’t a mirror.
Some awoke screaming. Others didn’t wake at all.
Animals fled cities. Birds dropped dead in mid-flight. Shadows began to act independently from their owners—just for seconds, just on the edge of vision. But enough to be noticed. Enough to be feared.
By day three, people began to vanish.
Not just missing unremembered. Someone would mention their brother or wife or friend, and the person next to them would blink and say, “Who?” Family photos blurred. Names erased from digital records. Like reality had started to shed weight.
And through it all, I remembered.
The Institution came for me on day six. Two men in suits, one in a white lab coat. The one in the coat called himself Dr. Sorell. He didn’t ask if I opened the door. He just looked at me like I was already a corpse.
We built that room around the breach, he said. “The mirror isn’t a device. It’s a prison. Or was.
“What was inside?” I asked.
He looked past me. “Not a what. A when
They kept me in a containment cell beneath what used to be Antarctica. No clocks. No windows. Just endless grey light and questions I couldn’t answer. But they weren’t trying to punish me. They were trying to understand what I'd done—and how to stop it.
Because the breach was growing.
Time itself began to collapse inward, folding events into one another like a book being read out of order. Cities would flicker between centuries. People lived and died and were born all in the same breath. Civilizations layered over one another like palimpsests. Dinosaurs in Detroit. Roman legions in San Francisco. Ghosts that bled.
And always, always the hum.
Like the sound of a thousand ticking watches buried beneath the skin of the world.
On day twenty-nine, the sky cracked.
I mean that literally.
A line split across the firmament like a tear in painted glass. Through it, we saw… ourselves. An entire Earth, frozen in some other now. And staring down at
React
