Who is she inside the mirror?

It’s a cloudy afternoon. The rain has stopped, but the air still smells damp. Rhea walks through the old alleys of northern Kolkata, wearing thick-rimmed glasses and holding a camera.

She’s a small-time YouTuber—she makes videos about old things, antique shops, and lost history.

“Old Collections”—an old, anonymous shop that not everyone visits. The shop owner is old and doesn’t say much. But today, as Rhea enters, a black mirror catches her eye. A wooden frame, a dirty mirror in the middle—a little blurry, as if there’s smoke.

“How much does it cost?” Rhea asks.

The old man answers slowly, “It’s not something for sale...”

“Still, I want it. I’ll make a story,” Rhea says, and buys the mirror for fifteen hundred rupees.

Rhea takes the mirror and returns to her flat. Night falls, he sets up the camera and records the video, jokingly saying—

“Today I will talk to a cursed mirror!”

At the end of the video, he looks at the mirror and says, “Tell me, mirror, who is the scariest?” and laughs.

But even though he is smiling, for a moment... another face appears in the glass of the mirror. Very quickly, like an optical illusion.

Reya is startled. “I will see it in editing,” she thinks, and saves the video.

The next night.

Reya is lying down, it is 1 am. Suddenly, a cold wind blows into the room. She opens her eyes and sees something like smoke in the mirror.

She cannot see herself in the mirror.

In its place is an anonymous face—not Reya, but pale cheeks, eyes deep and empty. As if looking from afar. The camera placed next to the mirror turns on by itself. Reya runs and switches it off.

Third day.

Reya sits down to watch the video footage. The camera shows—at 2:14 a.m., that face reappears in the mirror. It slowly says,

“You can see me... it’s my turn now.”

Reya is shocked. She searches Google and can’t find anything about the mirror. She goes back to the shop, but the shop is gone. Just a closed door and a broken signboard.

A man from a nearby tea shop says, “This shop closed 8 years ago. The owner? He died in a fire.”

Reya shivers.

That night, she repeatedly stands in front of the mirror. Her body is shaking, but her curiosity doesn’t stop.

She says, “Who are you?”

That face reappears in the mirror.

“I don’t have a name... I’m just someone who has been forgotten. I want your body... You are my face.”

Suddenly, Reya realizes that her own reflection is no longer coming back. She stares in the mirror, lost in thought. Sleepiness creeps into her eyes, her throat heavy.

The next morning.

A friend of Reya’s, Tama, comes to shoot a video and knocks on her door, but when she gets no answer, she breaks into the flat. Reya is sitting in front of the mirror, completely silent. A smile on her face, a blank look in her eyes.

“Reya?” Tama slowly approaches.

Reya turns her face, her voice dry and cold—

“I’m not Reya. Now you stand in front of the mirror...”