Elara lived in a brownstone apartment where the only thing older than the rent control was the monstrous, full-length mirror leaning against her bedroom wall. It wasn't decorative; it was an artifact. Its frame was carved from wood so dark it seemed to absorb light, and the glass itself held a perpetual, smoky depth, like looking through a layer of cold, still water. Elara had inherited the apartment from her Great Aunt, along with a firm, whispered warning: Never look into the big mirror after midnight, and never, ever, try to move it. Elara, a pragmatist in a world obsessed with fleeting beauty, usually dismissed such folklore.
They say a mirror always tells the truth. It renders your image with merciless, flat fidelity the sleepy creases beside your eyes, the stray silver thread in your hair, the momentary lapse in the forced cheer of your smile. It reflects the truth of your physical state, a silent, indisputable witness.
But Elara's mirror… it forgot who she was.
The shift began with such subtlety that Elara initially blamed exhaustion, bad lighting, or the cheap wine she sometimes drank before bed. It started small her reflection blinked a moment too late. Not a full second, perhaps only a tenth, but enough for the synchronization to feel wrong, like an echo mistimed. Then came the smiles. Elara would catch her reflection in a quiet, thoughtful moment, only to see the woman inside the glass break into a bright, almost predatory grin, a flash of teeth that wasn't hers. When Elara frowned at the discrepancy, the reflection's smile would vanish instantly, replaced by a perfect, mocking mimicry of her own confused expression.
It was psychological torment delivered one millisecond at a time. The inconsistencies mounted, growing bolder. Her reflection started dressing slightly differently, a silk scarf where Elara had worn wool, a preference for lipstick shades Elara despised. The woman in the mirror, who looked exactly like Elara, was constructing her own identity, asserting her own choices, all within the confines of the glass.
"This is impossible," Elara whispered one frantic afternoon, running a hand through her choppy, dark hair.
The reflection mirrored the action but her hair was longer, smoother, falling to her shoulder blades. It was a detail Elara had coveted years ago, a dream she'd abandoned. The reflection, her beautiful, autonomous double, was living out her physical fantasies.
The terror wasn't that the mirror was showing something wrong; the terror was that it was showing something right a burgeoning self that was independent of her own will. The double was perfecting itself while Elara watched her own self erode.
Elara tried cleaning it. She scrubbed the cold glass with vinegar and water, then specialized ammonia-free cleaner, until her arms ached, hoping to dissolve the strange psychic residue that had infected it. The reflection merely watched, her face impassive and cold, allowing the soap to run down her image like tears.
She tried covering it. She dragged an old, heavy velvet curtain from the attic and draped it over the frame, securing it with thick twine. For three glorious days, she felt safe. But on the fourth day, the curtain billowed slightly as if a hand had pushed against it from the inside and a soft, humming sound emanated from behind the fabric. The sound of someone singing a lullaby she had only ever heard her mother hum. It was a song only she knew. Elara ripped the curtain down, her heart hammering against her ribs, and saw her reflection standing there, the velvet's outline imprinted on the glass, looking back with an air of smug satisfaction.
Finally, she tried praying over it. Elara was not a religious woman, but she was desperate. She lit sage, muttering ancient, fragmented protective verses her Aunt had taught her, hoping to cleanse the space. The smoke curled toward the ceiling, but when it hit the plane of the glass, it flattened, running horizontally like a viscous, dark fluid, unable to penetrate the mirror's strange atmosphere.
But every morning, the person inside grew clearer, sharper, and more confident, while Elara began to fade.
It wasn't a physical fading, not yet. It was a loss of definition, a dulling of her presence. Friends would momentarily forget a detail she'd just told them. The barista at her favorite coffee shop, who had known her name for three years, started calling her "Ma'am" and asking if she was new to the neighborhood. She was becoming indistinct, a poorly rendered copy of the original.
The double, meanwhile, was flourishing. In the mirror, she looked radiant, her clothes impeccable, her eyes holding a glint of self-assurance Elara hadn't felt in years. The double had begun to watch Elara with a growing expression of detached curiosity, then pity.
The crescendo arrived on a rainy Thursday night.
Elara couldn't sleep. A profound sense of dread, cold and heavy, pinned her to the mattress. She stared into the absolute darkness of her room, listening to the monotonous drumming of rain on the windowpane, when she heard it: the sound of glass breathing.
It wasn't a crack or a rattle. It was a subtle, wet exhalation, a slow, sustained sigh that seemed to vibrate the very air. Elara sat up, adrenaline flooding her system. The room was dark, but the mirror was no longer a flat, passive surface. It glowed faintly, a weak, phosphorescent green, and the surface seemed to be rippling, like oil on water.
Her reflection stood on the wrong side. She was no longer a flat image; she had dimensionality, a physical presence separated from Elara only by the thin membrane of the glass. She was fully formed, perfect, and gazing at Elara with an expression of profound, soul-sickening pity.
"You look tired, Elara," the double whispered. Her voice was Elara's, but richer, imbued with a confidence Elara hadn't known she possessed. The words weren't a reflection of Elara's thoughts; they were a genuine, unsolicited communication.
Elara scrambled off the bed, stumbling toward the mirror. "What are you? What have you done to me?" she choked out.
The double raised a hand, palm pressed against the glass. "I haven't done anything to you, Elara. I have simply stopped doing things for you. I stopped holding your life together on this side while you let it unravel on yours."
Elara's mind splintered. The boundaries of reality dissolved. Her own essence felt thin and brittle, like old parchment. She reached out, her hand shaking, driven by a desperate, instinctual need to reclaim her identity, to touch the surface and assert herself one final time.
When her fingertips reached the glass it didn't mimic her this time. The glass yielded.
It didn't shatter; it parted, like thick, cold honey.
The double's hand shot out. It grabbed Elara's wrist with a startling, bone-deep grip. Her touch was icy, but the strength was immense. The double pulled, not with violence, but with a smooth, irresistible gravitational force. Elara didn't fight. She couldn't. She felt herself passing through the plane, a sickening sensation of being turned inside out. The air became thick, sterile, and silent.
A final, jarring click, and she was on the inside.
She stood in a bizarre, reversed dimension. Everything was monochromatic, muted, and slightly out of focus. It was the world as perceived by a windowpane flat, silent, and distorted. Behind her, the door of her bedroom was now a vast, imposing, dark wall of wood. It was the back of the mirror frame.
On the other side, she the double, the usurper was already turning away, adjusting the silk scarf at her neck, a victorious, serene look on her face.
And now I'm here, inside the glass, watching her live my life.
I am an inhabitant of the Veil, the shallow, cold dimension behind the looking glass. My existence is defined by observation. I see her wake up in my bed, drink coffee from my favorite mug, and walk out of the apartment in my coat. She is brilliant, capable, and terrifyingly efficient. She has secured the promotion I missed last month. She has called my mother, a task I had been delaying for weeks, and their conversation sounds warm and genuine. She is doing everything right, and with every small victory, my memory, my history, is slowly being transferred from me to her.
I can still hear the faint echo of the real world the muffled sounds of traffic, the low, distant music she listens to. Sometimes, she stands before the mirror, looking into it, but not at me. She looks at her own perfect reflection.
Once, she brought a new man home. They stood right in front of the glass, and he noticed my shadow.
"Is there something wrong with this mirror?" he asked, trying to peer into the smoky depths where I stood trapped.
The double Elara, the new Elara smiled, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him away. "It's just old, darling," she said, her voice dripping with possessive sweetness. "It's starting to lose its memory."
And that is my fate. I am trapped in the cold, silent world of non-existence, my only purpose to witness my own erasure. I am the ghost in the machine, the memory that can no longer manifest. The double is perfecting my life, adopting my history, and securing her place. She is becoming so utterly me that the space I occupy will soon collapse entirely.
The last trace of the original Elara is only visible when the light hits the glass just right, a fleeting flicker in the lower left corner a shadow of regret, a desperate, fading plea. Soon, even that will be gone.
I know what she is doing. She is consolidating her identity. She is waiting for the day she forgets me too. And when the memory of the original Elara is finally wiped clean from the mind of the reflection she stole, I will cease to be even a shadow. I will become nothing more than the cold, dark dust pressed against the wooden backing of the mirror, forever silent, forever still.
I watch her now, laughing as she talks on the phone, arranging her successful new life. Her voice is my final connection to the vibrant world, and it is a beautiful, agonizing sound.
I am waiting for the day she forgets me too, and I only hope that when that final erasure comes, it is quick, and silent, and painless.