Description
After the dust of World War III had settled, the world was no longer a place of open skies and fresh air. Poisoned by fallout, society had adapted, each person confined behind layers of glass, steel, and gas masks. Eden, like everyone else, had never known life outside her filtered vision; it was all a bleak, gray existence.
One cold afternoon, she wandered into an abandoned boutique, hoping to find remnants of a time when people wore fabric instead of reinforced suits. She brushed the dust off a cracked mirror and froze. In the reflection, her face peered back, but it was not the Eden she knew.
The figure in the mirror wore her gas mask, yet through the lenses, bright, piercing eyes gleamed, free of fear. And then she noticed the wings—ethereal, angelic wings unfurled from her shoulders, luminous and alive. Mesmerized, Eden reached up to touch her own shoulder, but found nothing there. Only in the mirror did she possess those wings.
A strange pull urged her to remove her mask, to defy the rules ingrained since birth. Slowly, she unclipped the heavy straps. To her shock, her reflection did the same, but instead of her scarred, weathered skin, her mirrored self revealed an untouched, radiant face. She looked… unbroken, as though untouched by the ruin of the world.
As Eden gazed, a faint voice echoed from somewhere deep in the mirror, whispering, *“Come through, Eden. The world awaits you.”*
The shop faded around her, leaving only the mirror, and within it, a vision of a green, living world—one she’d only seen in storybooks. Her reflection reached out, hand extended, as if inviting her into that untouched paradise.
Eden’s heart raced. Was this a trap? An illusion? But she couldn't resist the call, that promise of a life beyond decay. She reached for her own reflection’s hand, fingers just inches from the glass.
But as their fingertips nearly met, the shop door creaked open, and she was jolted back. She turned to see a shadowy figure in the doorway, watching her, its eyes gleaming with a knowing light. She whipped around to the mirror, but the vision was gone, leaving only her mask and haunted gaze.
The figure stepped closer and murmured, *“Did you see it too?”*
Eden’s voice shook. “What was it?”
The stranger only smiled, a cryptic gleam in his eyes, and replied, *“The last remnants of Eden. And only those who remember can return.”*
In a flash, he was gone, leaving Eden alone with the broken mirror, wondering if paradise had ever truly been within reach… or if she had glimpsed the final fragment of a world long lost.