The Girl in the Mirror by Mason Carter
It started small. Barely noticeable, like a trick of the light. 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 bel…
