Chapter 50: Ruin in the Mirror
She dreamt again.
She didn't mean to.
Didn't want to.
But want had stopped listening to her long ago.
Dreams had become her prison — no, her confession booth. And Selene was always the priest behind the veil, cool and cruel, demanding penance from a body too eager to sin.
It began, as always, with silence.
A hush thick enough to choke on. The kind that presses in on all sides like steam in a sealed room. Aria stood barefoot in the long corridor of Selene's apartment — though it never felt like a home to her. Not really. It felt like memory — hollow, echoing, too clean. Sacred, but stripped of warmth. A cathedral made for punishment.
She wore nothing but one of Selene's cardigans — oversized, black, the kind that swallowed her frame whole. It draped off her shoulder like a threat. Her scent lingered in the threads: smoke, cedar, ice. Aria didn't just wear it. She breathed it.
She should've turned around.
Should've clawed her way back into her body, into waking.
But her feet moved anyway. Drawn like a moth not to flame — but to frostbite.
To the mirror room.
The cursed antique mirror with the fractured silver spine and that uncanny gleam — like moonlight caught in a snare. The one that didn't just reflect. It remembered.
The door was already cracked open. She pushed it wider.
Selene was already inside.
She always was.
Lounging with infuriating ease in the velvet chair, one leg crossed, her shirt unbuttoned low enough to make the air feel thinner. Her gaze landed on Aria like snowfall — silent, steady, too cold to be harmless.
"You keep coming back," Selene murmured, not bothering to rise.
"I don't mean to," Aria said, but her voice lacked weight. It sounded too much like an excuse.
Selene's brow lifted slightly. "Then stop."
Aria stepped inside.
The door clicked shut behind her, final and sharp.
She flinched.
"I can't," she whispered.
Selene stood.
Slowly. Deliberately.
A silhouette drawn in silk and moonlight, carved sharp by shadows.
"You know why."
Aria's heart beat too hard against her ribs. Her hands curled around the edge of the cardigan like it could protect her. But the fabric betrayed her — too soft, too thin. She was bare beneath it, trembling in cotton and shame.
"No," she lied.
Selene smiled like she knew. "Then let me remind you."
She walked forward, silent as ice forming on glass. Her movements were slow, serpentine, deliberate. She circled Aria like a secret she already owned.
The mirror loomed behind her.
Her reflection stared back: flushed cheeks, parted lips, thighs pressed tight beneath borrowed fabric.
"Take it off," Selene said.
It wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
The command landed like a blade.
Aria's breath caught.
"I…"
"You wore my clothes," Selene murmured, tone dripping like honey over broken glass. "You wanted to be ruined."
She stepped closer. Her voice dipped. "You still do."
Aria's fingers trembled as she slipped the cardigan from her shoulders. It slid off like a second skin and puddled at her feet. Beneath it, she wore only a thin camisole and damp panties. Cotton clinging. Nipples straining against silk. Her thighs shifted, trying to hide what her eyes already confessed.
Selene didn't touch her.
Not yet.
"Turn around."
Aria did.
Faced the mirror.
Faced herself.
She looked… wrecked.
Her skin flushed, mouth slightly open, chest rising too fast. Her eyes were glassy — need heavy in every line of her body. She looked desperate. She looked needy.
She looked like someone who belonged to Selene.
Selene moved in behind her, just close enough to feel.
She didn't lay a hand on her.
Her presence alone was enough to set Aria trembling.
"Look," Selene whispered. "Look what I've made of you."
Aria shook her head. "No —"
"Yes," Selene murmured, voice velvet and frost. "You think I don't hear you? Every night, moaning into your pillow. You writhe like a thing starved. And for what? My voice?"
Aria whimpered. She couldn't move.
Selene's fingers hovered just above her skin. She traced the air over the line of her shoulder, down her arm, over the curve of her waist — never touching. Always just a breath away.
"You used to flinch when I looked at you," Selene said softly. "Now you beg without words."
"I never —"
"Oh? Then why are you wet right now?"
Aria's breath shuddered out of her.
Selene finally touched her.
A single hand pressed between her shoulder blades.
"Lie down."
The bed behind her wasn't a bed anymore.
It was an altar.
She climbed onto it without thinking. Her limbs obeyed before her mind could catch up. She lay on her back, the camisole pushed up slightly, panties stretched thin across soaked skin.
Selene didn't follow.
She just stood there. Watching. Daring her.
"You won't be touched tonight," she said. "Not by me."
Aria whimpered.
"You'll do it yourself. Right here. Where I can see."
"I… I can't."
"You will," Selene said, cool and cruel. "You always do."
Aria's hand drifted down to her stomach. She hesitated.
Selene's voice turned sharp. "Touch yourself."
Aria obeyed.
Her fingers slipped beneath the band of her panties, finding herself slick, swollen, already aching. She moaned — soft, embarrassed. The sound curled in the air like smoke.
Selene didn't move. Didn't blink.
"Slower."
Aria's breath broke. Her fingers moved in tight, trembling circles. Each motion made her shudder. She watched herself in the mirror, watched the way her hips moved, watched her own fingers glisten.
"Eyes open," Selene reminded her. "You don't get to hide."
Her hips bucked.
"I — I can't keep going."
"You'll do exactly as I say," Selene said. "You'll ruin yourself like the pretty, filthy little dream you are."
Aria's thighs trembled. Her free hand gripped the sheet, knuckles white. She watched herself lose control.
Her voice broke into soft, needy gasps.
"Say it," Selene whispered. "Say you want me."
"I want —" Her breath hitched. "You."
"Louder."
"I want you," Aria moaned. "Please — Selene —"
Selene walked to the mirror and placed her fingers against it. The glass rippled like water.
And suddenly the mirror changed.
It wasn't Aria in it anymore.
It was Selene.
Undressed. Stunning. Her skin pale and perfect. She moved toward the Aria in the reflection like a lover slipping into a dream.
Selene's reflection crawled over Aria's mirrored form, her lips brushing her neck, her cold hands sliding over flushed skin.
Aria sobbed.
The illusion was too real.
She could feel it.
The ghost of those fingers, the chill of Selene's skin, the press of her mouth.
But in truth — it was still only her hand.
She cried out, desperate.
"Please — touch me —"
"I am touching you," Selene's voice echoed from the mirror. "This is what you wanted. To be undone by a ghost."
Her legs shook. Her breath came in broken gasps.
She moved harder.
Faster.
Chasing the image.
Her body twisted, the sheets tangled beneath her. Her moans came ragged and high.
"Say it," Selene purred.
"Selene —" Aria sobbed.
"Again."
"Selene — Selene, please —"
"Come for me."
Her climax hit like a storm.
Fast. Brutal. Her back arched off the bed, her fingers frantic, her throat tearing open with a cry. She shook. Shattered. Her body wrung out by want.
She collapsed, panting. Limp. Her legs still twitching. Her hand falling useless to her side.
The mirror stilled.
Selene sat back in the chair like she'd never moved.
Like she hadn't just watched Aria break.
Like she hadn't caused it.
Her voice cut the silence.
"Wake up."
And just like that—
She did.
Her body jolted.
Sheets twisted beneath her. The cotton between her thighs was soaked. Her breath came too fast, lungs catching.
She stared up at her bedroom ceiling — familiar. Safe.
But not safe enough.
Her eyes stung.
Tears spilled down her cheeks before she could stop them.
She was alone.
No Selene. No mirror. No cold gaze watching her fall apart.
Just the ghost of it.
Just the ache.
The heat.
The shame that curled in her belly like a second heartbeat.
She pressed her hand to her chest. Then lower.
Stopped.
She couldn't.
Not again.
She rolled onto her side, face pressed to the pillow, her whole body still humming from a dream that didn't end.
Because Selene wasn't just in her head.
She was inside her.
A bloom with teeth.
A hunger stitched into her ribs.
Selene had guessed. Long ago.
Which was why she tempted.
Which was why she waited.
Not for Aria to beg.
But for her to break.