The world, it turned out, was a different place when you were beautiful.
The next morning, Stellar selected nine of the best photos from her hundreds of shots. The morning light from her window was kind, but the real magic was in the face that smiled back from her phone's screen. She posted them with a caption about new beginnings and self-care. Then she waited, the phone a live wire in her hand.
The notifications began as a trickle, then became a flood. Likes, comments, new followers. It was a sound she had dreamed of, the digital equivalent of applause. People who had ignored her for years suddenly slid into her DMs. "You look amazing!" "What's your secret?" "Glow up goals!"
A comment stood out, from a girl with a rabbit emoji in her name: "omg how did you do this?? pls drop the routine!!"
Stellar's fingers flew across the screen, her response practiced and effortless. "Honestly, just consistency! Skincare, hydration, and believing in yourself 💖" She felt a flicker of something like guilt, but it was quickly smothered by a warm, blooming satisfaction. She was giving them hope, wasn't she? That was a good thing.
She spent the day basking in the glow of her newfound acceptance. When evening fell, she decided to capitalize on the momentum. She set up her ring light, positioned her phone on the tripod, and prepared to film her first TikTok video with her new face. She opened the camera app, struck a playful pose, and...
Her breath hitched. The face on the screen was wrong. It was her face. The old one.
The asymmetry had returned, a little more pronounced now, as if in revenge for its temporary banishment. It was like watching a film reel in reverse, all the beautiful progress unraveling in the space of hours. The transformation was not permanent. It was a loan, and the debt was coming due.
Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at her throat. No. Not again. She couldn't go back to being invisible. She had tasted the nectar, and the memory of it had turned her former life to ash. She had almost succeeded. She couldn't lose this.
Then she remembered. The mirror.
She scrambled to her dressing table, her hands shaking so badly she almost dropped the cold, heavy object. She held it up, pointing the fractured silver surface at her face. She watched, her heart pounding, as the changes began again. It was slower this time, more laborious, as if the mirror was pushing against a newfound resistance. But it worked. The jawline firmed, the skin smoothed, the light returned to her eyes. She was pretty again.
A dreadful understanding settled in her stomach, heavy as a stone. She needed to do this every day. The magic had an expiration date, a cruel Cinderella clause that reset at midnight. The mirror was not a one-time gift; it was a daily subscription to a life she could never truly own.
She didn't care. If this was the price, she would pay it. She would keep the mirror her secret, her sacred, shameful ritual. This was the shortcut she had been looking for.
That night, she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, the mirror tucked safely in its drawer. She dreamed of blue-check verified accounts and brand deals with luxury fashion houses.
On the dressing table, however, the drawer was not fully closed. In the sliver of darkness, a faint, silvery glimmer was visible. Had Stellar been awake, she might have seen her reflection in the mirror, though the real Stellar slept soundly. The reflection was not sleeping. It was practicing. Its face moved through a series of subtle expressions, a coquettish smile, a look of sympathetic concern, a playful wink. It was rehearsing for a role it was slowly, inexorably, preparing to take.
---
The ritual became her life.
Morning: Check the mirror. Renew the beauty. The process now took almost twenty minutes, a silent, focused communion with the cracked glass. Then, content creation. A dance video to showcase her transformed body, her movements more confident now, fueled by the certainty of her own loveliness. She filmed GRWMs (Get Ready With Me) and never showed the mirror. She spoke about hard work and perseverance with the conviction of a recent convert. She had, after all, worked for this. The daily effort with the mirror felt like work. The deception felt like a necessary part of the hustle.
The following week, her follower count began to swell like a rising tide. Ten thousand. Fifty thousand. It was working.
---
Months bled into years. The woman known as Stellar became a viral sensation. She moved from her Queens apartment to a sleek, minimalist penthouse in Manhattan with floor-to-ceiling windows that showed off the city like a jewel. She drove cars that cost more than her parents' house. She dated men who looked like they'd been carved from marble. She was featured in magazines, hailed as an icon of natural beauty and the power of self-belief. The irony was a private joke she shared only with the mirror.
She was living the dream, meticulously maintained by thirty minutes of stolen magic each dawn.
---
Then, in early 2024, the news broke. Nova, a fellow influencer, was gone. A plane crash. The story was everywhere. Nova had been the genuine article, kind, humble, her online persona a barely-polished version of her true self. They had done a collaboration six months prior, a "day in the life" video that had garnered millions of views. Nova's kindness had felt like a spotlight on Stellar's own carefully constructed facade. It made her feel like an impostor, a feeling she quickly drowned in the adoration of her followers.
Feeling a genuine pang of sorrow, and perhaps a touch of survivor's guilt, Stellar decided to host a live stream in Nova's honor. A charity stream, with all donations going to the victims' families. It was the right thing to do. It was what a genuine, kind person like Nova would have done. It was what the "transformed" Stellar, the icon of hard work, would do.
She set up in her pristine living room, the Manhattan skyline glittering behind her like a backdrop of stars. She wore a simple black top, her makeup subdued. She looked, for all the world, like a woman in mourning.
The stream began. Thousands of viewers poured in. The comments were a river of shared grief and support for her gesture. Donation alerts chimed like digital church bells.
"Hey, everyone," she began, her voice soft, carefully modulated. "Thank you for coming. As you all know, we lost a beautiful soul yesterday…"
She spoke from the heart, telling a story about how Nova had once stayed on the phone with her for an hour when she was having a bad day. She felt the sadness, a real, aching hollow in her chest. "She was just… the kindest person. I just can't believe she's gone."
She looked at the live-feed window on her monitor to check the comments. They were changing.
"why is she smiling?"
"is this a joke to her?"
"wtf stellar this is so disrespectful"
She frowned, confused. What were they talking about? She was devastated.
"I know a lot of you are hurting," she continued, her voice thickening with genuine emotion. "It's just so, so sad."
But on the screen, her face was not sad. It was blank at first, a mask of apathy. Then, as she spoke about the depth of her grief, the corners of her mouth began to twitch upwards. It was a small, tentative movement at first, then it grew, stretching into a wide, beaming smile. It was a happy expression, the kind you make when you see a puppy or hear wonderful news. It was utterly incongruous with her words and the true feelings churning inside her.
"SHE'S FULL ON SMILING NOW THIS IS SICK"
"I'm actually getting creeped out."
"She's a fucking psycho."
"Wait, no, I'm not," she stammered, her panic rising. She could feel the muscles in her face pulling, tightening into this rictus of joy against her will. It was like being a passenger in her own body.
She insisted, her voice rising in pitch, "I'm really sad, I promise! I feel terrible!"
The smile on the stream widened, becoming ecstatic, almost manic. Her eyes, however, remained wide with horror. The dissonance was unbearable.
"I'm sorry, I have to go," she blurted out, and ended the stream.
The silence in the penthouse was deafening. She stared at the black screen of her monitor, her perfect body trembling. With a guttural cry of frustration, she kicked the tripod, sending her phone clattering to the marble floor.
She stumbled to her bed, collapsing into a heap. Sobs wracked her body. She curled into a fetal position, hugging her knees, the tears hot and real on her cheeks. She looked up, her vision blurry, and saw her reflection in the huge, decorative mirror on her bedroom wall. There, finally, was the face that matched her feelings: red-eyed, contorted in genuine misery. She cried until she was empty, until there was nothing left but a numb, cold disbelief.
She sat there for a long time, staring blankly at her crying reflection in the large, normal mirror. It was a small, cold comfort.
On her bedside table, the broken hand mirror lay where she had left it that morning. In its fractured surface, the reflection of Stellar was not crying. It was looking back at her from the bedside, its face wearing a wide, unwavering, and deeply unnerving smile. It was the happiest thing in the room.