Ethan's world was glass.
Cold, suffocating, endless glass. He pounded on it until his hands went numb, but the barrier swallowed the sound, reflecting only the hollow echo of his fear. On the other side, he'd seen Georgina—wide-eyed, clutching that photograph. He'd tried to scream the truth, but the words dissolved before they reached her.
He wasn't free. He hadn't come back.
Whoever was walking around in his skin wasn't him.
Ethan's chest seized as the thought crystallized: something else had crossed over when they switched back.
And now, he was the one trapped.
On the outside, Georgina stumbled through the blackness of her apartment. Her breath rasped like paper tearing, her free hand sliding across the wall, desperate for the light switch. But every time she reached where it should be—nothing. Just smooth, cold plaster.
Then—fingers brushed her wrist.
She yelped and recoiled, slamming her back against the wall. For a moment, she thought it was Madison—but no. These fingers were too long. Too sharp. They retreated into the dark, leaving only the faintest scrape like nails across stone.
And then—
"Georgina!"
The voice cut through the suffocating silence, so sharp and human it made her knees buckle. She whipped her head around.
It was Ethan.
Not the reflection. Not the distorted face in the mirror. Ethan, standing in the doorway of the hall, breathing hard, his shirt wrinkled, hair sticking up like he'd sprinted miles.
"Ethan?" Her voice broke. "Is it really you?"
His brow furrowed. "Of course it's me—who else would it be?" He stepped forward quickly, too quickly. "We have to get out of here. Now."
Georgina's heart twisted. She wanted to run to him, to throw herself into his arms, but the image of his face in the mirror burned too hot in her mind. Not me.
She took a hesitant step back. "Say something only Ethan would know."
His jaw tightened. "Seriously? You're testing me right now?"
"Say it."
For a moment, he hesitated—then exhaled sharply. "Fine. In second grade, I swallowed a marble because I thought it would make me stronger. You never let me forget it. You called me Iron Lung for years."
Georgina's breath hitched. That was true. No one else would know that.
But still—why had she seen him trapped in the mirror?
Ethan stepped closer, his voice urgent. "I'm real, Georgina. Whatever you think you saw, it wasn't me. Please—we need to leave before it comes back."
"It?"
The air shifted behind him. Something tall moved in the dark hallway, its outline almost indistinguishable from shadow—except for its eyes. Twin embers, faint and watching.
Ethan grabbed Georgina's wrist. His grip was strong, almost bruising. "Don't look. Just go."
Her legs obeyed before her mind did, carrying her toward the door. They burst into the stairwell, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the air tasting like rust.
For a moment, relief washed over her. Until she noticed something odd.
Ethan hadn't let go of her wrist. His hand was still clamped down, so tightly it hurt. And when she glanced at him, his eyes looked—wrong. Not the soft brown she knew, but darker, bottomless.
She tried to tug free. "Ethan… you're hurting me."
His expression didn't change. "We don't have time for this."
Inside the mirror, Ethan was still pounding. His throat was raw from screaming words Georgina couldn't hear. And then—like static cutting across a dead channel—he heard a whisper ripple through the glass.
"She believes him."
"No," Ethan gasped. "No, don't—"
The mirror's surface rippled again, showing him what Georgina saw: himself dragging her down the stairwell, his hand locked around her wrist. But he could see what she couldn't.
The thing wearing his face flickered at the edges, like bad film—its grin too wide, its stride not quite human.
Ethan slammed his fists against the barrier until blood smeared the glass. "Georgina! That's not me!"
The reflection cracked. Just a hairline fracture, but it pulsed like a heartbeat.
He pressed his hand against it, desperate. "Please. See me."
Georgina stumbled as Ethan—or whatever he was—pulled her down another flight of stairs. Every nerve in her body screamed wrong. His grip. His silence. The way he never once looked back at her, as if he didn't care whether she kept up or not.
And then she remembered the photograph clutched against her chest. She glanced down at it, and her blood froze.
The smiling baby in her mother's arms—the one that had been her—was gone. The space in the picture was empty.
Instead, scrawled across the bottom in fresh ink: Don't follow him.
Her stomach dropped. She wrenched her wrist, twisting with all her strength. "Let me go!"
The thing wearing Ethan's face finally turned. And when it smiled, she knew—knew with every fiber of her being—that whatever this was, it wasn't him.
Its voice was low, guttural, rippling beneath the familiar timbre.
"Too late."
Back in the apartment, the mirror cracked again. Ethan pressed harder, teeth gritted, vision blurring. He had one chance—one.
The fracture widened, spiderwebbing across the surface. Cold wind howled through the glass as if the barrier itself was screaming.
And then—he fell forward.
Ethan crashed onto the apartment floor, gasping, bleeding, real. For the first time since the swap, he was free.
He staggered to his feet and froze.
The apartment was empty. Georgina was gone.
And the mirror, splintered and blackened, showed nothing at all.