The crack ran down the mirror like a scar that wouldn’t heal.

Noa stared at it. Or tried to. His reflection stared back in broken pieces, a mouth parted, eyes too wide, chest still rising like the room hadn’t let go of him. The steam made the edges ripple, blur. One wrong breath and it looked like the crack might split the whole thing in half.

The air smelled like heat and something harsher sweat, water, a taste of metal that wasn’t blood but felt close. His fingers twitched against the ...