The Darkness Abounds: Part 3 - The Reflection Wars

James barely recognized his own reflection anymore.

Three sleepless weeks had carved hollows beneath his eyes, turned his complexion sallow. But that wasn't what made him avoid mirrors now. It was the way his reflection sometimes lingered a second too long when he turned away. The subtle twitches at the corners of its mouth that didn't match his own expressions.

Mark had brought equipment—EMF detectors, infrared cameras, a digital recorder that ran constantly. The devices filled James's apartment with blinking lights and intermittent beeps, turning his home into something resembling a low-budget surveillance operation.

"Mirrors are problematic," Mark had said on his second day there, taping black fabric over the bathroom mirror. "They're thresholds. Doorways. And whatever's here..." He'd trailed off, glancing toward the hallway where the temperature always seemed five degrees colder.

James now stood in that same hallway, staring at the last uncovered mirror in his apartment—the full-length one on his closet door. He needed to cover it. Mark had been adamant. But something kept him rooted in place, eyes locked on his own gaunt reflection.

The James in the mirror cocked his head slightly. The real James hadn't moved.

"Stop it," James whispered.

His reflection smiled.

James stumbled backward, colliding with the wall. His breath came in short, panicked bursts as the reflection stepped forward—through the glass—until it stood mere inches from him, separated only by the mirror's surface. Its eyes were black pits. Its smile stretched too wide.

Then the bedroom light exploded.

James screamed as glass rained down. In the sudden darkness, he felt something brush against his arm—icy fingers trailing from wrist to elbow. He lashed out blindly, his fist connecting with nothing but air.

"Mark!" James's voice cracked. "MARK!"

Footsteps pounded down the hall. Mark burst in, flashlight in one hand, some kind of pendant in the other. The beam of light swept across the room, illuminating the shattered bulb remnants, the undisturbed mirror, James trembling against the wall.

"It touched me," James gasped. "It fucking touched me."

Mark's face was grim. He thrust the pendant—a tarnished silver medallion—into James's hand. "Wear this. Don't take it off."

•••

The next seventy-two hours passed in a haze of exhaustion and terror.

James caught glimpses of movement in his periphery—dark shapes that dissolved when he turned to look. The whispering became constant, a susurration just below hearing that set his teeth on edge. Mark's equipment registered wild EMF spikes with no discernible source. The infrared camera captured fleeting cold spots that drifted through rooms like invisible predators.

Then came the photographs.

James discovered them on his phone—dozens of images he didn't remember taking. All captured at 3:17 AM. All showing the same thing: his sleeping form, and something standing over him.

The thing varied from photo to photo. Sometimes it was a shadowy mass with too many limbs. Sometimes it wore James's face, but wrong—the features subtly distorted, the smile too wide. In one particularly chilling shot, it leaned down as if to kiss his forehead, its elongated fingers splayed across his chest.

"You need to leave," Mark said when James showed him. "Tonight. This isn't just haunting activity anymore. It's... something else."

James wanted to argue. Wanted to dismiss it as sleepwalking, as some bizarre psychological break. But the evidence was there in high definition on his phone screen.

He packed a duffel bag while Mark salted the thresholds and windows. They'd drive to Mark's place, regroup, figure out their next move. James just needed to grab his charger from the bedroom.

He froze in the doorway.

The closet mirror—the one he'd been meaning to cover—reflected the empty room behind him. But in its surface, a dozen figures stood watching. Some wore his face. Others were indistinct horrors of shadow and twisted limbs. All smiled.

As James watched, paralyzed, the reflections raised their hands in unison and pressed against the glass.

The mirror cracked.

Not from the center outward, as if struck. But from the edges in, as if something were pushing through from the other side.

James didn't wait to see what would happen next. He ran.