Chapter 6 Reflection

Two weeks later, Jack checked into a seedy motel in Nevada.

He didn't sleep.

Didn't eat.

He stared into the bathroom mirror for hours.

Sometimes, his reflection blinked at the wrong time.

Sometimes, it whispered.

Sometimes, it smiled.

He wrapped a towel around the mirror. Sat in the corner.

His arm throbbed - the black veins had returned.

He whispered to himself.

"I'm Jack. I made it out."

But the voice in his head laughed.

"No... you were just the first."

He left the motel before dawn, hitchhiked west.

In every reflection - car mirrors, windows, puddles - he saw it.

Himself.

Not quite.

The eyes were wrong. Too deep. Too empty.

He knew what it meant.

He wasn't the survivor.

He was the carrier.

The Hollow had learned to wear skin, to pass.

Now it walked in the world, free of the mountain.

He lit a cigarette with shaking hands.

Behind him, his shadow peeled away from his feet.

And smiled.

Jack - or what remained of him - wandered through a nameless desert town beneath a red evening sky. His boots left no footprints. His shadow moved a split second behind him. No one noticed. That was part of the design now.

He stopped outside a diner.

Neon lights buzzed overhead, casting pink halos onto cracked pavement. Through the window, families ate pancakes and burgers. Laughed. Lived.

His stomach churned - not from hunger, but from memory. Mimicry. The Hollow had learned that humans were not prey to be hunted... but roles to be played.

Jack pushed open the door.

A bell chimed. Heads turned. One child dropped her fork, stared at him.

Her eyes widened.

"Mama," she whispered, "that man's skin's not real."

Jack smiled.

The mother shushed the child.

The lights flickered once. Then again.

Behind the counter, the cook turned.

Jack recognized him.

Hawkins.

His squadmate. Should've died in the reactor.

But here he was - clean apron, smiling. No scars. No soul.

They both stared.

Recognition passed between them - not as men, but as infections. As survivors. As seeds.

Jack sat at the counter.

Hawkins slid him a coffee.

"No one ever really leaves Breach Point," he said.

Jack nodded. "No one ever dies there, either."

Outside, a second Jack walked past the diner window. Identical. Just a little slower. A little too perfect.

And no one noticed.

The world didn't need monsters anymore.

It needed actors.

And the Hollow had learned to play everyone.