CHAPTER 32: THE REFLECTIONS

The Discipline Hall was just like she remembered, but this time the control panel was gone and there were no runes on the floor. The moment she walked in and closed the door, a deafening silence filled the space, so loud that she could hear her own heartbeat against her ear.

It was Saturday, and it was time for her punishment. She didn’t know what it was which made her even more nervous.

Once they reached the middle of the room, Professor Sylas turned to her, "Take off your shirt,"

She paused at first, thankful she always wore two layers of cloth. She took off the heavy hoodie and dropped it by the corner. The moment she turned, two people she’s never seen before appeared from the side doors, carrying coils of heavy silver chain that shimmered like liquid frost.

They stopped in front of her, and her throat tightened, "Those are...,"

"Silver threaded binding chains," He finished, "They restrict movement and suppress your wolf powers. Standard punishment for disobedience and breaking the rules,"

The way the silver smoked faintly in the torchlight made it look like there was nothing standard about it.

She stood there as the people wrapped the chains tightly around her arm, then secured the end of it to a sigil on the ground. The metal hissed faintly as it came in contact with her arm, with waves of painful heat rolling up her arm.

She clenched her teeth.

When they were done, Sylas spoke again, "Face the mirrors,"

Behind her, there was a line of glass that reflected her image a dozen times. The moment she saw the mirror, chills ran down her spine. She didn’t like this at all.

To prove her point, one of the reflections from her peripheral vision shifted on its own.

She froze.

In another mirror, her eyes were completely black, like there was no light in them, just a senseless void. In another, her reflection smiled at her.

Creepy.

"What’s all this?" She asked, her breath hitched

"Discipline," He answered, standing at a safe distance from the mirrors, "Those chains would keep hurting you unless you channel some of your wolf energy into them and eventually dim its light. As for the mirrors, they would reveal everything you hide...and more. Every student sees something different, and no one lasts more than five minutes, no one!"

"I didn’t realise Gravemont punishments were mental torture," She said just as another reflection grew long canines, and suddenly snarled at her.

"If you had attended class that day, you would have known," He replied curtly.

The chains began to burn hotter, and she quickly began channelling some energy into them. But the problem was, the more energy she put in, the hotter it burned.

She was about to reach out to Sylas about this when suddenly, her reflections became even more insistent. The one with black eyes suddenly reached into her shirt and ripped off the pendant, and Theo watched with horror as she fell to the ground, groaning and rolling as her veins turned into a mixture of Lava and black goo.

Another one, in another, suddenly let out a chilling cry with tears in her eyes, dressed in a bloodied wedding gown that looked exactly like the one that had been brought to her room the night before her wedding to Cain.

She looked miserable, haunted, and lost.

Theo snapped her gaze to another reflection, but this time, she had changed into her wolf form, and there were multiple corpses around her, with her claws dripping with their spilt blood.

It was horrifying.

The reflection of her in the wedding dress looked her dead in the eye, "He’ll soon find you, Theodora," It whispered, "Gravemont wouldn’t be able to protect you, and you’ll become his wife! You’ll be bound to the person you hate most in this world, and guess what he’s gonna make you do?"

The other one rolling on the floor also joined, "You think that pendant will keep your dark side locked forever? No, no. It will eventually break, and everyone will see you for what you truly are!"

The wolf reflection growled at her again, "Your wolf has never been normal, you know that right? I mean, what wolf can tweak human features like that? She’ll end up being the death of you, the death of everyone!"

In another reflection, she was crying profusely, "Poor Theodora, wishing your mother was still alive. Why? So you can eventually kill her too and burn down her corpse? Stop flattering yourself!"

The voices from all the mirrors began to overlap into one scary, twisted, venomous noise.

Make it stop," She cried, twisting against the chains.

"You make it stop," Sylas replied calmly. "Control your mind, your power, and the mirrors will return what they take,"

Her fists tightened, and the silver bit even deeper. She couldn’t do anything, and other reflections from the remaining mirrors began displaying images she didn’t understand.

What the hell...?

The twisted whispers grew louder, and the chains glowed faintly red.

Theodora twitched and vibrated as the noises reverberated inside her head, so powerfully that she almost lost her senses. Her eyes involuntarily transformed into something between golden and black, and the pendant around her chest began to glow, reacting to whatever was happening to her.

Then, the mirrors cracked.

The sound snapped through the room like a gunshot. Sylas’s head lifted sharply, his eyes narrowing as shards of mirror dust floated in the air.

He turned to Theodora, whose eyes softly closed and she lost her balance.

Before she could fall, his arms wrapped around her body to steady her fall, cradling her between his arms and chest.

Sylas stared at her face. She looked pale, was sweating profusely, and her teeth were chattering like she had been exposed to cold for too long- whatever she had seen had really knocked her hard.

Then, he looked at the broken mirror.

This has never happened before. The mirrors have never broken before.

Then, he looked down at his watch.

She had broken the five-minute record.