Infinite stretch walls of reflective panels extend in every possible direction, creating a labyrinth of kaleidoscopes. In the center of that glittering space stands a visitor-an augmented consciousness made of neural echoes and biomechanical precision. This body is liquid, a scintillating intermix of light and matter, changing in rhythm with each heartbeat, if such an idea still makes sense in this place.
Behold, the Infinitum Chamber, a great neural interface where visitors open up their own broken psyches. The Chamber has been by the Collective for one purpose only; it is the embodiment of the Mirror Dichotomy, in which one's sense of self is ripped apart into layers of perception, reflection, and external projection. The chamber reacts to the thoughts of the visitor, drawing abstract thoughts into terrifyingly, brutally therein-homicidal visions.
The Awakening
They keep getting more distorted along with their movement. And yes, they turn into figures—their own figures, but different too. One of them whispers in a sweet voice:
"I am Je: the naked self, the real one, unvarnished and undefined. Do you know me?"
The second answers, almost breathlessly:
"And I am Moi, the observed self, its display meant for the gaze of other people. Both of us are you—and neither."
The figures swirl around the visitor, their movements in sync but subtly disharmonized. Overall, it is just enough to flare the neural network as it processes the meaning. The Mirror Dichotomy now begins to unravel their perception of oneness.
The Rift
In the instant the room tears into two dimensions, to the left shines a bright cascade of images-the visitor as they imagined themself, whole, invulnerable, without fear. To the right, darker shapes seem to come forth-shadows of doubt, factional writers in the entanglement.
This dissonance is just too much. The visitor stretches to join the two halves. In doing so, however, another shape begins to coalesce: the Other, composite of all those judgments from outside that the visitor has internalized. The voice is a chaos of criticism and desire:
"You want a wholeness, yet you despise it. You see yourself in me, yet you reject my gaze. What are you without my reflection?"
The chamber shakes, walls breaking. The visitor falls to the floor, understanding that the identity has itself degenerated into a never-ending negotiation between these mirrored forces.
Resolution
As tumult explodes within the system, it causes the visitor to spring to life as cadres of code animate. Establishment floodlights go on and dark curtains open. In the darkness remains only a solitary mirror, no light from behind it, and no sound coming through. The visitor doesn't try to clasp it out; s/he reaches it out to recognize it.
"I am both the image and the viewer," the visitor murmurs, a note of steadiness in their voice. "A mosaic of contradictions."
'The chamber melts as it opens to infinity; one can see a few stars in the visibility of the darkness. The visitor is now weightless and cleansed of the burdensome necessity of self-definition. Rather, defying the fact of being, they float within the infinite.
The Collective views the visitor’s neural data. The experiment is a success: it manifested the Infinitum Chamber where identity is established as a continually inseparable interplay rather than a fixed construct. There is no solution in the mirrored labyrinth-dance between reflection and reality.
But the visitor, drifting further from the confines of the chamber, loses interest in the Collective's analysis. For the first time, they simply are.
