Shattered Reflections

Clea’s fingers tightened around the shard, the heat searing through her skin. Her heart pounded in her chest, the rhythm of it outpacing the frantic tempo of her thoughts. The world around her seemed to blur as the creature’s whispers became louder, its presence pressing against her like a storm threatening to break.



She couldn’t stop now.



The Keeper stood motionless before her, his eyes wide with something close to horror. “Clea,” he whispered, but his voice was drowned out by the intensity of the power surging through her. “Don’t do it. There’s no going back once you—”



But the words were lost in the chaos that had overtaken her mind. The shard in her hand seemed to pulse with a life of its own, its glow brightening as she raised it toward the creature. The darkness in the chamber writhed in response, the shadows stretching and twisting like hands reaching for her, trying to pull her back into the void.



The creature’s voice came again, sharp and insistent, like a thousand jagged voices all speaking at once. You cannot escape me. You cannot fight what you are.



Clea’s eyes locked with the creature’s dark, flickering form. It was no longer a shadow—it was more. A swirling mass of potential, of futures that hadn’t yet been written, all locked away in its endless abyss. It could give her everything. It could rewrite time itself.



But at what cost?



The shard in her hand pulsed again, hotter, brighter. The creature’s whisper grew louder, more insistent, more personal. You’ve always been a thief, Clea. Always searching for something you can’t have. But I can give you what you’ve always wanted. All the power. All the control.



“No,” Clea breathed, shaking her head violently. “Not this. I refuse.”



Her resolve wavered, just for a moment. She thought of the fire again—the vision she had seen, the scream that tore through her. Her hand reaching into the flames. She had to stop this. She had to make it right.



Clea took a step forward, the shard now glowing so brightly it threatened to blind her. The creature’s shadows shrieked in frustration, its tendrils lashing out, but it couldn’t stop her. She had already made her decision.



The Keeper moved, his hand reaching out to grab her arm, his grip firm. “Clea, please,” he pleaded. “If you destroy the tower, you destroy time. You destroy everything—everyone.”



She could hear his words, but they were muffled, distant. The world around her felt as though it were spinning, the weight of her choice pressing down on her like a thousand stones. She could feel the creature’s cold embrace around her, threatening to suffocate her, to make her one with it.



But then, as if by some miracle, a clarity cut through the chaos. Clea looked at the shard in her hand and saw something she hadn’t before. The light it emitted wasn’t just power. It was destruction. A shattering force that could break more than just the creature. It could break everything—the world she knew, the world she had fought so hard to survive in.



She thought of the people she had known in Rivervale, the ones she had stolen from, the ones she had hurt, and even those she had helped, without ever knowing why. What was it all for? The endless running, the constant search for more—it had been a lie.



She wasn’t running from the world. She was running from herself.



Clea closed her eyes, feeling the cold grip of the shard sink into her palm, the heat intensifying. The creature’s voice, once so insistent, seemed to falter. It could not reach her—not now. She was more than its whispering promises.



With a raw, guttural cry, Clea shoved the shard forward, slamming it into the pedestal.



The world exploded.



The light from the shard flared so intensely that for a moment, Clea couldn’t see anything. Her body was suffused with a brilliant, searing light, and a pressure she couldn’t comprehend pressed against her chest, as if the entire weight of existence was collapsing in on her.



And then… everything stopped.



For a split second, there was nothing. No light. No sound. No time.



And then, as the light faded, Clea found herself standing alone in the center of the chamber, gasping for breath, her skin tingling, her heart hammering in her chest.



The creature was gone.



The pedestal was empty.



For the briefest of moments, Clea felt a flicker of something—relief? Victory? But it was short-lived. The chamber around her began to crack, the walls splintering as though the very fabric of reality was being torn apart.



Time.



The tower was falling.



Clea stumbled back, the collapse of the tower shaking the ground beneath her. The Keeper was gone, swallowed by the chaos, but Clea didn’t have time to think about him. She couldn’t breathe. The air was thick with the scent of burning metal and shattered glass, the fragments of the tower falling like rain around her.



The shard in her hand was still glowing, but its light was dimming. Its warmth was fading, and with it, Clea’s sense of control. She didn’t know if it was the tower crumbling or if it was the price of her decision catching up to her.



But one thing was certain: the world had shifted.



And so had she.



Clea turned and ran, her footsteps echoing in the dying chamber. There was no way out. The walls were closing in, and the ground was splitting beneath her feet. The tower was collapsing on itself, its ancient heart finally succumbing to the destruction Clea had unleashed.



She was free. But in the moments before everything shattered, she couldn’t help but wonder if anyone would be.