Mira didn't sleep that night. Neither did Lena.
The candles eventually burned low, flickering against the mirror shards now scattered across the salt circle like discarded bones. Mira stared at them, silent, while Lena paced, chewing her thumb. The mirror had fractured on its own, without impact. Just after Mira had come back from… wherever she had gone.
"She said she remembers," Mira finally said. "But it's more than that."
Lena turned to her, cautious. "What did she show you?"
Mira's fingers twitched. Her mouth was dry. "Not show. Force. She dragged the memory out. And I don't know if it's real or not. But it feels real."
She hesitated, then whispered:
"There was another child."
Lena stilled.
"A girl," Mira continued. "Same age as me. Maybe eight. Long black hair. Pale. She had my eyes."
Lena knelt down beside her. "Do you think she was a friend? A sister?"
"I don't know," Mira said, her voice cracking. "I don't even remember her name. But in the memory… we were in a basement. Playing with glass figures. I dropped one. It shattered. And she screamed. Not from pain. From fear."
She closed her eyes tightly.
"There was yelling upstairs. Then… a door slammed. She was gone. But I wasn't scared. I just cleaned up the glass. I didn't even cry."
Lena touched her shoulder. "That's when she split, isn't it?"
Mira nodded. "That's when she was born."
---
Dr. Rhodes leaned forward, hands clasped. Mira sat across from him, her eyes dull from exhaustion.
He listened carefully as she relayed the mirror ritual, the voice, the fractured images of a basement, a girl, the scream.
"You said she looked like you?"
"Yes."
"Could this have been a repressed version of yourself? Or… something else?"
"I'm not sure she was me," Mira whispered. "But she was made from me."
Rhodes looked thoughtful. "Some psychological theories speak of trauma creating not just emotional scars, but alternate personae—fragments that live in the subconscious, waiting. Sometimes they manifest through dreams, hallucinations. But in rare cases… they can become something more."
"Like her?" Mira asked.
"Like a mirror twin," he said. "Not in the physical sense, but metaphysical. A psychic imprint."
Mira's skin prickled. "Can she hurt people?"
Rhodes was quiet.
"Yes," Mira answered for him. "She already tried."
---
Later that night, Mira and Lena sat on the floor of Mira's apartment, surrounded by every journal and notebook they could find. They were searching for connections, codes, anything that could point to the mysterious child or the origin of the entity.
Then Lena froze.
"Look."
In an old childhood diary, on a page labeled 'Basement Day,' there was a drawing—done in crayon. Two girls, identical. One with a smile, one with a frown. Below it was a sentence scrawled in a child's uneven handwriting:
"One of us had to stay behind."
Lena stared at it. "What does that mean?"
Mira shook her head slowly. "I think… I left her there."
---
That night, the dreams returned.
Mira was in the basement again. The air was cold and stale. Light filtered through a narrow window. Glass figurines lined a wooden shelf—foxes, horses, angels.
She turned.
The other girl stood in the corner, arms wrapped around herself.
"You forgot me," she said.
"I didn't mean to."
"You were scared. You ran. And I stayed."
Mira stepped closer. "I didn't know how to help you."
The girl's eyes turned black. Her smile spread too wide.
"You became me."
Mira jolted awake, gasping.
On her bedroom mirror, written in breath-fog, were the words:
"I want out."
---
Lena arrived the next morning with news.
"I did a background check on your childhood neighborhood," she said. "There was a fire. At your old house. Ten years ago. The basement caved in."
Mira paled. "I didn't know."
"It was condemned. But records showed the house was unoccupied when it happened."
"Except maybe it wasn't," Mira whispered. "Maybe she was still there. Trapped."
Lena's eyes widened. "Then we need to go back."
---
That evening, they stood outside a chain-link fence. Beyond it, the burned remains of Mira's childhood home slouched under ivy and rot. The roof was gone. The walls bowed. A crooked path led to the side where the basement entrance had once been.
They snuck through a gap in the fence. Flashlights in hand.
The silence was oppressive.
Inside, the structure groaned. Mold and ash covered every surface. But the basement stairs—partially intact—still led downward.
Mira led the way.
The basement was choked with dust, but as her flashlight cut through the darkness, she saw them.
The glass figurines.
Some broken. Some intact.
And then, in the far corner, a mirror. Uncracked. Upright.
The same mirror from her dreams.
She approached it slowly.
Lena called behind her. "Mira, wait—"
Too late.
Mira touched the mirror.
It rippled.
And pulled her in.
---
In the reflection realm, Mira stood alone.
The other girl emerged from the shadows, her form flickering like a faulty projection.
"You came back," the girl said.
"I had to."
"You left me to rot."
"I didn't know. I was a child."
"You were afraid," the girl snarled. "You let them erase me."
Tears filled Mira's eyes. "I'm sorry."
But the girl lunged.
Mira fell backward.
The mirror around them cracked.
Then—Lena's voice. Faint. Distant.
"Mira! Grab my hand!"
She turned. A crack in the reflection opened like a doorway. Lena's hand stretched through.
Mira ran.
The other girl screamed.
"You can't run forever!"
Mira reached the edge.
Grabbed Lena's hand.
And fell back into the real world.
---
They collapsed together in the ruins of the basement.
Mira gasped for breath, covered in sweat and soot.
"She's still in there," she whispered.
"But you're not," Lena said. "And we know where she came from now."
Mira turned to look at the broken mirror.
And for the first time, it showed no reflection.
---
End of Chapter 7