The absence of mirrors should have brought peace. Every sheet had been torn down, every surface dulled and covered, every screen turned face-down. Yet the presence did not fade.
Shadows began to shift even without glass. In the corners of dim rooms, something darker than night pooled and stretched like a figure just out of sight. The stillness of the air felt heavier, as though each breath was being measured.
At first, only polished metal betrayed it—faint outlines stretching across the curve of a spoon, the shine of a door handle, the reflection in an unlit window. Soon, even shadows on the floor began to mimic shapes that did not belong, rising, stretching, trailing just a step too close.
Dreams twisted further. No longer confined to tapping glass, the figure moved freely behind the dreamer. It circled in silence, a silhouette brushing against the walls, its limbs dragging along surfaces, leaving behind marks that glowed faintly in the dark. Each morning, those same streaks were discovered in waking life—scratches across furniture, streaks across walls.
The entity was no longer bound to mirrors. It was teaching itself to bleed into every reflective trace the world had to offer. Windows, water, polished stone, even the gloss of a human eye. Every surface became its stage.
And then came the voices. Not words, not whispers, but fragments of breath echoing through rooms with no source. Sometimes it was a sigh behind the ear. Sometimes the sound of footsteps pacing a reflection that didn't exist.
By the end of the second week, the shadow had learned something new. It no longer waited to be seen. Reflections shifted on their own, even when no gaze fell upon them. The shape now moved first, as though practicing for the moment it would no longer be bound at all.
The world itself had become its mirror.