The rain began before dawn — slow, steady, and strangely rhythmic. Each drop tapped against the windows like coded whispers, as if the storm itself carried messages meant only for those awake to hear them.Michael stood by the window, his reflection half-swallowed by the dim glow of the room. The faint orange hue of the lamp cast long shadows across his face, accentuating the lines that sleeplessness had carved into it. His eyes followed the trails of water winding down the glass, his mind elsewhere — caught between disbelief and dread.Behind him, Clara sat at the dining table, elbows propped on its edge, staring at the letter that lay unfolded before her. The edges were softened from her restless touch, and the black ink had begun to blur where teardrops had fallen during the night. The house felt too quiet — the kind of silence that doesn’t soothe, but waits.Michael finally broke it.“You’re sure?”His voice was low, measured — but beneath it ran a tremor of something he couldn’t

For several heartbeats after the light faded, Clara didn’t move.The silence was absolute — the kind that presses against your ears until you start to hear your own pulse. The air in the hall still crackled faintly, the scent of ozone sharp and unreal. Michael was gone, swallowed by the mirror’s violent brilliance, leaving behind nothing but the overturned lamp and the echo of his name.Clara’s legs nearly buckled. She pressed a trembling hand to the wall, forcing herself to breathe. “Michael…” she whispered, her voice thin and hoarse.The mirror stood still now, cold and lifeless, reflecting the wreck of the room — the scattered papers, the curling smoke from a candle snuffed out by the wind. For a moment she thought she saw a flicker within it — a ripple like a heartbeat — but it vanished before she could be sure.She wanted to scream, to smash the glass, to do something, but the weight of what had just happened pinned her in place. Jonathan’s words pulsed in her mind like an unheal

The silence after the vanishing was unbearable.It was the kind of quiet that felt alive — heavy, sentient, pressing in from every wall. Clara stood frozen before the mirror, her pulse hammering in her ears. She waited for the reflection to return, for Michael’s image to flicker back, for something to break the stillness.Nothing did.The glass was no longer glass. It moved — gently, rhythmically — as though a slow breath were trapped behind it. Shadows drifted across its surface like the memory of hands brushing through smoke.Her voice cracked. “Michael…?”Only the wind outside answered, sighing against the house like a restless ghost.She dared a step closer. The floor creaked under her bare feet, the sound unnaturally sharp in the tense quiet. Her reflection shimmered, distorted and uncertain, as if the mirror couldn’t decide who she was anymore.Another step. The air turned colder.Her trembling fingers rose until they touched the surface. It felt smooth — almost soft — but inste

When a reflection no longer mirrors you, is it lying — or simply showing the truth you refuse to see? And if you discovered that every mirror led somewhere… would you dare step through?

The darkness lingered long after the light had vanished.Clara opened her eyes to nothing — no sound, no shape, no horizon. Just the echo of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. For a moment, she thought she had gone blind. But then, slowly, faint streaks of light began to ripple across the black, threading themselves into patterns like cracks forming in glass.Each line pulsed softly, golden at first, then bleeding into blue.Clara pushed herself upright, her hands brushing against something smooth and cold beneath her palms. It wasn’t a floor — it was as though she sat on the very surface of a frozen reflection. She could see faint versions of herself rippling beneath her, each one moving slightly out of sync.“Where… am I?” she whispered.Her voice scattered through the space, echoing back in a dozen tones — some hers, some not. One sounded almost like Michael. Another, frighteningly, like Jonathan.Then came the hum again — deep, resonant, alive.It rolled through the air like