They say the mirror Lies dormant

I have heard that mirrors reflect only what is present.

I have heard that when we leave the room, the image disappears with us.

I have heard there’s nothing behind the glass but silver and silence.

But.

That wasn’t my experience.

It began the year I stopped recognizing my own reflection a quiet dissonance that started after a fall. Just a minor slip, barely a bruise, but something shifted. I got up from the floor, but something stayed behind. Not physical, not visible, but I felt it.

After that, the mirror lingered too long.

I would turn away.

And yet, I could feel its gaze.

Not mine.

Its.

Delayed. Intentional.

Smiling when I didn’t.

I have heard that covering mirrors after dark is an old superstition.

I have heard it’s for the dead, not the living.

But after that autumn, I began draping every reflective surface in my apartment. The toaster. The black screen of the TV. Bathroom mirror. Windows at night. Even the smooth lid of the kettle.

Because it was only at night that she came back.

The other me.

No one believed me, of course. Not even when I took the video.

In the footage, I stared into the mirror. My reflection stared back. Perfectly timed. Identical movements.

Until it wasn’t.

My recorded self kept smiling long after I had dropped my jaw in horror.

She lifted her hand the left when I had raised the right.

She blinked when I didn’t.

And she smiled. Too knowingly. Too long.

Then she moved closer to the glass.

I did not.

The light dimmed, but she stayed bright.

The air felt thicker. Like breath underwater.

I deleted the video.

I still don’t know if that helped or made it worse.

Because from then on, every reflection became a hatch.

A doorway.

Or maybe an invitation.

I started seeing her out of sequence.

I’d walk past a window and catch her already watching.

As if she had been expecting me.

As if she’d always been there.

She was always just a little wrong head tilted, eyes too wide, pupils like oil stains.

Hair that never quite followed gravity.

Like static clung to her in places where air should have moved freely.

One night I caught her standing still in the mirror while I moved.

Her eyes followed me. I had not moved.

When I turned back, she was grinning. Too many teeth.

My face split into someone else.

Her eyes weren’t just wide they were empty.

But inside the emptiness was something terrible, like she knew me better than I knew myself.

Like she had been practicing my face longer than I had.

Weeks passed before I understood: it wasn’t just glass.

Even water shimmered unnaturally.

Even a spoon.

Even the back of my phone when it was off.

The silence between frames on a dark video call.

Anything that could catch my face.

Anything that could remember it.

Anything that could hold me longer than I intended to stay.

I have heard a mirror holds the soul that it records a version of us that never dies.

I used to laugh at that.

Now I barely sleep.

I try to avoid reflective surfaces, but they’re everywhere.

Shop windows. Chrome elevator doors. Puddles after rain.

Even the glint on a knife.

The side of a drinking glass.

The moment between looking and being looked at.

Even when I close my eyes, I see her.

Not in dreams in the flickers before sleep.

Where time twists sideways and my breath catches halfway in.

She doesn’t blink anymore.

I think she’s waiting.

I’m afraid I’ll wake up on the wrong side of the glass.

And she’ll be here.

Instead.

I’ve heard people say mirrors don’t remember.

But she does.

And now?

So do I.