You know that feeling when someone says your name, but no one around you should know it?
That cold wash in your gut. Like the ground's about to vanish and leave you floating in the sky with nothing beneath your feet but panic.
Yeah. That was me.
Five minutes ago, I thought the biggest problem in my life was that my reflection dipped and maybe tried to kill someone.
Now?
Apparently, there's a cult involved.
---
The girl—who still hadn't told me her name, by the way—led me to the boiler room.
Cliché? Yeah.
Suspicious? Absolutely.
But when you're the only kid in school without a reflection and some random goth-looking stranger says, "If we stay out here they'll find you," you go with them. You go real fast.
She triple locked the door behind us, like we were about to commit a felony or summon Satan.
Then she turned to me and said, completely deadpan:
"This is about the Glassbound."
And I—Kael-with-a-braincell—just stood there like:
"Okay. I feel like I should know what that means. But also I feel like I really, really don't want to know."
She dumped a folder full of chaos onto the floor—photos, diagrams, red string energy—like we were mid Netflix docuseries about a cult that probably drinks mirror juice.
---
"The Glassbound," she repeated. "They've been planning this for years. They believe the mirror world is the real one. That we're the broken copies."
I stared at her.
Then at the pictures. Masked people. Candles. A dude holding a mirror with blood dripping down the glass like it cried once and never stopped.
She kept going. "They think reflections are perfect—pure. And that letting them replace us will fix the world."
I blinked once.
Twice.
Then I held up a finger.
"Wait. Wait. Hold up. You're telling me there's a whole cult—like a real one—that worships mirrors and wants to swap humanity with their reflections because… we're not aesthetically pleasing enough??"
"Yes," she said.
I squinted. "You must be joking."
"I'm not."
"You should be."
---
She didn't laugh. I did. A little. You know, the hysterical 'haha I'm dying inside' laugh.
"Okay, cool," I said, pacing now. "That's great. That's so great. You know, I really thought my week peaked when my reflection disappeared, but this? This is so much better."
I spun toward her.
"I DID NOT sign up for mirror demon cults. I signed up for high school trauma and disappointing report cards—NOT being the main character in a low-budget horror movie."
She pulled something from her jacket pocket.
An envelope.
Silver wax seal.
My name written on it.
Kael. In reverse.
I stared at it like it might scream.
"Where did you get that?"
"In a Glassbound hideout," she said. "Two days ago."
I took it with shaking hands and cracked it open.
Inside?
Just three words. Written in looping mirrored handwriting.
"You're the key."
---
I sat down.
Hard.
"What the actual fuck," I whispered.
The girl didn't say anything. Just watched me like I was a bomb she wasn't sure had gone off yet.
"I'm not a key," I muttered. "I'm a teenager. I listen to sad music. I avoid eye contact. I get emotionally wrecked by fictional characters. I am NOT qualified for this."
She kneeled beside me, eyes steady.
"Your reflection didn't just vanish, Kael," she said.
"It escaped. And it's coming back."
I looked at her expecting her to say "ooh I'm just kidding, it's all a joke " but she gave me a look of pity , which is believe more terrible than an explanation.