Derive the Mirage

"I can see the loop!"

Kyra's eyes were wide open. I could tell that she could see something with Panorama that we couldn't.

"What do you mean?"

"I see the loop! I see it!" She leaned side to side, as if trying to look around something that was in front of her, even though nothing was physically there. "That's what it was, a mirage!"

"A mirage?"

"The loop isn't real!" Kyra began walking forwards, off towards the elevator. "We're all being deceived right now. Our perspectives are being manipulated. Whoever drew this Fractal onto us placed a mirage within our points of view. But it seems that the mirage is only fit to the human perspective. Since I have Panorama, I can see past that perspective. I can see around the mirage!"

Me and Cynthia watched as Kyra walked away, down the same path we'd been following only to end up back at room 415 every time. But for the first time, we saw her walk past room 430. And in that instant, she suddenly disappeared. Kyra was no longer able to be seen along the hallway for us.

"Kyra?" I called out to her. "Kyra? Where did you go?"

"I'm still here!" She suddenly appeared in front of us, right at room 430.

"What the…? How did you do that?" Cynthia was mesmerized. "Am I hallucinating from my dehydration?"

"No." Kyra walked back to us. "You're seeing me vanish, aren't you?"

We nodded.

"It's because I'm leaving the limits of your mirage. The mirage set on our eyes only allows us to see things move between rooms 415 and 430. Whenever we try to move past rooms 415 or 430, the mirage manipulates our perspectives into restarting from the opposite end, when in reality, it's just influencing us to turn around and walk from the other side. It's playing a trick on our minds."

"What…? We've been moving according to a trick on our eyes this whole time…?"

"Yes. But even if you know that, it's impossible to avoid the trick it plays on your body when you reach the limits of the mirage. Because your brain is so set on believing what the mirage presents, it's inevitable to avoid the movement it causes your body to perform. It's not unless you can convince your brain otherwise through visual proof that you can avoid the trick."

"That's why you can escape the loop. Because with Panorama you can see reality behind the mirage."

"Exactly."

"But then what can we do?" Cynthia asked. "We don't have Panorama… How are we going to escape the loop?"

Kyra was suddenly serious. "I have to get whoever's responsible for this Fractal to stop it."

"Who, though?"

"There's only one other person we came across inside of this building. The receptionist. It has to be her."

She was the woman who greeted us in the lobby of the apartment. She's also the one who provided us the keycard to Russo's room. But if she did own the Fractal that stuck us into this loop, why did she do it? Why would she do that to a group of people she'd never met before? I realized that only people with bad intentions did things like that.

"Be careful," I told Kyra. "I feel uneasy about her."

"I don't." Kyra smiled confidently. "I think I have a good gist of her Fractal. Remember the circle in Russo's room? I couldn't see outside of the mirage while we were in there. But as soon as I came out into the hall and wasn't in the circle's presence anymore, I could see it. I think her Fractal, and this mirage, has something to do with the circle inside the room."

"But what?"

"No clue," she told me. "I'm gonna have to go find out myself."

Kyra began walking back towards the elevators, off into the distance where she would eventually vanish after escaping the loop of the mirage, while me and Cynthia stayed behind with our hopes seated heavily on her shoulders.

As soon as she walked past room 430, she vanished out of thin air, to my eyes and Cynthia's. To Kyra, she walked steadily towards the elevators, wary of the direction she headed and as not to be manipulated by the mirage currently sitting on her eyes. The way Kyra saw the mirage was like a sleeping mask she wore that was a size too small, meaning it only covered part of her eyes each. She could partially see, but there was still a blockage in view.

She got into the elevator, and pressed floor one. She was relieved she'd finally been able to escape the loop, but was also just as tense knowing that three of her comrades' chances to escape laid on her capabilities alone.

Ding!

Kyra arrived to floor one, and walked out into the lobby. Then, she saw her. The receptionist still sat in the same spot we'd last seen her. She looked neat and tidy, bearing a skinny red top, with matching red lipstick, and short brunette bangs that covered her forehead. She saw Kyra approaching her, and looked at her with confusion as if trying to make sense of something.

"Here," Kyra handed her the keycard to Russo's room. "Thank you for letting us use it."

"Oh, of course." The receptionist was awkward. "Where did the rest of your friends go?"

"I wonder."

As the receptionist reached out to grab the keycard, Kyra suddenly dropped it and snatched her wrist, gripping it tightly.

"You did this, didn't you!?" She stared into the receptionist's eyes. She tried to sense if the Fractal originated from her irises, but she could only read fear and agitation.

The receptionist tried to pull her hand back. "What are you doing—?!"

"Shut up." Kyra gripped her wrist tighter, nearly restricting all the blood flow. "I know what you are."

In the quick succession of the moment, Kyra began to cycle through all the possibilities of a visual connection to the circle in Russo's room, and how coming into contact with it could have caused the mirage. If it wasn't the receptionist's eyes, it had to be something else on her that we were exposed to that began the initial linkage to the circle in the room.

"Let go of my hand!" The receptionist began trying to shake free. Kyra held-on, continuing to watch her body to look for the Fractal's origin. When we'd first entered the lobby, the only parts of the receptionist visible to us were anything above her shoulders. For direct contact to something that could ignite the Fractal's mirage, Kyra deduced it had to be something on her face. And if it wasn't her eyes, it had to be something else central.

"Why are you doing this?!" The receptionist continued to yell. She now began pulling away from Kyra, but by now, Kyra had come to a fortified presumption. She leaned-in towards the receptionist and pulled her bangs up.

"There it is."

Right there, in the center of her forehead, was a large red circle that was infused onto her skin. It was the same red circle that was drawn in Russo's room.

"You stupid bitch!" The receptionist tensed herself, instigating a usage of the Fractal on her forehead. The red circle pulsated with a glow, suddenly causing the mirage on Kyra's eyes to fluctuate. The fluctuation caused a tremor of pain to oscillate into her eyes, which both me and Cynthia could also feel since we'd all been imbued with the Fractal.

"Urk—!" Kyra stumbled to the ground, grabbing her forehead. A migraine was settling-in.

"How?" The receptionist now stood up, walking over to Kyra. "How did you evade it? How did you leave the floor?"

Kyra quickly shot a glance up at her. She pointed at her eyes. "Panorama."

She quickly leapt up from the floor and tackled the receptionist to the ground, unsheathing the short knife in her pocket as they fell down together. Hitting the floor, the receptionist was winded, and as a follow-up in movement, Kyra struck her knife down into the ground right next to her face.

"Disable your Fractal, now! Release the mirage on our eyes!"

"Fuck—!" The receptionist tried to shake free from Kyra's hold. But dealing with a trained leader from the military, it was impossible. "Get off of me—!"

"REMOVE THE FRACTAL, RIGHT NOW!" Kyra lifted the knife and stabbed it into the receptionist's shoulder, causing an excruciating amount of pain.

"ARGH—!!!" She let out a blood curdling scream. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!!"

The circle on her forehead continued to pulsate, instigating even more waves of pain into Kyra's eyes. Up on the fourth floor, me and Cynthia struggled to keep-up with the random oncomings of pain we felt in our visions. Kyra realized this possibility, that her teammates could also be suffering the repercussions of the shortcomings in her own battle.

"Stop it! Disable your Fractal right now!"

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck—!!!" The receptionist could only continue screaming in pain at the wound in her shoulder. Kyra realized there was no use trying to bargain with her.

She understood what needed to be done.

Kyra pulled the knife out of the receptionist's shoulder, which was deep within.

"Fuck—!!!" She screamed even louder in pain. The circle's pulses were getting quicker and more aggressive. It seemed like the Fractal was becoming more reactive than anything. To put an end to it all, Kyra struck the knife down, stabbing it directly in the center of the circle. Right into the receptionist's forehead, the knife's blade impaled her skull.

She gurgled as her brain was struck fatally.

Kyra held onto the knife's handle as the receptionist's body shook its last ever movements. As the circle on her forehead finally dimmed its glow, and as froth left her mouth, her limbs went limp as life left her body.

In that moment, Kyra's vision was cleared. The mirage had removed itself, and she could see clearly now without any delusions obstructing her view. Back up on the fourth floor, me and Cynthia felt like our eyes had just been washed clean. Everything looked the same, but something felt different. We didn't know yet that Kyra had completed the task.

A few minutes later when we heard the elevator down the hall ding, and saw Kyra walk out onto the floor, standing at a distance that exceeded room 430, we realized she'd done it. We could finally see past room 430, which meant the mirage that restricted our view had finally been cleared. She smiled as she approached us, throwing up a bloodstained thumbs-up. We smiled back, slightly shocked to see she had any blood on her at all.

We finally escaped the loop.