In a dimly lit dressing room backstage at the Royal Opera House, amid the chaotic bustle of performers preparing for the evening show, Isabella sat before a vintage vanity mirror. The cacophony of voices, rushed footsteps, and nervous energy swirled around her like a discordant symphony.

“Fifteen minutes to curtain!” called the stage manager, his voice barely cutting through the noise.

Isabella’s trembling hands reached for her makeup brush. The mirror before her seemed to ripple like disturbed water, its surface shifting in ways that defied reality. She blinked, wondering if the pre-performance anxiety was finally getting to her.

“Having trouble with your makeup, dear?” The voice came from behind, but when Isabella turned, there was no one there. Turning back to the mirror, she saw not her own reflection, but that of an elderly woman in elaborate stage costume.

“Who…?” Isabella whispered.

“I am who you will become,” the reflection answered. “Or perhaps who you once were. In this maze of mirrors and moments, it’s rather hard to tell.”

The dressing room’s walls began to stretch and twist, the countless mirrors multiplying infinitely. Each showed a different version of Isabella - some younger, some older, some in period costumes she’d never worn.

“This isn’t possible,” Isabella muttered, her lipstick suspended halfway to her lips.

“Possibility is merely a corridor in the labyrinth of time,” the elderly reflection smiled. “I’ve been waiting in this mirror for fifty years, watching countless performers prepare for their final bow.”

A cold realization crept over Isabella. “Final bow?”

“Every maze has its exit, my dear. Tonight, you’ll find yours.”

The makeup brush slipped from Isabella’s fingers, leaving a crimson streak across the vanity. In every mirror, a thousand Isabellas watched it fall.

“But I’m opening as Tosca tonight,” she protested. “I’ve worked my entire life for this role.”

“Precisely,” all her reflections spoke in unison. “And what is Tosca’s fate?”

Isabella’s blood ran cold. In the opera’s climactic scene, Tosca leaps to her death from the battlements of Castel Sant’Angelo.

“The show must go on,” the elderly reflection intoned. “It always has, it always will. We are all just players in an endless performance, stepping through the mirrors of time.”

The stage manager’s voice echoed again: “Five minutes!”

Isabella stood, her legs unsteady. The mirrors had returned to normal, showing only her pale face and half-finished makeup. But as she turned to leave, she caught a glimpse of the elderly woman in the corner of her eye, nodding solemnly.

That night, during the final scene, Isabella’s leap from the battlements wasn’t acting. As she fell, she saw her reflection in every window of the opera house - young, old, past, future, all merging into one eternal moment.

The audience’s applause thundered like a storm, never knowing that the crimson pooling on the stage wasn’t makeup at all.

In the dressing room, the vintage mirror rippled once more, adding another reflection to its infinite collection, waiting for the next performer to find their way through the labyrinth.