The Reflection.

Jason never liked the mirror in his grandmother’s house.

It stood in the upstairs hallway, an ornate, floor-length monstrosity with a golden frame that twisted like creeping vines. The glass always seemed too clear, like a pool of still water before a storm. It had been there for as long as he could remember, an unblinking eye in the otherwise warm house.

“Don’t look into it for too long,” his grandmother used to warn when he was a child. “Things have a way of looking back.”

He never forgot those words.

Now, she was gone. The house was his.

He hadn’t planned on keeping the mirror, but when the time came to clear things out, he hesitated. Something about it felt *rooted* to the house, as if moving it would disturb something better left alone.

So he left it.

And tried to ignore it.

---

The first few days passed without incident.

Jason worked late shifts at the hospital and spent most of his time asleep during the day. The mirror remained an afterthought—a background presence, lurking at the corner of his vision whenever he walked through the hallway.

Until the first night it *moved*.

He had woken up around 2 a.m., groggy and thirsty, and shuffled out of bed toward the kitchen. As he passed the hallway, something caught his eye.

The mirror wasn’t where it should have been.

Jason blinked, confused. The mirror had always leaned slightly against the far wall. Now, it stood perfectly straight, flush against the floor. He frowned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Had he bumped it earlier?

He shook his head and went downstairs.

The next night, it happened again.

This time, the mirror was tilted forward—just slightly. As if it were *watching*.

A chill crawled down Jason’s spine.

He ignored it. He told himself the floorboards had shifted, that the house was old.

But deep down, he knew better.

---

A week later, he stopped in front of the mirror.

Stared into it.

His reflection stared back.

His own tired eyes. His unshaven face. But something felt… off.

He lifted his right hand. The reflection lifted its left.

Jason frowned. He knew how mirrors worked. This was normal. But tonight, the movements felt *delayed*.

He turned his head.

His reflection turned a second *too late*.

His breath caught.

He took a step closer, his heart pounding. Was it a trick of the light? Exhaustion?

Then—

His reflection *smiled*.

Jason’s blood turned to ice.

It wasn’t his smile.

The lips stretched too wide, the teeth too white, too sharp. His own face twisted into something… wrong.

Jason stumbled back, his breath shallow.

A cold hand clamped onto his shoulder.

He gasped, spinning around—

The hallway was empty.

His skin prickled. Slowly, he turned back to the mirror.

The reflection was gone.

Just an empty, glassy void.

Jason’s breath hitched. He stepped back—

The glass rippled.

Like water.

Then—movement.

Not his reflection, but something else.

Something inside.

Jason’s mind screamed at him to run, but his feet wouldn’t move. He was trapped, rooted in place as a shape emerged in the depths of the mirror.

A figure.

It looked like *him*.

But it wasn’t.

The other Jason stepped forward, its face still twisted in that awful grin. Its skin was slightly too pale, its eyes slightly too dark. A shadowy, wrong version of himself.

The thing inside raised a hand and pressed it against the glass.

Jason watched, frozen, as cracks spread from the touch, spiderwebbing across the surface.

He tried to move. His body wouldn’t listen.

The cracks deepened.

The other Jason’s smile widened, and with a final, deliberate movement—

It stepped through.

The world lurched.

For a brief, terrible moment, Jason saw himself from *the other side*.

Saw his own terrified face staring back at him.

He tried to scream, to claw at the barrier, but his hands met cold, unyielding glass.

The mirror was no longer cracked.

No longer warped.

Just smooth, perfect glass.

Jason pressed his palms against it, pounded against it—

But the reflection only smiled.

It turned. Walked away.

Left him behind.

Trapped.

In the dark.

In the glass.

And as Jason’s screams echoed inside the empty void, the last thing he saw before the world faded to black—

Was himself.

Walking away.

Free.

---