The Mirror in the Window

It was supposed to be a fresh start. After the breakup, after the layoff, after everything. A quiet apartment on the fifth floor with a view of the street and a sky big enough to forget under.

He spent the first night unpacking the bare minimum — a mattress on the floor, a lamp, a single chair. When he switched the light off, the window across the room caught the glow from a passing car, and for a second, he saw himself again. His reflection in the glass.

Only, it didn’t move.

Thomas blinked. The reflection didn’t. He frowned, and the reflection smiled.

He turned the light back on. The glass was just glass again — dull and harmless. He told himself he was tired. The city lights could play tricks, especially through old warped panes like these. He laughed quietly, and his reflection laughed too. Perfectly in sync.

For a few nights, he didn’t notice anything. He spent his days at a dull new job, his evenings eating from plastic containers and scrolling through his phone until he fell asleep. But eventually, the window began to bother him again.

Every night, he caught himself looking at it before bed. His reflection looked normal — but there was something off.

It blinked too slowly.

It smiled too long.

And sometimes, when he turned to grab something from the floor, he could still feel it looking.

He tested it one night. He moved his hand slowly through the air, like a conductor. His reflection followed — until it didn’t. For a fraction of a second, it lagged behind. The tiniest delay.

“Old glass,” he muttered. “Old eyes.”

But that didn’t explain the noise.

At 3:17 a.m., he woke up to a soft tapping — rhythmic, deliberate.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It was coming from the window.

He sat up slowly. Outside, the street was empty, the lamp flickering. He approached the glass. Nothing. No bird, no branch, no reason for it to sound so... human. He pressed his palm against the cold surface — and felt another hand press back.

He jerked away. The reflection stood still for a moment, then raised its hand again, slowly, like a wave.

He didn’t sleep that night.

Over the next week, he tried to ignore it. He covered the window with a blanket, but the blanket always slipped off somehow during the night. He stopped looking into mirrors altogether. But even in the screen of his phone, in puddles on the street, in the black of his coffee — his reflection stared back, too patient, too aware.

One evening, he finally broke.

He stood in front of the window again, the city bleeding orange through the glass.

“What do you want?” he said.

His reflection tilted its head. Then — smiled.

The smile spread too far, stretching across its face like something unhinged. Thomas stumbled back. His reflection stayed close, pressing forward against the glass, until it seemed the pane might shatter from the pressure.

Then it spoke.

Not out loud, but inside him.

The words didn’t sound — they arrived.

“You’ve forgotten me.”

Thomas froze.

“You stopped looking.”

He felt something stir in his chest — a pull, like gravity, like longing. Memories fluttered through his mind: hospital lights, a room full of mirrors, a face that wasn’t quite his own. He’d been here before. Not this apartment, but this feeling. The sense that he had once been on the other side.

He tried to run, but his legs didn’t obey. He looked down — and saw his reflection standing in perfect stillness while he trembled like a puppet.

“Trade places,” the voice whispered. “You’ve had your turn.”

Thomas screamed. The sound didn’t echo.

When the neighbors found the apartment days later, it looked untouched — except for the window.

The glass was spotless, polished from the inside as if someone had spent hours wiping it clean. On the other side, pressed faintly into the surface, was a perfect handprint.

The new tenant moved in a month later. A young woman, cheerful and curious. She liked how bright the place was, how clearly the windows reflected the skyline.

On her first night, as she unpacked her things, she paused to wave at her reflection.

It waved back — a second too late.