I used to think mirrors only showed your reflection.
Now I know better.
They remember more than you do.
Especially when the face you wear isn't yours.
---
The hallway outside my room had a long antique mirror.
Cracked at the edge. Covered with a white sheet most of the time.
But this morning, the sheet was gone.
And so was my reflection.
No — not gone.
Changed.
She looked like me.
But she blinked before I did.
---
I stepped closer.
The girl in the glass stepped too.
But her eyes weren't mine.
Her hair was parted differently.
Her lip curled when I didn't smile.
And when I reached to touch the glass…
> "Don't trust him."
Her voice.
My voice.
Her voice.
From the mirror.
---
I gasped and stepped back.
My heart — her heart — began to pound.
Loud. Too loud. I covered my ears, but it was inside me.
> "Don't play his game," the reflection said again.
"Don't wear the perfume. Don't answer to her name."
I turned and ran.
But when I reached the stairs, he was already waiting.
---
> "Where were you?" he asked.
His tone was calm.
Too calm.
> "In the hallway," I said, breathless.
> "Talking to someone?"
I shook my head.
> "You shouldn't lie to me, Amelia."
His voice was soft.
Almost gentle.
But the silence that followed it?
Violent.
---
He stepped forward.
Took my hand.
Led me down the stairs, past the dining room, through a locked door I hadn't noticed before.
A private room.
Cold.
Walls painted gray.
Inside: a single armchair.
Facing a wall of sound equipment.
> "I used to record her heartbeat here."
What?
He sat down. Pointed to the chair.
> "Sit. Let's listen."
My body didn't want to move.
But my legs obeyed him like they remembered more than I did.
He placed a stethoscope to my chest. Plugged it into the recorder.
Then closed his eyes.
> Thump. Thump.
> Thump. Thump.
> "You sound… perfect."
His eyes opened.
> "It's strange. You're not her. But her heart never lies."
Then he leaned forward.
> "Would you die for me again?"
---
I couldn't breathe.
The air in the room turned thick.
The recorder kept playing the heartbeat, over and over.
Each beat louder than the last.
Each one erasing a part of me.
---
When I got back to the room, the mirror was covered again.
But I still felt her watching me.
And when I closed my eyes, I heard the voice once more.
> "He wants to replace what he lost. Not grieve it. You're the product of his madness, not his love."