The room was silent.
Too silent.
The kind of silence that presses against the eardrum, thick and suffocating, as if every sound had been sucked out of the air and locked behind invisible walls.
Evan could hear only his heartbeat.
Fast.
Unsteady.
Pounding so hard he thought it might shatter his ribs.
His reflection stared back at him through the cracked mirror—same face, same bloodshot eyes, same trembling breath.
But the expression wasn't his.
Not even close.
The reflection stood perfectly still, shoulders relaxed, posture steady, lips curled in that slow, deliberate smile that stretched a fraction wider every time he blinked.
Evan pressed himself against the wall, hands shaking uncontrollably.
"Get away from me…" he whispered, though his voice came out so thin it barely existed.
The reflection tilted its head.
Not Evan.
The other Evan.
Its eyes darkened—not color, but something deeper, an emotion too empty to be called human.
Tap.
A faint sound.
The reflection lifted one finger and tapped the glass from inside.
The mirror didn't shake.
The tap felt like it struck inside Evan's skull instead.
Tap.
Tap.
Slow.
Rhythmic.
Like a coded message.
Evan forced himself to look away, but the mirror seemed to pull at his attention like gravity.
The reflection's lips moved.
No sound came out.
At first.
Then, like a whisper leaking through a radio full of static—
"Switch."
Evan's breathing broke.
"No—no—don't come out… don't—"
"SWITCH."
This time the whisper wasn't just sound.
It hit him full-force, like pressure pushing behind his eyes. His vision blurred, doubling, the mirror twisting as if trying to swap places with him.
Evan clutched his skull, screaming silently.
"STOP! STOP! STOP!"
The reflection pressed its entire hand against the glass.
And the glass began to crack.
Not from the outside.
From inside the mirror.
Thin white fractures splintered outward like veins—quiet at first, then faster, spreading across the entire surface with a sound like ice breaking underfoot.
Snap.
He flinched.
Crack.
The sound echoed unnaturally, stretching longer than any crack should.
Evan backed up until his spine slammed into the metal door behind him.
He didn't blink.
He didn't breathe.
The reflection leaned forward.
Face pressing against the glass.
Head tilting.
Bones in its neck popping with sickening clicks as though its joints bent the wrong way.
Then its mouth opened far too wide—
BANG!
The room shook violently.
The mirror froze.
Evan gasped. His ears rang. Something heavy slammed into the door behind him—something massive, powerful, dragging metal across metal.
The dragging sound.
It was here.
Right outside the room.
Evan's knees buckled. Panic surged through him like electricity.
He grabbed the doorknob instinctively—
Locked.
The knob didn't move.
Not even a millimeter.
"Please… please don't be here…" he whispered, even though he knew his begging wouldn't change anything.
On the other side of the door, a low growl rumbled like a furnace swallowing air.
The metal dented inward—
a fist-sized imprint punched from the outside.
Evan staggered backward. His back hit the mirror.
He froze.
The reflection smiled wider, eyes sparkling with amusement, as if delighted he'd come closer.
The dent on the door deepened.
The metal began to bend.
Screws popped out onto the floor.
Whatever was outside wanted in.
And it wasn't going to stop.
Evan turned to the mirror, desperation clawing at his lungs.
"Please… if you can hear me… if you're real… don't let it in. Don't let it—"
His reflection pressed its palm flat against the glass again.
Not threatening this time.
Inviting.
Evan shook his head violently.
"No. I'm not— I'm not switching with you. I'm not going in there. You can't—"
The reflection's expression sharpened.
Its smile vanished.
For the first time, it looked angry.
The whisper came again, low and cold and absolute:
"Switch."
"I said NO!"
BOOM!
The door slammed inward, metal shrieking, hinges snapping. Evan screamed as he dove away.
The lights flickered violently—
once, twice—
Then died.
Total darkness swallowed the room.
Only the mirror continued to glow faintly with an unnatural, pale light.
A silhouette filled the broken doorway—
tall, twisted, shoulders hunched like broken machinery, limbs too long to be natural, its breath rattling in wet, uneven gulps.
Evan covered his mouth to stop himself from crying out.
The creature stepped inside.
Its footsteps were soft.
Its dragging wasn't.
A chain?
A limb?
Something scraped behind it.
It sniffed the air.
A disgusting, wet sound.
Searching.
Hunting.
Evan felt along the wall with trembling hands, looking for anything—a vent, a pipe, a switch, anything—
Then his fingers brushed something cold and round.
A valve.
He didn't know what it connected to.
He didn't care.
He twisted it without hesitation.
A hiss filled the room—gas spraying from the pipes overhead. The creature jerked toward the sound.
Evan crawled behind a fallen cabinet just as the creature stomped across the floor, claws scraping.
His lungs burned.
He couldn't cough.
He couldn't breathe.
He couldn't move.
The creature stopped exactly where Evan had been standing seconds earlier, sniffing the air again, growling low.
Then its head slowly turned… toward the mirror.
Evan's blood froze.
The creature leaned in.
Closer.
Closer.
And his reflection—
the other Evan—
smiled.
Not at him.
At the creature.
As if greeting an old friend.
The creature let out a guttural noise, almost like a laugh.
Then—
It raised one mangled arm and slammed it into the mirror.
Evan expected the mirror to shatter.
It didn't.
Not on the creature's side.
The cracks spread on Evan's side, the same fractures from before widening like jaws ready to open.
"No… no—NO—STOP—" Evan crawled out from his hiding spot, reaching toward the mirror as if he could stop it with his bare hands.
His reflection reached back.
Their fingertips almost touched—
only the thin surface of the mirror still separating them.
Then the cracking stopped.
Silence.
A long, suffocating silence.
Evan lowered his hand.
The creature took one step back.
Then another.
And the reflection whispered, almost lovingly:
"Run."
The creature charged toward Evan.
He scrambled to his feet and sprinted toward the opposite side of the room where he spotted a small service hatch partly open.
He dove inside just as the creature's claws sliced through the air where his neck had been.
The door of the hatch slammed shut behind him.
Darkness again.
But this time—
He wasn't alone.
A faint breath echoed just inches from his ear.
Slow.
Quiet.
Human.
Evan turned his head slowly, dread crushing the air out of his lungs.
"Evan," a voice whispered in the darkness.
His voice.
Too close.
"You can't run from yourself."