Reflection at 3 a.m.

At precisely 3 a.m., the air in Mara’s small attic room felt colder than usual. A damp, heavy silence pressed against her chest, making each breath feel like an effort. Outside, the wind rattled the windowpane, but it wasn’t the wind that had woken her.

Mara had moved into this old house barely a month ago, charmed by its creaky floors and forgotten corners. The landlord had warned her about the attic room, saying it had a “history,” but she had shrugged it off. Rent was cheap, and she liked the isolation.

The mirror had been there when she moved in — tall, its once-silver frame tarnished into ghostly black veins. It stood in the corner opposite her bed, catching shadows in its glass. During the day, Mara covered it with a blanket, telling herself it was to keep the dust off. But at night, when sleep grew thin and restless, the blanket always seemed to slip, as if by accident.

That night, Mara woke with the unmistakable feeling of being watched. Her eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the darkness, and found the mirror. The blanket had fallen again.

At first, she saw only herself — messy hair, wide eyes, the tremble in her lip. But as she stared, something felt off. Her reflection seemed to breathe slower than she did, as though it lived by its own rhythm.

Mara sat up, heart hammering. The reflection copied her, but there was a hesitation, a fraction of a second where it didn’t move at all. Then it caught up, as if remembering it should.

She forced a laugh, weak and shaky. “Just tired,” she whispered to herself, but the reflection’s lips did not move with hers.

The temperature dropped further. Her breath turned to mist, curling in front of her face. The reflection did the same, but its mist drifted in the wrong direction, sliding sideways, as if pushed by a wind Mara couldn’t feel.

Mara stood up. So did her reflection. She lifted her right hand; it lifted its left, perfectly mirroring her. But when she lowered her hand, the reflection kept its hand raised, palm pressed against the cold glass.

She froze. The attic felt impossibly quiet now — no wind, no ticking clock, nothing but the pounding of her heart.

The reflection began to move on its own. Slowly, deliberately, its lips twisted into a grin too wide, revealing teeth that looked darker than they should. The eyes sunk deeper into hollow sockets, shadows clinging to them like rot.

“No,” Mara whispered, backing away until her spine met the opposite wall. Her reflection stepped forward, until its face nearly filled the glass.

A crack spiderwebbed across the mirror’s surface, starting from where the reflection’s hand still pressed. The noise sounded like bones splintering. Mara gasped, tears filling her eyes, as the crack widened and the reflection’s face distorted with it, twisting into something grotesque and monstrous.

Then, in the silence, it spoke. Not aloud, but inside her mind, the words echoing from everywhere and nowhere.

“Trade places with me.”

Mara shook her head violently. “No… no, no…”

“You don’t belong here. But I do.”

She tried to look away, but her gaze was locked, as if invisible strings held her eyes open. Her own face — or what used to be her face — watched her with predatory hunger.

The reflection lifted its other hand, now claw-like, and raked it across the inside of the glass. The mirror cracked further, shards trembling as if eager to fall.

With a shuddering sob, Mara turned and ran to the door. But the doorknob wouldn’t budge. It felt fused, like part of the wall itself. Behind her, the cracking grew louder, echoing through the attic like thunder.

Slowly, she turned back, against every instinct screaming in her mind. The reflection had stepped fully into the shattered glass, its body pressed against the inside of the mirror as though there were no barrier left.

It whispered again: “Let me out. Just for a moment.”

Mara closed her eyes, but in the darkness behind her eyelids, she still saw it — clearer than ever. The grin, the shadows swirling around it, the impossible hunger.

A crash ripped through the room. She opened her eyes to see the mirror lying in shards on the floor. But her reflection was gone.

Heart pounding, she backed away, stepping carefully around the glass. Then she noticed her own reflection — not in the broken mirror, but in the dusty window beside it.

The figure in the glass wasn’t moving at all. Just staring. Watching. Grinning.

Outside, dawn was still hours away, and Mara realized she wasn’t alone anymore.

The reflection had stepped out. And it wasn’t planning to leave.