Chapter 184: The Architect (1)
"What?"
The reflection smiled.
"Does that surprise you?" it asked quietly. "Does that confuse you?"
A soft chuckle followed.
"Hah."
The reflection tilted its head slightly.
"There is still one question you haven’t asked me."
"The most important one."
Paul said nothing.
His hand tightened around the glass.
The reflection leaned forward, resting its palm against the mirror.
"Who am I?"
Silence filled the office.
"Ask it."
Its voice lowered.
"Go on."
Paul’s jaw tightened.
Then tightened further.
His teeth clenched until they began to ache.
Slowly at first, he shook his head.
Then faster.
"No more!"
His voice exploded through the office.
He hurled the whiskey glass forward.
The reflection did not move.
The glass struck exactly where its face had been.
CRASH.
The mirror shattered.
Fragments scattered across the floor.
Silence followed.
Only Paul’s ragged breathing remained.
The large frame shifted, and the mirror tilted forward.
The fractured pieces reflected him one final time.
Dozens of broken versions of himself.
Watching.
Smiling.
Judging.
For a moment, Paul simply stood there.
Then the mirror crashed onto the marble floor.
In that moment, Paul felt something spread through his body.
A feeling that had become utterly unfamiliar to him over the years.
Fear.
The very same feeling he had so often made use of.
Never before had something shocked him this much.
Behind the fallen mirror stood nothing unusual at first glance.
Bookshelves lined most of the office, filled with books and documents gathered over years of war and politics.
Yet directly behind where the mirror had stood, there was a gap.
An empty space on the fourth shelf, partially concealed in shadow.
Something rested there. Its golden surface caught the weak afternoon light pouring through the windows.
Paul’s breath caught.
No.
That wasn’t possible.
He reached for the edge of the table, eyes fixed on the object.
"It looks the same," he muttered. "The very same."
His gaze narrowed.
"Just like in the U-boat."
Slowly, Paul stepped forward.
Glass cracked beneath his shoes as he crossed the shattered remains of the mirror.
"Will I return if I touch it?"
His hand stretched outward.
Then stopped.
Only inches from the cold golden surface.
"Do I even want to?"
The question lingered unanswered in the empty office.
Paul closed his eyes.
His heartbeat quickened as he pressed his fingers against the metal.
Immediately, something changed.
The air felt heavier, almost unnatural, as though the room had grown smaller around him.
He opened his eyes.
The statue stood before him. His fingers still rested against its surface.
Yet something was wrong.
He could not move.
Not his hand. Not his body. Not even his eyes.
"So you decided to touch it."
The voice returned.
The same mocking voice he had heard from the reflection, yet now it sounded exactly like his own.
And still, Paul had not spoken.
"Now let me show you the truth."
Panic crept through him.
What is happening?
Then everything around him began to move.
"My part of the story. My perspective."
Then everything stopped.
Paul felt like nothing more than a spectator trapped within his own body. He could neither move nor speak.
All he could do was see.
And hear.
His eyes opened slowly.
For a moment, there was only darkness.
Then the distant sound of explosions reached him.
Familiar.
Paul listened in silence as the thunder rolled across the horizon.
It sounded like...
"War."
The voice finished the thought for him.
"We have lost it, haven’t we, Heydrich?"
Paul understood immediately. His own voice was not speaking to him.
It was speaking to Heydrich.
The man stood beside him, facing the same mirror.
Heydrich looked exactly as he always had.
Paul did not.
A dark beard covered his face. His hair had grown noticeably longer. He turned slowly, revealing the full picture.
"Our beloved capital... in ruins."
Fire and destruction stretched as far as the eye could see.
The office had been torn apart. A massive breach gaped in the stone wall, exposing the city beyond. Berlin burned beneath the night sky, lit by countless fires. Air raid sirens wailed in the distance, mingling with gunfire and the thunder of artillery.
"They are close," Heydrich muttered.
"Yes... they always were."
Paul’s voice sounded hollow.
"Werner... Elisabeth... why? Why did you betray me?"
The pain behind those words was unmistakable.
"We will hold them off as long as we can. But the SS has nearly reached the city center. The civil war will be over soon."
Paul felt his body nod. His gaze never left the object resting on the table.
The statue.
Not hidden. Not protected.
Simply standing in the open.
"It is time..."
He stepped forward, slowly raising his hand.
"I will correct it."
The moment his fingers touched the statue, Paul’s perspective shifted.
Suddenly he was high above the ground.
Above a city.
Not Berlin.
Spain. Madrid.
The realization hit him like ice.
His vision drifted through the air, carried by the wind, descending slowly toward the rooftops below.
He was an eagle.
He was flying.
A few moments later, he landed on a roof.
He recognized it immediately.
The roof. The building. Everything.
He spotted the sniper on a nearby roof.
And inside the room opposite him...
It was Paul Jaeger.
Himself. Sitting at breakfast in Spain, 1937.
He already knew what was about to happen.
The Paul of that moment would receive a vision.
The first vision.
The one that saved his life.
Then it happened.
The Paul of 1937 looked up and met his eyes.
He saw him.
Paul watched the exact instant his younger self froze.
A heartbeat later, he moved.
The sniper fired.
The bullet missed.
The world shifted.
Now he was above Berlin. Vast and broken beneath him.
The eagle descended and landed on the branch of an old oak tree.
This is Rundstedt’s house.
No... please... no...
An instant later, an explosion consumed the building.
The perspective shifted again.
And again.
And again.
Paul screamed. He fought against what he was being shown, shouting into the darkness of his own mind, but nothing changed.
Again and again he found himself behind the eagle’s eyes, forced to watch every moment of his life unfold.
Every decision.
Every choice.
Every vision he had ever received.
Hours seemed to pass.
Then he was staring into a brightly lit room.
Two figures stood inside.
No. Don’t go, Elisabeth. Don’t go!
But they could not hear him.
The two figures embraced.
The light disappeared.
Paul’s perspective shifted one final time.
"Prague."
The word did not come from Paul.
High above the city, the eagle circled until its gaze settled on a small man sitting in a car beside his wife.
"It was you..."
Paul’s voice broke.
"YOU KILLED HER!"
But it changed nothing.
The eagle watched as the explosion erupted below, its flames reflected in those cold, unblinking eyes.
Paul wanted to scream. To move. To do something. Anything.
Then the vision ended.
He was back inside the ruined office.
His eyes moved from the eagle statue to Heydrich, who still stood waiting.
"I succeeded."
Heydrich nodded. A faint smile appeared on his face.
Paul looked at the mirror for a long moment.
"You still don’t understand?"
He stepped forward, the statue resting in his hands.
"You must be listening right now."
"And that means I won."
His grip tightened around the eagle.
"I was the architect of your life."
He said it quietly.
Not with triumph.
"Every vision you received... that was me."
"Every warning that saved you... that was me."
"Every moment you believed was fate..."
He looked down at the statue.
"I placed it there."
His jaw tightened.
Then, for the first time, his voice faltered.
"Even Elisabeth..."
He did not continue.
The word sat in the ruined office like something heavy.
He pulled the mirror aside.
He placed the eagle behind it.
Then repositioned the mirror exactly as it had been.
"I added one more vision."
He stared into his own reflection.
"One last guide."
A faint smile.
"This one."
Paul turned toward the shattered wall.
Berlin burned before him.
Fire. Smoke. War.
He stood there for a long moment, watching it.
Then he laughed.
Not loudly.
The wind pulled at his coat.
The city burned.
"They don’t even know it," he said softly.
