Page 43 of A Taste of Silver
"What are you doing?" She moves toward me, and I want to tell her to stop, to stay away, that proximity to me in this state might damage her too. But speech is becoming impossible. The human shape is failing. The serpent writhes beneath my skin, demanding release, demanding the simpler form that might survive another few seconds.
"You're hurt." She reaches for me, and I know with absolute certainty that if she touches me now, while I am this unstable, it will either save or destroy us both.
I make the choice that is no choice at all.
With the last of my strength, I solidify completely. For one impossible moment, I am wholly present, wholly real in a space that denies my reality. The pain transcends description. Every cell I create is immediately attacked. Every moment of solidity costs exponentially more than the last.
Her hand finds mine.
The contact is ecstasy and agony intertwined beyond separation. Where her skin meets mine, I am suddenly, violently real in a way I have not been for decades. The warmth of her, the actual physical warmth of human contact, floods through me like sunrise after eternal night. But simultaneously, the null room redoubles its assault, recognizing the vulnerability of this connection, seeking to sever it with prejudice.
"You're freezing," she says, gripping my hand tighter, and I want to laugh at the inadequacy of the word. I am beyond freezing. I am approaching absolute zero, the temperature at which motion itself ceases.
"The mirror," I manage, each word now costing years. "Do not…trust…what it shows…"
"You're dying." It is not a question. She can feel it through our touch, the way I am dissolving from the edges inward, maintaining just this single point of contact while everything else unravels.
"Already dead," I tell her, and it is almost true. "Listen. The mirror lies. It will show you…what you want…then take…"
My voice fails completely. The serpent is screaming now, demanding release, knowing that holding this form another second might mean true ending. Not the half-existence of the mirror realm but complete cessation. The null room has found the frequency of my destruction and is singing it like a tuning fork of endings.
But her hand in mine anchors me. She is so warm, so brilliantly, impossibly alive. I can feel her pulse through her palm, rapid with fear but steady as mountains. The bond between us, invisible to her, blazes silver-bright with proximity. It remembers even if she does not.
"Tell me what to do," she says. "How do I help you?"
You cannot. You should not. Run.
But what emerges is, "Remember."
The word carries more weight than sound, a command and plea combined. Not remember me. She cannot, those memories are locked away. But remember herself. Remember that she is stronger than any mirror's lies. Remember that she has survived worse than what this room contains.
Something shifts in her expression. Not recognition but resolution.
"The mirror's wrong," she says, not a question but understanding. "It's showing me something false."
I try to nod but my neck is dissolving. The edges of my vision are going dark, not the familiar dark of the mirror realm but the absolute dark of unmaking. The null room is winning. Each second of contact costs me decades, and I am running out of time to spend.
But I hold on. Hold her hand. Hold this form. Hold the line between her and whatever the false mirror wants to show her.
"Leave," I whisper with vocal cords that are more memory than matter. "Now."
"Not without you."
The impossibility of it would make me laugh if I still had lungs. She does not know me, does not remember our history, yet she refuses to abandon me. The tragic beauty of it is almost worth the dissolution.
"Cannot…leave…bound…"
"Then I'll break?—"
"No!" The word tears out with enough force to momentarily fully manifest. For one heartbeat, I am completely solid, completely present. Our eyes meet properly, and she sees me, truly sees me, not the serpent or the shadow but the man I was, am, might be. "Breaking bonds…has…consequences…"
The null room surges, enraged by my continued existence. Silver blood pours from wounds in dimensions she cannot see, painting impossible patterns in the air. I am coming apart faster now, the hand she holds the only solid thing remaining.
"Go," I beg. "Please."
She looks at me for a long moment, this woman who was once a child who tried to befriend a serpent in a mirror. Then she squeezes my hand once, fierce and warm, and lets go.
The loss of contact is devastating. Without her touch, the null room crashes into me like a tide, tearing away what little form remains. I am scattering, fragmenting, fleeing back toward the mirror realm that might still shelter what is left of me.
