Breglio and the Reflection

More about Breglio and the Reflection

It wasn't a place where one would look—and yet it was precisely the place where something wanted to be found. The attic of the abandoned house breathed dust. Light fell slantingly through a frosted window that had long since forgotten what clarity felt like. And in the center: the mirror. It was large, heavy, with a frame like a growing thorn—carved from vines whose wood no longer knew whether it was still alive. And yet the mirror didn't seem dead. It waited. Breglio stepped closer. His soot-smeared lantern trembled slightly, as if it, too, sensed that not everything was still here. The mirror was smooth, not blind—and it showed. The room, the light, the shadows. And him. But not him as he was. In the glass stood someone who resembled him—but didn't belong to him. His gaze was more upright, his fur tidier, his shoulders calmer. The mirror showed Breglio—as he might have been if some paths had been chosen differently. If only he had hesitated less. If only he had asked sooner. Or never. He stepped even closer. The reflection moved with him, but something was wrong. The eyes of the mirror-Breglio seemed calm, almost gentle – yet they didn't look back. They looked through him, as if seeing something he himself had forgotten. "What do you want to show me?" he whispered. The mirror didn't answer. But in its radiance, the dust shifted, as if to reveal a truth that even the light could not touch. A wrinkle in the image. A tremor in the depths. And then: a second reflection. Behind the first. Darker, scrubbier, closer to what was. A third. A fourth. Each Breglio a different one. Braver. More fearful. Angrier. Silent. He watched them overlap, like images in water that doesn't stay still. None were false. None were whole. And then – the first disappeared. Only one remained. The one who now stood before the mirror. He raised his hand and placed it against the glass. It met his own. Not cooler than his skin. Not stranger. Just there. And suddenly he felt something: not pain, not loss—but a remembering. Not of anything specific, but of himself, of the moment before you become what you believe you are. The mirror's surface curved slightly without deforming—as if taking a deep breath. And in it: a final image. Not of him. But of something that awaited him. A narrow sliver of light detached itself from the glass, floated over to him, and stopped in front of his chest. Hesitantly, he reached out his hand—and when he touched it, it fell silent. Completely silent. "You don't show what I am," he said. "But what I've forgotten to see." When he turned away, the reflection was still there—but it didn't rotate with him. It remained still, like a final echo, like a premonition that wouldn't go away.