"The scariest monsters are the ones who look exactly like you."
---
Lena couldn't sleep.
Not after what she saw.
Not after the mirror smiled back.
She had blinked, looked again, rubbed her eyes—but it was gone. Like it never happened.
But she knew it had.
And now, she felt it. Something crawling beneath her skin. Something shifting.
Something awake.
She turned on every light in her room, sat on the floor cross-legged, and pulled out her sketchbook—the one she hadn't touched in weeks. Her hands moved on their own. Dark pencil strokes carved a girl into paper, her eyes hollow, her smile sharp like broken glass.
It was her.
But not.
The other Lena.
The one in the mirror.
When she was done, she stared at it. Then whispered aloud, "What are you?"
The sketch blinked.
Lena screamed and dropped the book.
Her bedroom door burst open. Aarav stood there, breathless, eyes wild. "Lena?! I heard you scream!"
She stared at him in shock. "How did you get in?"
"I climbed the balcony. Your window was unlocked—what happened?"
She couldn't lie.
Not anymore.
Lena picked up the sketchbook, slowly handed it to him.
"She moved."
Aarav's brow furrowed. "Who?"
"The drawing. It blinked. And earlier, the mirror… it smiled at me. But I wasn't smiling."
He studied her, the panic behind her words. "Lena… are you sure?"
She looked at him, fire in her throat. "Do you think I'm crazy?"
"No," he said immediately. "But I think something's happening to you. Something none of us understand."
She exhaled shakily. "It's getting worse. I feel like I'm—like I'm splitting. There's me… and then there's her. This other version of me."
He stepped closer, gently touching her hand. "You're not alone. Whatever this is, we'll face it together."
A crackle ran down her spine.
She looked at their hands touching.
And vanished.
Gone.
Just like that.
Aarav froze. "Lena?!"
But she was standing a few feet away now, eyes wide in horror. "I didn't mean to. I didn't even think about disappearing this time."
Aarav looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. "It's automatic now…?"
She nodded slowly. "Something's wrong, Aarav. It's like this power is becoming its own thing—I don't control it anymore."
Before he could reply, her bedroom mirror—quiet and still this whole time—cracked.
Just a hairline.
But it spread like a spiderweb.
Lena backed away.
And then she saw it again.
Her.
The girl in the mirror.
Still Lena.
But wrong.
She wore the same pajamas.
The same hair.
But her eyes shimmered with black smoke.
And this time, she moved.
She raised a hand.
Pressed it to the glass.
Lena couldn't breathe.
"Do you see that?" she whispered.
Aarav followed her gaze and stepped in front of her protectively.
The mirror-Lena smiled.
Then mouthed something.
Just one word.
"Soon."
The crack spread wider.
Then the glass shattered, and the figure vanished.
Aarav shielded her from the shards, both of them falling to the floor in stunned silence.
---
Downstairs, someone was watching from the shadows outside.
A man in a grey suit with eyes like frozen mercury.
He spoke softly into his earpiece.
"She's breaching."
A pause.
Then a voice replied, calm and inhuman:
"Contain her before the reflection does."
---
Back in Lena's room, Aarav stood and helped her up slowly.
"You're bleeding," he said, gently lifting her hand. A small shard had nicked her palm.
But Lena didn't feel it.
She was staring at the broken mirror.
At the absence within it.
"She's real," Lena whispered. "And she's trying to come out."
Aarav's eyes hardened. "Then we'll make sure she doesn't."
But even as he said it, Lena saw something in her reflection on the window now—just a flicker.
Another smile.
And the terrifying realization bloomed in her gut:
What if the mirror wasn't a prison?
What if it was a door?
And it had just been left open.
---