Chapter 9 9.chapter 9:Reflections That Lie

Chapter 9: Reflections That Lie

Kira didn't scream.

She stood frozen in the hallway, staring at the figure that wore her face like a mask. The Other-Kira stared back with hollow eyes and a slightly tilted head, like a marionette waiting for a string to pull it forward.

Then it smiled.

Not her smile. Something wider, wrong.

Kira slammed the door shut and threw her weight against it. The hallway remained silent. No footsteps. No breathing. Nothing.

She whispered to herself, "It's not real."

But the warmth of the doorknob beneath her hand told her it was.

Back in the attic, the mirror's crack had lengthened, jagged like lightning. The edges shimmered faintly, humming with dark energy. Kira could feel it now-the mirror wasn't just watching anymore. It was bleeding into the world.

The line between her and it was no longer clear.

She examined the shard she'd hidden inside her locket. The fragment of her younger self now looked blurred, like static on a screen. It was fading.

"Don't let it win," she whispered.

But her thoughts weren't safe anymore.

Every time she looked at a reflection, even a fleeting one in a spoon or a dark window, she saw things that didn't belong. People long dead. A version of herself whispering secrets she had no memory of.

Worse-sometimes the reflections didn't move with her.

They moved before her.

As if anticipating her decisions.

She was losing control.

Desperate, Kira returned to the Historical Society.

The curator wasn't there.

The entire building was empty-desks overturned, books scattered, windows boarded.

But someone had left a message on the chalkboard at the back:

"The mirror is no longer bound. The hunger spreads. Reflections lie. Trust only what casts no image."

She backed away slowly.

Outside, she passed a storefront window-and saw herself again, standing inside the store, smiling like she had a secret.

But the store was empty.

And her reflection blinked out of sync.

At home, Kira did the unthinkable.

She covered every mirror, every screen, every polished surface-even water glasses. She wore sunglasses indoors, afraid to even catch herself in the shine of a doorknob.

Still, she could feel her reflection moving behind the veil. Whispering to the glass.

The final straw came that night.

She was brushing her teeth when she looked up and saw her mother standing behind her in the bathroom mirror.

Tears welled in her mother's eyes. Her lips moved, saying something soundless.

Kira turned around.

No one was there.

But when she looked back-the mirror now showed herself, face pale and blank.

And the toothbrush in her hand was gone.

She dropped to her knees, shaking.

The mirror had begun to rewrite the present.

Downstairs, Kira found a letter she didn't remember writing. Her handwriting. Her signature. Her thoughts.

But not her memory.

It read:

"I give myself freely.

Let the pain end.

Let the hunger be filled.

Let her be whole."

She screamed and tore it in half.

The mirror had forged her voice.

Her will.

It was trying to convince her she had already surrendered.

Reflections lie.

She ran back to the attic and carved a warning into the wood beside the mirror:

"I did not choose this. Don't believe her."

The mirror cracked again.

And from within the splinters, a second voice began to whisper.

Not hers.

Not the mirror's.

Someone trapped. Someone calling her name.