The Light That Looked Back

One harmless selfie. One flash too bright. In a quiet clinic lobby, a reflection forgets who it belongs to—and the world shifts by half a heartbeat.

Lucian preferred mornings now. The irony amused him—a vampire who loved daylight, provided it was filtered through clinic blinds and the hum of a coffee machine. The Joint was quiet this time of day, washed in that pale, untrustworthy light that never seemed to warm the skin. Dust motes drifted like lazy spirits in the air. Somewhere behind the front desk, a humidifier hissed in slow rhythm, as though exhaling with the building itself.

He’d been coming for adjustments for nearly a decade. The chiropractor said it helped his posture; Lucian suspected it merely kept him from unraveling. The body remembers every century, after all. He wore a charcoal wool coat—immaculately pressed, an old cut that whispered of forgotten eras—and gloves so thin they looked painted on. His complexion wasn’t pale so much as light-absorbent, like paper that had been written on and erased too many times.

When the receptionist—a bright-eyed mortal with a name tag that said Allisa—told him there’d be a short wait, he nodded politely and said he’d walk to Starbucks. It was the human thing to do. She smiled, unaware that his reflection in the window smiled a moment later, just slightly delayed. Her ponytail caught the light, a soft chestnut glint against the sterile air, and for an instant Lucian’s reflection turned its head toward her—though he did not. The glass hummed faintly after he turned away, as though trying to remember him.

At Starbucks, he ordered a venti cold brew with oat milk, two pumps of irony, and no straw. The barista laughed, not realizing he was serious. He liked the smell there—burnt coffee, human fatigue, ambition steeped in caramel drizzle. The chaos of it steadied him. His hands, pale and deliberate, wrapped around the cup with a tenderness that might have passed for reverence. He returned to The Joint carrying the drinks, one for himself, one for Allisa—a peace offering to the daylight.

That’s when the woman from corporate appeared, hovering like static in perfume and panic, clutching her phone like a relic. Her blazer was too stiff, her lipstick too precise; the sharp scent of her perfume cut through the air like a glass edge. There was a sheen of tension at her hairline, as if the very idea of imperfection frightened her.

“Oh my god,” she breathed. “You look just like him.”

Lucian smiled the kind of smile that could curdle time. His eyes, pale as ash in shadow, caught the flicker of her phone’s light like mirrors turned inward. “I hear that often,” he said. “Who is he?”

“Ian Somerhalder!” she gasped. “You have to take a selfie with me!”

He tried to warn her—truly, he did. “The camera,” he said softly, “doesn’t always take what it’s given.” His voice was velvet draped over stone. But mortals rarely hear warnings when they sound like myth.

The flash burst, small and bright as an artificial sun, and in that light, the world tilted. The shadows on the floor elongated—all of them but his. Her face appeared on the screen—twice. Once as herself, smiling and alive. Once behind her, blurred and hollow-eyed, mouth open in an unending scream. The photo pulsed, then dissolved. The phone went dark.

For a heartbeat, everything stilled. The air smelled of copper and ozone. The clinic’s ceiling light flickered, turning the lobby into a stuttering sequence of half-seen frames. Somewhere deep in the walls, the electrical current trembled like a frightened animal. A faint ringing—like tinnitus from the soul—vibrated through the vents.

Lucian sighed, set the coffees on the counter, and murmured, “I did try to tell her.” His voice landed softly, like dust settling after catastrophe.

He glanced toward Allisa’s office door, where a faint reflection still lingered in the glass—smiling a little too late.

The woman from corporate didn’t faint. They almost never did anymore. She blinked at the dead screen as if waiting for the image to reload, her expression flickering between disbelief and dawning comprehension. “It’s… probably the lighting,” she whispered.

Lucian tilted his head, curious. “Possibly,” he said, though his tone carried the gentle finality of an autopsy report. “Or perhaps the lighting remembered something it wasn’t meant to.”

Behind them, the clinic printer began to whir—unprompted—spitting out glossy white sheets, each one bearing a faint, smudged copy of her blurred reflection. The stack grew. Pages slipped to the floor in slow, papery sighs. The air grew colder, charged with the smell of toner and ozone.

Allisa emerged from the hallway, cheerful and oblivious. “Mr. Lucian, you’re next!” she said. Her hands were steady, her smile bright—the kind of smile that didn’t know it was standing at the edge of myth. Her eyes, however, darted briefly toward the printer, as if sensing the wrongness but choosing not to name it.

He followed her back, brushing past the trembling representative, who was now scrolling furiously through her dead phone as if denial itself could restart the device. The waiting room lights flickered once—twice—then steadied. Lucian adjusted his collar, as if bracing himself for confession.

In the treatment room, the air was heavy with eucalyptus and something faintly metallic. Allisa motioned toward the table. “So, how’s the neck been feeling?”

“Still stiff,” he admitted, sitting with careful precision. The chair groaned faintly beneath him, a sound like an old door remembering. “I think it’s the century.”

She laughed politely, thinking it a joke. “We’ll loosen that right up.”

As her hands pressed along his spine, there was a low crack—vertebrae sighing, ancient tension releasing. The sound was almost holy. For a moment, his reflection in the wall mirror looked almost human. Then it smiled before he did.

Allisa frowned slightly. “Did you just—”

“No,” Lucian interrupted softly. “That was… someone else.”

The lights hummed. The printer stopped. Somewhere in the lobby, the phone that no longer worked exhaled a faint electronic breath. The smell of ozone lingered, faint but clinging—like static that refused to ground itself.

When the session ended, he thanked her, collected his coat, and stepped into the cool morning light. The woman from corporate was gone. Her phone remained on the counter, still warm to the touch, its screen black but faintly humming—like a held breath waiting to finish its sentence.

Lucian left it there. The door chimed as he exited, a small, ordinary sound that echoed far too long in the quiet.

Outside, the day was bright but thin, sunlight diluted through glass and memory. Lucian paused by the window, watching his reflection hesitate half a second behind him, as if reluctant to follow. His sunglasses caught the pale light, refracting it into fractured glints across the windowpane. The world beyond the glass gleamed with too much truth—too many keyholes, too many eyes.

He adjusted his cuffs, smoothed his coat, and lifted the cooling coffee to his lips. The faint metallic tang of it didn’t bother him anymore. He smiled, small and private.

There were worse fates, he thought, than being mistaken for someone famous.

At least Ian Somerhalder never had to worry about the flash.

Sometimes, when the light bends the wrong way, it keeps a little piece of what it touches. A fragment of face. A trace of voice. A name half-remembered.

If you’ve read this far, the reflection already knows you. Don’t worry—it’s polite. It only follows those who look too long.

The trick is never to meet its eyes directly. Reflections crave attention; they live on borrowed sight. But once you see it move on its own, it’s already too late. The world doesn’t end all at once—it just tilts, the way it did for her, one flash ago, when the light forgot to lie.