CHAPTER SEVEN
May doesn't remember grabbing her keys.
She doesn't remember locking the door.
She only remembers Zara's trembling voice echoing in her head:
"Something is knocking on my mirror."
The street outside is bright, loud, alive — trotro horns blaring, vendors shouting, children running to school — but none of it reaches her. Her heartbeat drowns everything else out.
No… not her heartbeat.
His.
Fast.
Pushing.
Warning her.
She breaks into a run.
ZARA'S HOUSE — 7:12 AM
Zara meets her at the front door, barefoot, shaking so badly the hinge rattles when she opens it.
"May—thank God—come inside."
May rushes in, grabbing Zara's arms. "What happened?"
Zara points down the hallway.
Her voice is a whisper stripped raw.
"It hasn't stopped."
May listens.
At first, she hears nothing.
Then—
Tap.
A soft, deliberate knock.
From the far end of the corridor.
Zara grips her hand. "You hear it too, right? I'm not going crazy?"
Another knock — harder this time.
TAP. TAP. TAP.
May's skin crawls.
"It's coming from the mirror in my room," Zara whispers. "It started right after you texted me. Like it knew."
May squeezes her hand. "We're not going in there yet. Let me think."
But the knocks grow louder.
TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP.
Insistent.
Demanding.
Like something trapped… or something eager to come through.
May's pulse surges. Nathel's echo inside her spikes sharply, almost painful.
He's reacting.
He knows this presence.
In her chest, one beat slams harder than the rest.
Run.
May flinches.
Zara sees. "What is it?"
"Something's coming," May whispers. "Nathel is trying to warn me."
Before she can explain—
a shattering crack rips through the hallway.
Zara screams.
May jerks her head toward the sound — the door to Zara's bedroom slams open by itself, banging against the wall so violently a picture frame drops to the floor.
"May—" Zara's voice breaks. "We have to leave—"
Too late.
The knocking stops.
Silence.
Heavy, suffocating silence.
Then a whisper threads down the hallway — not spoken, not breathed — dragged.
A voice from behind the mirror.
"Found you."
Zara clamps her hands over her ears. "Make it stop, make it stop—"
May steps in front of her automatically.
A cold wave rushes down the hallway, hitting her full in the chest.
She staggers back, gasping.
Zara grabs her shoulders. "May?!"
May's vision blurs.
For a second, everything disappears —
The hallway.
The house.
Zara's panicked breathing.
And she is somewhere else.
A dark place.
Wet stone.
Cold wind.
A door with carved symbols pulsing like a heartbeat.
And behind it —
something tall, starved, ancient —
turning its head toward her.
"You."
May screams—
—and slams back into the real world, choking on air.
Zara shakes her. "May, talk to me—are you okay? May!"
May grips Zara's hand with shaking fingers.
"It saw me."
Zara's face drains. "What?"
"It saw me," May repeats, voice trembling. "Whatever is waking — whatever Nathel fought — it just found me."
A deep groan echoes from Zara's room.
The mirror shudders.
A crack races across the glass like lightning.
Zara whimpers. "It's breaking through."
May pulls her toward the door. "We're leaving. NOW."
But just as they reach the threshold—
the lights flicker.
The house trembles.
A gust of cold wind blasts down the hallway.
The mirror shrieks — a sound like metal tearing — and something presses against the cracked glass from the inside.
A handprint.
Long-fingered.
Wrong.
Zara screams into May's shoulder.
The creature pushes harder.
The crack widens.
It's coming.
May's pulse spirals.
Nathel's presence slams into her chest like a lightning strike.
Her vision flashes white—
A voice whispers directly into her ear, urgent and strained:
"May—run."
She yanks Zara outside.
They sprint down the street just as the mirror shatters behind them, exploding into a chorus of screams and glass.
May doesn't look back.
She knows — absolutely knows —
this was only the beginning.
And whatever came through Zara's mirror—
wasn't the real threat.