The day after the dream, the world felt thinner.
Not quieter. Not darker. Just... fragile.
The sound of my footsteps echoed longer than they should have. Reflections in windows lagged by half a second. And strangers glanced at me like I was a painting that had moved.
I avoided mirrors. At first out of fear. Then out of necessity.
Because every time I looked, I didn't just see myself—I saw her.
Not standing behind me.
Not replacing me.
Inside me.
Like we were layered. Like she had wrapped herself just beneath my skin, waiting for cracks to slip through.
It started small.
My voice on a Zoom call sounded different. Not to others. Just to me. Like an accent I didn't have, bleeding through vowels.
Then the bruises.
Faint marks on my wrists, like pressure from bindings. Always in the same place where hers had been tied.
And dreams became harder to leave.
Some mornings I woke up with incense in my nose. My bedsheet covered in dried flower petals I hadn't placed. Once, there was ash on my pillow.
I stopped asking why.
I started documenting instead.
I turned my website into more than just a tribute. It became a ledger. A log of transformation. I wrote each night, each symbol I remembered, each feeling that didn't belong to me. And people noticed.
Comments poured in. Messages. Emails.
Some afraid. Some curious.
Some grateful.
> "I saw her too."
> "The same mirror cracked in my dream."
> "Are we supposed to be remembering this together?"
It wasn't just me anymore.
She had chosen others before.
She was choosing more now.
It was spreading.
But not like a disease.
Like a language.
One we'd all once known.
And forgotten.
---
One afternoon, I passed a mirrored wall in a mall. My reflection turned its head a split second too late.
That was the last straw.
I went home. Sat in front of my bathroom mirror. And looked.
Not glanced.
Not peeked.
Stared.
Into myself.
Into her.
At first, nothing happened.
Then, slowly, the silver surface began to fog—not with moisture, but with movement.
Her hand rose.
Not mine. Hers.
A single fingertip pressed against the other side of the glass.
She didn't smile.
She didn't speak.
She just looked at me.
And I looked back.
Then I pressed my finger to hers.
And for one breathless second, the glass warmed.
Not to trap me.
Not to consume me.
To recognize me.
I wasn't her prison.
I was her echo.
Her skin was mine now.
Not to wear.
But to remember.
---
That night, I added a final line to my journal:
**"She no longer haunts the mirror. She *is* the mirror. And so am I."**
Then I turned off all the lights.
And slept without fear.
Because the haunting wasn't possession.
It was inheritance.
And I was ready.
---