"Adin, starting today, you’ll be joining me for room care at The Monolith."

  "Sure, I understand. Am I helping with cleaning or organizing?"

  At my simple reply, Rea shook her head. Her expression was serious—less like someone facing manual labor and more like a teaching assistant preparing for a critical lecture.

  "No, this isn't mere labor. To endure the weight of the mission you carry, you must first understand the physiology of this building. Observing the desires and deficiencies of the people here, who live under a gravity entirely different from Ebony, will help your mission."

  "Observing..."

  "Yes. Because only by knowing this place can you ever change it."

  Rea calmly continued while showing me a tablet screen.

  "Today’s management target is [ MP.03-M ]. The owner is Nar."

  The photo of a woman in a magnificent dress appeared on the screen.

  "What we must face today is not a person. It is a 'product,' created by someone, for someone. A very expensive commodity, forcibly taxidermied so it never withers."

  She handed me a device that looked like black goggles.

  "Make sure to wear this 'Smart Viewer' before entering. The automatic dimming sensor and visual protection filter are currently active. Check if the power is on."

  "A filter...? So it's not just sunglasses?"

  "No. The light intensity inside the room exceeds safety standards by dozens of times. If you enter with naked eyes, the strong reflection could burn your retinas."

  I nodded silently and put on the eyewear. As my vision was darkened and blocked out, my other senses grew hyper-alert.

  We passed through the massive gate of the M-Prime zone. The security scanner swept over my retinas, heart rate, and even body odor with a red laser.

  ['Contamination level 0%. Entry permitted.']

  Behind the mechanical voice, the door to Room 302 opened silently.

  Sshhh—!

  It was a sharp, eerie sound of fracturing light—as if thousands of crystals were screaming at once. A white flash swallowed my vision, piercing through to my eardrums. Without the dimming filters of the Smart Viewer, my optic nerves might have been scorched, leaving me blind on the spot.

  "......!"

  The room felt less like a physical space and more like being inside a massive, meticulously cut diamond.

  Boundaries between floor, ceiling, and walls simply didn't exist. The entire space was covered in tens of thousands of mirrors, carved at precise geometric angles—hexagons, triangles, and squares.

  Even though I was standing on my feet, I felt a wave of vertigo as if I were floating in mid-air. Looking up was an abyss; looking down was a void. Every mirror fragment reflected, distorted, and amplified the light infinitely.

  A perfect yet horrific prison of light where even a shadow would be incinerated.

  Just as I took a step into that bizarre labyrinth of light—

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  Within the tens of thousands of mirror fragments covering the walls, tens of thousands of women turned their heads simultaneously to stare at me.

  Her image was torn and merged depending on the angles. In one mirror, she was laughing; in the one right next to it, she was weeping; and in the mirror beneath my feet, she was staring up with a blank, cold expression.

  Every time I moved, hundreds of her personas rippled like a wave, following me. It wasn't mere reflection. It was a ghastly illusion, as if her fragmented soul had been taxidermied into every single shard of glass, following me with silent screams.

  In the middle of that dizzying vortex of light and phantom images, the true owner stood precariously.

  Skin so pale it was almost translucent, bloodless lips, and unfocused, dreamy eyes. She looked less like a living human and more like a wax doll enshrined in a glass case.

  "Ms. Nar."

  At Rea's cautious call, the woman slowly turned her head. Even that movement was artificial and slow, like a scene from a well-rehearsed play.

  "Ah... Rea? Are you here?"

  Nar’s voice trembled thinly. She habitually checked the mirrors, but her expression was stained with profound boredom and fatigue.

  "Rea, how is it outside? Is it still... bright today?"

  "Yes. The sun of Ivory is brilliant today as well."

  "How disgusting..."

  Nar shuddered, wrapping her arms around her shoulders.

  "This loathsome light... I hate spotlights. It feels like it’s burning my flesh. Rea, that place you mentioned last time. Ebony."

  Nar approached Rea with a desperate look in her eyes.

  "Is it true that the sun never rises there? Is it always in the shade... dark and quiet like the night?"

  "Yes, that's right. It is a place where shadows run deeper than the light."

  "I want to go..."

  Tears welled up in Nar’s eyes. She was longing for Ebony—the place everyone in Ivory despised—as if it were paradise.

  "A place where there are no eyes watching me, no burning lights. I want to escape into the darkness where my wrinkles aren't a crime. I want to get out of this prison those company people built!"

  As her emotions intensified, the light sensors in the room reacted, making the radiance even more intense. Nar screamed and glared at the mirrors.

  "No, no... I can see it again. Here, this spot! This black thing on my face!"

  There was nothing in the mirror she was pointing at. Yet, in Nar’s eyes, some horrific scar seemed visible; her pupils dilated with terror.

  "It's eating me alive... sucking my youth away! No, I'm rotting. Being withered and dried out by this light!"

  Crash!

  Nar hurled a vase from the side table. Shards flew and water spilled, but she shrieked and tried to scratch her own face with her fingernails.

  "Turn it off! Turn off this light! Make it dark! I want to hide, please!"

  "We have to stop her!"

  Rea shouted urgently and lunged toward Nar. Instinctively, I also threw myself forward and grabbed Nar's wrists.

  "Let go! It's my face! I’ll break it all!"

  Nar wailed and struggled like a trapped animal. Through the eyewear, I saw her eyes; there was no trace of reason left. They were filled only with the fear of the inescapable light and a desperate craving for freedom.

  Just then, the lights in the room began to flash red, and a cold mechanical voice echoed through the space.

  ['Warning. Resident's heart rate exceeds dangerous levels. Vital signs unstable.']['Activating emergency stabilization protocol for asset protection.']

  Chshhhhh—

  A faint grey gas began to hiss from the gaps in the walls. Simultaneously, the blinding light that had been pouring from thousands of mirrors vanished at once.

  "Ah... ah... it's dark... I like it..."

  Having inhaled the gas, Nar’s body went limp like a doll with its strings cut. Even as she lost consciousness, she was smiling faintly. Because a forced shutdown was her only refuge—a fake Ebony.

  Rea and I slowly laid her down on the floor. On Nar's face, now collapsed in the darkness, the traces of time were revealed—clear even without the Smart Viewer filters. Fine wrinkles around her eyes, a neck that had lost its elasticity.

  "The company doesn't want the world to discover this version of her. That's why they decided to lock her in here forever."

  Rea said with a bitter expression as she tidied Nar’s disheveled hair.

  I could say nothing. The magnificent room of mirrors was, in truth, the most cruel of solitary cells. Her twisted desire to escape the light and long for the darkness weighed heavily on my chest.

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