It had been a month since they burned the greenhouse.
Sam thought things might finally settle down.
But nightmares didn't die so easily.
They evolved.
And they found new ways to slip into the cracks of human comfort.
It started with whispers online.
An anonymous blog popped up.A user known only as MirrorMan.
His posts were cryptic but disturbing:
"Have you noticed the reflections have changed?""They move slower now... or faster. They don't always copy you.""We were never meant to see ourselves from outside.""The Mirage isn't gone. It's just learning new games."
Sam stumbled on the blog accidentally.
At least, that's what she told herself.
But the moment she read those words, something stirred inside her.
A crack in the numbness she had been building around herself since the greenhouse.
She wasn't crazy.
She wasn't paranoid.
It was starting again.
And this time... it was already in people's homes.
Wang was reluctant at first.
He wanted to pretend they were normal teenagers again.That the school trip had just been a bad dream.
But when Sam showed him the latest post from MirrorMan—a video showing reflections in a mirror staring back long after the person had left the frame—he paled.
"Sam… that's our school's old gym."
She nodded grimly.
The Mirage was using reflections now.No more weird vines or monstrous flowers.
It was tapping into screens.Mirrors.Anything reflective.
Wherever people were most vulnerable—alone with themselves.
They started investigating quietly.
Visiting the gym after hours, hiding from janitors and security.
They brought only analog gear.No phones.No tablets.Nothing digital.
Sam didn't trust reflections anymore.She didn't even trust the glass of her own watch.
When they entered the gym, the air felt... wrong.
Too still.
Like the walls themselves were holding their breath.
The mirrors along the wall reflected the gym perfectly, but Sam knew better now.
Reflections weren't passive anymore.
They were eyes.
And someone… or something… was watching.
Wang aimed his old film camera at the mirror.
Through the lens, the reflections looked normal.
Until they didn't.
In the grainy footage, their reflections began to move out of sync.
Sam raised her hand slowly.In the mirror, her reflection grinned before she did.
"Wang… we're not looking at our reflections."
A voice echoed from the speakers above.
"You see us. We see you. Why do you struggle? All we offer is peace."
It was the Mirage.
Only now, it had a new mask.
It wasn't trying to scare them anymore.
It was inviting them in.
Offering them a world inside the reflections where everything was perfect.
Pain-free.
Sam laughed bitterly.
"Same old trick. Different window."
But this time, the Mirage was smarter.
When they tried to leave the gym, the reflections didn't follow them anymore.
They preceded them.
In every mirror, their reflections stood waiting by the door, blocking their path.
Sam's reflection grinned wider, its head tilting at an impossible angle.
"You can't walk away, Sam. You belong with us now. You stared too long. You listened too much."
Wang's reflection began whispering at him.
"Come back inside. Be whole again."
Wang gritted his teeth.
"It's in our heads, Sam… we just have to close our eyes, block it out—"
Sam shook her head.
"No. Blocking it out is what it wants. That's how it sneaks in deeper."
She took out the small hammer she'd stolen from the art room.
"Sometimes the only way out…"
She smashed the mirror.
"…is to break the rules."
Glass shards exploded around them.
The reflections screamed.
The sound wasn't human—it was like static warped into words.
And from the shards, strange worm-like tendrils slithered out, writhing on the gym floor, seeking their feet.
"Sam! It's bleeding out of the mirrors!" Wang shouted, stomping the creatures.
Sam stared at the broken glass.
Inside the cracks, she could still see them—tiny versions of herself and Wang trapped inside the shards, banging on the invisible walls.
The Mirage had nested itself inside the reflections, creating false versions of them.
Imposters.
Clones.
It wasn't just watching them anymore.
It was becoming them.
They barely escaped the gym alive that night.
Sam realized the horrifying truth.
This wasn't about plants anymore.This wasn't about vines and hallucinations.
The Mirage had evolved into something more dangerous—a virus of perception.
It no longer needed roots or seeds.
It needed only reflections.
It fed on how humans saw themselves, twisted that, until they became hollow copies… perfect, smiling, obedient.
Sam and Wang made a pact that night.
They wouldn't just fight back.
They would expose it.
They would shatter the mirrors of the world.
They would make people see the cracks.
Even if it meant becoming outcasts.Even if it meant becoming hunted.
In the coming weeks, they spread MirrorMan's blog everywhere.
They painted warnings on walls.They smashed reflective surfaces in public bathrooms.They recorded videos, though few believed them.
The Mirage fought back harder.
People who watched their videos claimed they were "seeing too much" and disappeared soon after, their homes filled with shattered glass and smiling faces on every photo.
Sam and Wang realized…
This was no longer just their fight.
It was a war against how the world saw itself.
And they were losing.
But they wouldn't stop.
They couldn't.
Even if the whole world stood smiling against them.