The school was starting to feel like an asylum.
Mirrors were gone.
Windows covered.
Phone cameras taped over.
The art room's paint supply had been raided to smear black streaks over anything vaguely shiny.
And the weirdest part?
People were starting to act like it was normal.
Like if they pretended hard enough, the glass would never come back.
Like if they didn't say the word reflection, it would stop being a threat.
Denial really is humanity's best coping mechanism.
---
History class was dead quiet.
No one talked anymore unless they had to. Most kids stared at their desks or their shoes or their sleeves. Anywhere but each other.
And Miss Estelle?
Miss Estelle was off.
She came in late. Walked like her limbs were being operated remotely. Said nothing for the first full five minutes. She usually greeted us with some joke about the "good old days" or how Gen Z needed therapy and cinnamon rolls.
But not today.
Today she stared straight ahead.
Didn't blink.
Didn't smile.
Didn't even look like she was breathing.
Just… standing there.
Until Ava dropped her phone.
---
It hit the floor face-up with a sharp crack.
And for half a second, in the warped curve of the cracked screen, I saw it.
Her.
Miss Estelle.
But she wasn't standing still.
She was grinning in the reflection.
Wide. Teeth like glass.
Tilted head. Cold, knowing eyes.
Then—poof. Gone.
I blinked and looked up.
She hadn't moved.
Still stiff. Still frozen.
No one else saw it.
Except maybe Ava, who looked at her phone like it had just bitten her.
---
I looked around.
No one was reacting. Not even Arlen. Everyone else was in that half-dissociated, post-trauma brain fog we were all calling "coping."
I looked back at Miss Estelle.
Her eyes met mine.
Just for a second.
And I swear to every broken mirror in existence, she winked.
---
I didn't wait for class to end.
I grabbed my bag and left.
No one even stopped me.
---
The hallways were half-dark, most lights off to "keep the mirrors from waking" or something. I passed three teachers muttering to each other in a janitor's closet, and a girl writing upside-down words on her notebook like she was being told what to write.
Everything felt like it was unraveling.
And me?
I was the loose thread.
---
That's when I collided with someone at the corner by the library.
Hard.
We both staggered.
I muttered a "sorry," didn't even look—
Until she grabbed my wrist.
"You're him," she said. "The boy with no reflection."
I blinked at her.
Black jacket. Combat boots. Silver ring shaped like an eye.
"You've been watching me?" I asked.
She nodded. "You're not the only one missing. And they're not all trapped anymore."
I stared. "You've seen them?"
She didn't speak.
Instead, she pulled a compact mirror out of her jacket. It was covered in black thread. Like it had been sewn shut.
She slit the thread open with a knife.
Held it up.
"Look," she said.
I saw her reflection.
But still—
nothing for me.
Not even a blur.
And then... her reflection blinked twice and mouthed something silently:
"He's watching."
I stumbled back. "What the hell is going on?"
The girl leaned in close. Her voice was tight. Serious.
"Your reflection didn't disappear, Kael," she said.
"It got out. And it's not the only one."