The PREDATOR And PREY

chapter 6

GRAYSON

Grayson Hawthorne  stood in the center of the room, every instinct telling him something was wrong. The room was dark, cold, and silent, save for the distant, rhythmic creaking of wood—a house breathing in its stillness. Suddenly, the sound of stone grinding against stone filled the room. He was trapped.
“What the hell is this?” grayson muttered, his sharp eyes scanning the room for any sign of movement. Grayson remained silent, but his posture was tense, his  fingers twitching near the small knife hidden at his waist. Grayson, remained still, eyes narrowing as he took in the space, his mind already calculating. Revising all the  incidents that happened with them along their journey in this mystery mansion.

The mysterious men who had led them here were gone, vanishing as if they had never been there to begin with. But they had left something behind—an intricate trap, a puzzle, the likes of which none of them had ever encountered.

Suddenly........The floor beneath him shifted, and the grand hall began to change. Large, dark mirrors began to slide out from the walls, covering every inch of the room. The mirrors themselves were strange—some polished to a perfect sheen, others cracked and warped, their surfaces rippling as though made of liquid. The reflections they cast were haunting. Each mirror distorted their images: Grayson’s eyes appeared hollow and sunken in one mirror, while body twisted grotesquely in another. His face was stretched into something unrecognizable in the third.And then the voice came.

A low, guttural whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once:

"In fractured glass, the lies unfold,
Step with caution, or lose your soul.
Find the truth, where shadows hide,
Or face the fate that waits inside."

Grayson’s mind raced. It was a game—a deadly one, meant to trap them, test them. They needed to find the truth among the mirrors, but there was a catch—every step could lead them deeper into the trap.“focus” Grayson ordered himself, his voice low and steady, though inside, a sense of unease gnawed at him.

But just as he took his first steps, the mirrors began to shift, sliding along the walls, rearranging themselves as if the room itself was alive.  Grayson found himself alone in another room—a smaller, claustrophobic space lined with even more mirrors. Each one reflected a different version of him, some grotesquely disfigured, others impossibly perfect. His heart pounded in his chest. The reflections seemed to be watching him, mocking him, as if the house itself was trying to tear him apart piece by piece. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to focus. There had to be a way out—a clue, something. The first step was understanding the puzzle. The first clue came from a mirror at the far end of the room, a cracked, almost shattered piece of glass that showed him with eyes black as night. But something about the reflection was off—it was delayed, moving just a half-second behind his actual movements. Grayson narrowed his eyes, approaching the mirror cautiously. His reflection inched toward him, a twisted smile forming on its lips.

And then he saw it—etched faintly in the corner of the mirror, hidden beneath layers of distortion, was a phrase:

"Numbers lie when shadows speak,
Only truth survives the weak."

Grayson frowned, his mind working to decipher the meaning. Numbers lie? Shadows speak? It was cryptic, but the mention of shadows made him look around. The light in the room was dim, and yet, something about the shadows cast by the mirrors was wrong. They moved differently—unnaturally. He began to examine each mirror closely, watching the way his reflection shifted and flickered in the dim light. In one mirror, his reflection looked normal, but the shadow it cast wasn’t his own. It was elongated, darker than it should have been, and it pointed toward another mirror in the far corner of the room.Grayson followed the shadow’s direction, stepping toward the mirror. This one was different—its surface was pristine, but it didn’t reflect him at all. Instead, it showed a flicker of something else—something written on the inside of the glass: