Liar. Lover. Me.

I found myself in a circular room with three doors. Each door was made of glass, and each glass was a mirror.

At the center stood a statue—naked, cowering. Its hands covered its face, and I couldn’t tell if the body was male or female. But I could tell it was grieving.

One mirror rippled, beckoning. I didn’t have time to think before I was already standing before it.

“Huh?” My voice cracked. “Who are you?”

The person in front of me was me—yet not. Same frame. Same face. But she looked like she had gone to war. Arrows jutted from her back, her clothes in tatters. Bruises bloomed across her skin, and yet she stood tall. Proud. Her lips smiled, but her eyes held nothing but pain.

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“Surely you know the answer to that.” She lifted a bruised hand to her cheek—the purple stark against her flawless skin. Too flawless.

“Come.” She extended her other hand, letting it pass through the glass as if it were water.

I hesitated. Then I took it, closing my eyes as she pulled me through.

It was like stepping into a freezer—cold sharp enough to bite, gone in an instant. When I opened my eyes, I was in an empty cinema.

She stood beside me at the front platform, overlooking every row from the stage to the top balcony. No film played on the screen. When she moved, the arrows in her back whispered—wood scraping wood—layered with the wet, sick sound of them shifting in flesh.

“Tell me why you wear a mask, Lucille,” she said.

She moved to the edge, half her feet suspended in the air as if a breeze could topple her. But she stood perfectly straight. Perfectly still. Proud.

“I don’t wear a mask,” I said.

“Oh, but you do.” She turned, smirking. “And you wear it so, so well.”

The lights came on in the audience. Row by row, in time with the beat of my heart.

Dum. Dum. Dum. Dumdumdum. Dumdumdumdumdum.

She laughed quietly—condescendingly—her gaze gliding over every row until the light reached the very top of the empty cinema hall. My heart felt ready to burst. I was already frozen when she glanced at me, her smirk almost affectionate in its cruelty. “Hmm… what talent. Even now your mask is still so perfect.”

I didn’t answer.

“I am you, Lucille.” She moved closer until her face was inches from mine, the arrows brushing against one another—wood upon wood—each scrape twisting my stomach tighter. “I am you, and I am suffering, in case you haven’t figured that out by now. Won’t you help me out? Hmm? The arrows hurt, my dear. Very much so.” I believed her, but with her face so flawless, her smile so unnervingly calm, it would have been easy to imagine she was enjoying it instead.

“Can’t help you,” I exhaled, only then realizing I had been holding my breath.

She chuckled softly. “You don’t want to? But it’s easy. Just tell me why you wear a mask, Lucille. It’s that simple.”

But it wasn’t.

“Or, if you wanted me to lay it out plainly…” She placed a finger on her bottom lip, eyes never leaving mine. “Just tell me why you’re such a liar. Not to others, oh no. To yourself, Lucille.”

“Yes,” a familiar voice agreed—mine, but far away. “Why do you keep lying to me, Lucille?”

“Why do you pretend, Lucille?” Another voice, again mine, but more distant still.

“Lucille, why do you keep pretending?”

I turned toward the seating area. Slowly, with each echo, more people appeared, row by row, all of them wearing my face at different stages of my life.

A child me asked, “Didn’t you say that liars go to hell?”

A teenage me followed, “You don’t like it when they do it to you. Why do you do it to yourself?”

The cinema screen lit up—static at first, then a clean, blinding white. She, the one with bruises and arrows piercing her back, didn’t move. She only watched, eyes brimming red, a smirk tugging faintly at her lips. Then—

What pain?

What…

Nothing hurts. Nothing…

My sight dissolved completely. When I blinked, it felt like my heart had cracked in two. The salt on my lips was almost holy—baptizing my mouth—when the words escaped me: “Because they’d hate me otherwise!”

Silence.

Then footsteps. And the sound of wood against wood—but this time, falling. One. Two. Three. Then stillness.

When I looked up, she was there. The smile she wore wasn’t proud anymore—it was crooked, half arrogant and half bitter. “Oh, my dear. You could be honest to yourself after all.”

“It’s no good,” I whispered, my chest tightening.

“Wrong, love. It doesn’t feel good.”

I glared at her.

“Why would they hate you? Hmm?”

The answer bubbled up inside me, each bubble thorn-tipped, pricking my insides until it felt like I was bleeding from within.

“Because,” I sobbed, “they didn’t like me when I was true.” The bubbles burst, and I cried harder.

More arrows slid from her back, clattering to the floor. Her smile warped—less proud, more strained.

“I never did anything right. I didn’t feel anything right. They said I was too much… too… too much.”

When I first saw her in the mirror, she’d been like a porcupine—spined and straight-backed. But the more I confessed, the more arrows fell, and the more her posture bent. The smile drained from her face until there was none at all. Was I helping her by answering, or only making her wretched?

“And why did their opinion of you matter so much, Lucille?” Her voice was unsteady now.

I inhaled slowly, trying to steady my breath. All around me, the audience of many versions of me sat unmoving, watching.

When I exhaled, the truth left me in a whisper. “Because I wanted to be loved.”

Clack. Clack. Clack. The last of her arrows hit the floor.

I wiped my face and looked at her. She was… hollow. No arrows left, but she hunched as if she’s finally carrying their weight. The flawless face from before now looked worn, gravity pulling it down until not even the shadow of a smile remained.

“Thank you,” she said.

I blinked. For what?

“Now that the arrows are gone, I can finally heal. Close your eyes, Lucille.”

I obeyed.

When I opened them again, I was back in the room with the mirrors and the statue. The door I had entered was now a stained glass mosaic.

I walked toward the statue. It had shifted—one hand lowered, half its face revealed. Its posture had changed as well, though I couldn’t tell to what. Before I could look closer, another mirror rippled, calling me forward.

When I saw myself again, I wasn’t surprised. Mirrors always show our own reflection after all.

✼ •• ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ •• ✼

Beyond the mirror stretched an endless corridor lined with statues. Every one of them was a man. I didn’t linger on their faces, but even at a glance I could see they were carved with such precision that if they moved, it would seem the most natural thing in the world.

Beside me was another me. She had my voice when she spoke, though her eyes peeked out from beneath the hood of a heavy cloak. She was swathed in burgundy from head to toe—ghost-like in the dim light. She walked ahead of me, and I followed.

The statues stood still, yet their eyes tracked us. The weight of their gaze prickled my skin, but I kept walking, following the sound of her cloak brushing over the carpet.

I broke the silence. “What are we here for?”

She gave no answer, only pulled her cloak tighter and kept walking.

We went on for what felt like forever before she stopped some distance from a massive statue at the end of the hall, draped in the same burgundy as her cloak.

“What do you want most, Lucille?” she asked, voice hushed as if the words themselves were forbidden.

“I want a lot of things.”

She stepped closer. “Yes, I know. But what do you want most?” She glanced around as though afraid to be overheard. “The… the thing you cursed for being false. Tell me.”

The sound of shifting concrete broke the stillness—loud, sudden. I spun around to see the statues had stepped away from their platforms, their eyes fixed on me. A curse slipped from my lips. She shrank behind me, whispering again, “Lucille, w-what d-do you want most?”

I think she already knew the answer, but needed to hear me say it aloud. Yet as I watched the statues advance—each one male, each one carved in beauty that only deepened my contempt—my hands trembled and my jaw locked.

“I hate you,” I said to them. They froze. “I hate you so much.”

She clutched my arm and sank to her knees, shaking. Her cloak… it seemed darker now. The light was dim already, but the burgundy had deepened toward black, and when she trembled the fabric didn’t rustle—it made a sound like brick scraping against brick.

“Lucille, please.” Her voice was even quieter now, forcing me to crouch to hear. “Tell me what you want most.”

The statues began to move again, their pace slow and deliberate. I turned toward the great figure at the hall’s end and saw that it seemed to have grown, though the distance between us had not changed. The drapery had slipped to reveal its feet—large and swollen, grotesquely round, like they bore a weight they were never meant to carry. They were far too disproportionate to belong to any woman, and yet… I could not be certain.

“Lucille,” she whimpered.

I looked back at the approaching statues. My anger surged again. Men. They could be beautiful, but I hated them still.

I remembered my father who never fathered, and the almost-lovers who never loved.

Pathetic. Useless. Trash. “You don’t deserve love,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Lucille,” I thought I heard her say. The burgundy of her cloak deepened further, swallowing what little light touched it. “Please… what do you want most?”

At the far end, the great statue swelled larger still, its covering now hiding only its face. It sat on a throne, legs splayed, belly so distended it needed no fabric to conceal it. In its left hand, a tray of food; in its right, bars of gold. The resemblance to my father was unmistakable.

If there had been a sledgehammer in reach, I would have seized it and smashed every statue in the corridor. It wouldn’t matter if they moved. It wouldn’t matter if they wore the faces of people I once knew. I would break them to dust.

My chest tightened with a pain so sharp it surprised me. I didn’t even notice when she fell completely silent. I only knew I was standing now, taking a step toward the advancing statues. But each step grew heavier than the last, as if the ground were pulling me down. The statues’ concrete skin began to change—shades of grey bleeding into warm flesh tones. They approached like a slow gradient, stone becoming man, while my legs grew stiff with every inch closed between us.

Her question pulsed through my skull again: What do you want most, Lucille?

An impossible question.

Could anyone truly want what had broken them, again and again? Could anyone truly desire what had turned their softness to stone? Absolutely not.

A sound behind me—a cloth loosening, sliding free. I could barely turn my head, but out of the corner of my eye I saw the statue on the throne smile—a soft, disgusting curve of lips, with eyes far too gentle to be trusted.

The male statues stopped a foot from me. They looked human now. Beautiful. And nauseating.

She stayed on the floor behind me, still cloaked, still unmoving. I could not tell if she crouched or knelt.

My eyes burned. Somewhere in the hall, I could swear I heard my father’s laugh. The question came again, thrumming like a wound: What do you want most, Lucille?

It hurt—like my heart was being wrung until it bled, like my chest was filling with water. I was drowning.

“I hate you,” I tried to say, but my mouth wouldn’t move. I tried to look away, but my neck refused. I tried to step back, but my feet held fast to the floor.

The statues—men now, entirely men—stood utterly still.

I tried to close my eyes, but they would not obey. I couldn’t cry. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even breathe—though it seemed I didn’t need to. I felt as though I had turned into a statue myself, lifeless and cold, while the men before me—

They were crying.

One by one, their faces twisted in grief, their sobs breaking the air. Why were they crying? Men did not deserve to cry.

Some began to laugh—a cruel, gloating laugh—until the room dissolved into chaos. Man against man. Blows landing hard. Flesh on flesh. The one on the throne alternated between laughing, sighing, and sobbing, unable—or unwilling—to choose an emotion. I refused to look at him. My gaze stayed locked on the violence before me: straining muscles, purpled bruises, mocking sneers, and groans of pain.

Somewhere beyond the riot, a voice called to me. A man’s voice I had never heard before. “Lucille, please! Tell me what you want most!” It was wretched—desperate, breaking. I didn’t want to answer, but my heart tightened at the sound of it.

“Lucille!”

What did I want most? I could not speak, but my mind went to the me with the arrows in her back, the one who had called me a liar.

“Lucille, what do you want most?” the man cried again, as if the asking itself hurt him, as if my answering would wound me just as deeply.

The fight raged on. And this time, I looked—really looked. I saw for the first time that every man wore the same face. And then, they weren’t many at all. They were one.

A single man knelt before me, battered, half-naked, bleeding. His eyes locked on mine with a piercing clarity, as if he could see everything—the anger, the hatred, the misery, the desperation, and the long-buried longing I kept hidden even from myself. I felt stripped bare.

“Lucille, I can’t reach you if you’re made of stone,” he said quietly. “If you won’t tell her”—he tilted his head toward the cloaked figure behind me—“won’t you tell me?”

“I can’t want it,” I said in my mind. “I’m not allowed to want it.”

As if he’d heard, he asked, “Says who?”

Says who?

“Says me. When I wanted it, it never came. When I prayed for it, everyone else who asked received… but not me. Year after year I hoped, and now I am old. I hoped stubbornly, because I thought I’d die without it. And then… I killed the want. Hope is much better when it’s quiet.”

He wept.

Behind me came the sound of heavy fabric hitting the floor. Her voice followed, hushed but clear. “What do you want most, Lucille?”

“I want… to be chosen.”

More cloth fell.

“I want to be loved.”

It sounded like hundreds of layers sliding free—an undressing both soft and urgent.

“I…” My lips moved this time, my voice breaking through. “I don’t want to be alone. But I kept telling myself that’s my fate. I pretend I’m strong, I hate men, but…”

I thought of the scene earlier—of fists and bruises, of the battered man kneeling before me—and realized that men could be vulnerable too.

The man rose to his feet and stepped toward me. He leaned in and, with a touch light as a feather, kissed my forehead before vanishing.

I could move again.

When I turned, she was there. Beautiful. No cloak, but dressed in silk that moved like water. Arms bare, face uncovered, and a smile so gentle it was as if she already had everything. As if I already had everything—even the thing I’d never dared to admit I wanted until this corridor.

Behind her, the giant statue lay in ruins.

“Close your eyes, Lucille,” she said. I obeyed.

When I opened them again, I was back in the room with the statue and the mirrors. Two stained glass panels now. The statue had straightened in its seat, body bare, eyes closed, head bowed toward the floor. The face was mine. Of course it was.

Three doors. The ones to the left and right had become mosaics. The one in the middle remained unchanged. When it rippled—when it called—I answered.

✼ •• ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ •• ✼

Beyond the mirror was a maze of mirrors. There was no other me—just me, and an endless sea of reflections. They were all me as I was in this moment. Everywhere I looked, above and below, I saw nothing but me.

When I walked, they walked. When I turned, they turned. When I blinked, they blinked. And this, I found, was worse than confrontation. The first door had confronted my lies. The second had confronted my desires. But this… this confronted nothing. No arrows to pluck. No fabric to peel away. Nothing.

I stopped and took myself in—tired eyes, uneven skin, messy hair, a body shaped unwomanly. Yes, I lied to be accepted. Yes, I buried my desire for love when it seemed impossible. Looking at myself now, I couldn’t even accept me… let alone love me. Why would anyone else?

A crack spread across the mirror, and suddenly a thousand more of me appeared. Repulsed, I backed away and kept walking. Surely there was an exit somewhere.

But no matter where I turned, no door appeared. Only more mirrors, more me.

I sighed heavily. This was getting exhausting. “What now?!” I shouted.

“What now?! What now?! What now?!” my own voice echoed back.

“Damn it,” I groaned.

“Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.”

“Stop it, will you?” My frustration spiked.

“Stop it, will you? Stop it, will you? Stop it, will you?”

I struck the mirror in front of me, and it splintered into a gazillion more—each reflecting a face I no longer wanted to see. Mine. Who else?

“I don’t like you very much,” I told the gazillion me.

“I don’t like you very much. I don’t like you very much. I don’t like you very much.”

“Stop, okay? This is not funny.”

“Stop, okay? This is not funny. Stop, okay? This is not funny. Stop, okay? This is not funny.”

“I hate you.”

“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”

I turned away only to meet my reflection again. It made me wonder—how long had it been since I’d truly liked what I saw in the mirror?

When I was a child, I thought I was a princess—the most beautiful girl alive. And maybe I was, for a time. People told me so. But illusions fade the way clouds pass. One day, I was no longer beautiful. One day, no one even saw me. Ghosts were given more attention.

“They didn’t like me when I was true,” I had confessed in the first door. “I’m not allowed to want it,” I had admitted in the second.

“Says who? Says who? Says who?” the mirrors chanted, my own voice ricocheting inside my skull and down into my chest. “Says who? Says who? Says who?”

I clamped my hands over my ears, and my reflections did the same.

“Who said no one likes you? Who said no one likes you? Who said no one likes you?”

“Shut up.” I groaned. This time, they didn’t echo me.

Instead—

“Who says you can’t want? Who says you can’t want? Who says you can’t want?”

“THEY DID!”

“Who’s they? Who’s they? Who’s they?”

I racked my brain for an answer. But unlike the first two doors—where deep down I already knew—this time I couldn’t find one. So I said, more firmly, “Shut up.”

“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.” The voices—my voice—echoed. Whether it was me telling them to stop, or them ordering me to, I couldn’t tell. Both felt equally true. The sound clawed at my ribs like a feral cat, or maggots tunneling through my brain.

Run, I told myself. So I did.

But where could I go in a room of mirrors with no exit? I couldn’t tell if I was running toward something or just looping in circles. I glanced back. My reflections were chasing me—copying me exactly, yet somehow intent on catching me. I didn’t want them to, so I kept running until my calves cramped and my knees gave out.

I was about to fall face-first when I threw my hands out to catch myself—and my reflection caught me back.

My arms shook, so I dropped from palms to elbows, bringing my face closer to hers. And I think, maybe for the first time, I actually looked at her.

Red-rimmed eyes. Dark shadows under the tear line. A forehead drawn tight. Mouth gasping for air. She was tired.

“Why are you the one tired when it was me who did the running?” I asked.

“Why are you the one tired when it was me who did the running?” she echoed.

“This running is pointless.” I lowered myself onto the floor, curling like a child.

“This running is pointless,” the echo agreed.

“I’m just burning myself out for no reason.” And I was—my exhaustion settling into my bones. For what? Escaping myself, when I was inescapable in a room full of mirrors?

“I’m just burning myself out for no reason,” the echo sympathized.

“Do I even have to keep running?” Could I really escape myself? Could I really stop being me, and become someone else?

“Do I even have to keep running?” she asked back.

I looked at her. “Probably not,” I thought. Why was I running from myself, when I was all I had?

A chorus of cracks filled my ears. I sprang to my feet. All around me, the mirrors shattered, their glass crumbling into powder in an unseen explosion. It didn’t hurt. The powder drifted to my skin, turning into a pearlescent dew that sank into me. The more it covered, the more renewed I felt—like I’d never been running at all.

I closed my eyes and let it happen. Let me happen.

And then, without meaning to, I smiled. Me. If I was all I had, there was no reason to escape me. No reason to lie to me. No reason to deny what I truly wanted. No reason at all not to be. Laughter bubbled up before I realized it, and it felt good—so I let it spill out, sobbing in between, then laughing again, like someone who had finally gone mad.

When I opened my eyes, three stained-glass panels stood before me.

I turned, and there was the statue—regal, serene, smiling gently. Bare, beautiful, and wearing my face. It seemed to say thank you.

I thought she looked pretty. Her body looked like a goddess’s. Perhaps it was vanity. Or perhaps it was the first time I had truly seen myself. Either way, she was beautiful.

I turned back to the panels. Each mosaic showed the same woman. The one on the left held a scale. The one on the right, a chalice. The one in the middle, a mirror.

And this place—this dream, this nightmare—was a surreal version of my reality.