Elias first noticed it during something as mundane as brushing his teeth.
He stood in the dim light of the bathroom, the mirror glazed with a foggy sheen from the shower's residual steam. His reflection stared back—messy curls, pale skin, eyes sunken from nights of poor sleep. It was the same face he had seen every morning of his adult life. Yet something, just for a second, was off. A flicker in the mirror. A twitch in the wrong place.
He blinked.
The reflection didn't.
A chill pricked his spine. He leaned closer, narrowing his eyes, searching for any logical inconsistency—maybe the lighting, maybe the fog on the glass—but the image was still, too still. He turned slightly to grab the mouthwash from the sink.
That's when the reflection smiled.
Elias did not.
The toothbrush slipped from his hand, clattering into the basin. He stumbled back, knocking over a soap dispenser. The reflection did not mirror any of his frantic movements. It just stood there, calmly brushing its teeth.
His breath quickened, panic blooming in his chest like ice spreading across glass. He wanted to look away, to flee the bathroom and never return, but something deeper—something primal—kept him rooted in place. The reflection was still watching him, its smile slowly widening as if amused by his confusion.
Then, it spoke.
"You finally looked."
The words came not as a sound but a vibration inside Elias's skull. It bypassed his ears entirely, whispering straight into the hollow places of his mind.
He stared at the mirror, mouth dry. "What… are you?"
"I'm you," the reflection said. "But not the version tied down by rules."
Elias's pulse pounded. He tried to speak again, but his tongue was heavy, as though it didn't belong in his mouth anymore.
The reflection blinked—once, slowly—then tilted its head with eerie familiarity. It moved with a confidence that Elias never felt in himself.
"I'm the part of you that got out."
"Out of what?"
"This." The reflection gestured around with a vague sweep of its hand. "The prison. The cycle. The house."
The house.
Elias's eyes flicked to the mirror frame. It was antique, tall, and wooden, with carvings of twisting vines and something else—faces maybe, or symbols. He had never paid much attention to it. It had come with the property, just like the ancient clock in the hallway. And now… it was speaking.
Or something inside it was.
"You're not real," Elias muttered, more to himself than to the thing in the glass. "I'm just… tired. It's stress. Hallucination. It'll pass."
The reflection chuckled. It was not a sound of humor, but of inevitability.
"I'm more real than you'll ever be."
With that, the mirror returned to normal.
Elias's reflection once again mirrored his every breath, every twitch of his hands, every blink. The expression was neutral, even confused. Just a man staring at himself in a mirror.
He backed away from the sink, hand trembling as he reached for the light switch. Before leaving the room, he looked back once more.
The mirror was still.
He turned off the light and closed the door.
But even through the wooden barrier, he swore he could feel eyes on him.
---
The rest of the day was a blur. He avoided the bathroom entirely. His laptop sat unopened. The antique clock continued ticking in the hall, unbothered, oblivious to the way his entire world had begun to unravel.
That night, he covered the mirror with an old bedsheet. Then he moved on to the others—the hallway mirror, the small vanity mirror in his bedroom, even the television screen. Anything that could show his reflection was suspect.
The kitchen window caught the moonlight just right, revealing a faint glimpse of his silhouette. He taped newspapers over it.
When he passed by his phone's screen, he made sure to keep his gaze down.
The fear was irrational, yet overwhelming. Like he had invited something in—by accident, by chance—and now it refused to leave.
Just after midnight, Elias tried to sleep.
He couldn't.
Every creak of the floorboards, every flicker of shadow from the moonlight made his skin crawl. He lay curled in his bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.
At 1:13 a.m., the antique clock in the hallway ticked louder than usual.
He sat up.
The hallway was dark, the old wooden floor cold beneath his feet. He stepped quietly, each movement cautious. When he reached the antique mirror—the one he had failed to cover—his breath caught.
The sheet he had placed over it earlier was gone.
The mirror stood exposed.
And he was already inside it.
The reflection smiled again.
"You forgot one."
Elias recoiled. "No. I covered this one. I did."
The reflection tilted its head.
"It doesn't like being hidden."
"What doesn't?"
"The gate."
There was no humor in the reflection's voice now. Only hunger.
"At 13:13," it whispered, "I can come through. Only then. That's the rule."
"I'm not listening to this. You're not real."
"But I am. I was once like you. Staring into the mirror. Thinking it was just glass. Just light."
The room began to feel heavier, as though the air itself had thickened.
"You don't want to know what's on my side," the reflection said. "But you will."
Elias backed away slowly, but his own legs felt uncertain, disjointed.
"You'll see everything," the voice continued. "Because I'm not the only one waiting."
He turned and ran.
---
The next morning, Elias awoke in his bed, fully clothed.
For a moment, he almost convinced himself it had been a dream. A deeply unnerving, lucid nightmare. But then he walked into the hallway.
The antique mirror was shattered.
Not broken in pieces—but from the inside. As though something had pressed against the glass until it splintered, then stopped just short of escaping.
He stood staring at the jagged cracks that now distorted the surface. His reflection was fractured, a hundred Eliases staring back at him with crooked, tormented eyes.
He didn't remember breaking it.
He didn't remember anything after running.
His phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. One voicemail. No missed call.
He pressed play.
The message began with static.
Then, his own voice spoke.
"Thank you for setting me free."
The phone slipped from his hand.
---
The rest of the day was spent fortifying the house.
He nailed shut the attic door—though it had never opened before—and placed heavy blankets over every possible mirror, screen, or surface that could reflect. Even the metal faucets began to seem suspicious.
At 12:50 p.m., he set an alarm.
He needed to be somewhere safe before the clock hit that cursed time.
At 13:13, the house fell silent.
Too silent.
No wind. No traffic. Not even birdsong.
Elias sat in the bathtub, curtain drawn, flashlight off, knees pressed to his chest. The silence pressed against his eardrums like pressure under water.
Then the ticking began.
Not from the antique clock.
From everywhere.
From the walls. The ceiling. Beneath the floor.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
It grew louder, reverberating through his skull.
The curtain shifted, ever so slightly.
He didn't breathe.
A whisper, so close he could feel it against his cheek.
"You can't hide from yourself."
The ticking stopped.
---
When Elias emerged from the bathroom, it was 13:17.
Everything appeared normal again. The house, quiet. The mirrors, still covered.
But the feeling—that cold, crawling sensation along his spine—remained.
And on the hallway wall, above the shattered mirror, a new message had appeared.
Written in something red.
Or maybe rust.
Or maybe blood.
It read:
"One step closer."