Sometimes, when she’d brush her hair before school, she’d look away to pick up the comb and—just for a split second—she’d feel the mirror catching up. The reflection would lag, faintly delayed, as if it needed to remember what she’d just done. She laughed it off. Everyone has moments like that, right? Glimpses that feel wrong but fade when you blink.
But slowly the mirror began to feel alive.
She tested it one evening. Moved her hand fast, then slow, watching from the corner of her eye. It wasn’t imagination anymore. When she looked straight, the reflection stood still. When she turned away, she could sense movement, faint and certain, like a breath behind glass.
At night, when she slept, the mirror painted her. She’d stand there, in her dim room, the air heavy with gloom. Sometimes she’d whisper too, ask questions she didn’t expect answers to.
She thought maybe it was her mind playing games. Maybe she was lonely enough to believe her reflection was something else—someone else.
Then one night, it stopped.
She stood before the mirror, holding her breath, waiting for the familiar mimicry—the delayed reflection that had become her strange secret. Someone to belong to! But the girl in the glass didn’t move this time. Not even a blink. Her eyes stayed wide and still, darker than they should’ve been.
She raised her hand. Nothing.
It was like staring into a photograph of herself—frozen, unblinking, aware. A chill crept through her chest, but she couldn’t look away. For a long time, they just stood there, facing each other, both waiting for the other to move first.
And then, slowly, the reflection smiled.
Not her smile. Something smaller, sharper. Something that looked like it had been waiting a very long time to be seen.
