Her reflection was gone.
Lira crouched on the floor, staring at the broken pieces of mirror scattered around her. She reached out to touch one, the largest shard still intact enough to show what should have been her face.
But nothing looked back.
No trace of her. No shadow. Just emptiness.
"I'm still here," she whispered to no one.
"I'm still alive. I'm still... me."
But even her voice trembled with doubt.
A single knock echoed from the door.
She froze.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't urgent. Just one soft tap. As if whoever... or whatever... stood outside didn't need to be let in.
She turned to the door slowly. It was still slightly ajar, left that way after the mirror shattered. Cold air crept in through the narrow opening and brushed against her bare skin like a breath that didn't belong.
"Who are you?" she murmured, not expecting an answer.
And there wasn't one.
Only silence.
Until her laptop screen flickered on.
The bright glow cut through the dark room. No notification sounds. No cursor blinking. Just a blank document... that suddenly began typing.
Letter by letter.
I know you're reading this.
Lira stared at the screen, unblinking.
Don't trust the mirror. I'm not your enemy. But I'm not the you that you are now.
"What do you mean?" she whispered, even though the screen couldn't hear.
The message continued.
We've been through this before. Over and over. And every time, you choose wrong.
Her knees weakened. She lowered herself to the floor, back pressed against the wall.
You're too quick to believe. Too quick to fear.
She shut her eyes.
You need to remember. Or we lose everything.
A sudden gust of wind swept through the room. The window wasn't open.
When she opened her eyes, the message was gone.
In its place was a photo.
It loaded slowly, pixel by pixel, until the full image revealed itself. A girl in a school hallway. Captured from behind, mid-step. But her face had turned slightly toward the camera, just enough to reveal her features.
Lira's heart dropped.
It was her.
But something was wrong with the face. The smile was too still. The eyes too distant.
That wasn't a photo she remembered taking.
"I never posed for this," she whispered.
Before she could inspect the image further, the screen blinked off again.
Black.
And in that black reflection, something stood behind her.
Still. Tall. Close.
She spun around.
Nothing.
Her breath caught in her throat. She turned back to the screen.
A new message had appeared.
The one standing behind you isn't your shadow. She's waiting for you to stop believing in yourself.
Her whole body went cold.
Whatever had happened that night... it wasn't over. It was just beginning.
And somewhere deep inside her, a voice she hadn't heard in years whispered something terrifying.
If I'm not me... then who has been living as me?
***
Morning came too quietly.
No alarm. No sunlight peeking through the curtains. Just a stillness that felt... wrong.
But Lira woke up anyway.
Her heart was racing. Her skin felt cold, like someone had touched her neck right before she opened her eyes.
She sat up slowly and looked around her room.
Everything looked normal.
Too normal.
The broken mirror? Gone. The glass shards that had littered the floor were nowhere to be seen. Even the curtains were drawn shut, just like they'd been yesterday morning.
She stood up and walked to the wall where the mirror used to be.
And there it was. Intact. Clean. Unbroken.
She stared at her reflection.
Her own face looked back at her. Same dark eyes. Same faint crease between her brows. She lifted a hand, and her reflection did the same.
But she couldn't shake the feeling that the girl in the mirror was only copying her. Not being her.
Lira turned away and glanced at her desk.
The flip phone was still there.
Closed. Silent. Waiting.
She didn't touch it.
Instead, she grabbed a towel and headed for the bathroom. Maybe cold water could clear her head, wash away whatever nightmare had followed her into the morning.
She avoided the mirror above the sink as long as she could.
But eventually, she looked.
Her reflection was fine. Normal. But the longer she stared, the more the doubt crept in.
"I'm Lira, right?" she asked softly.
No answer.
Just her own eyes blinking back.
And yet, something in her gut whispered a different truth.
If you have to ask, maybe you already know.
---
School felt off.
Voices echoed too loudly. Footsteps sounded distant, like they weren't coming from real people. Even the hallway colors looked faded, like someone had turned down the saturation of her world.
She walked into her classroom and took her seat.
Reva, her best friend since middle school, sat beside her. Same bouncy energy. Same bubble tea in hand.
"You okay?" Reva asked, chewing on her straw. "You've been weird all morning."
Lira hesitated. "I… saw something last night."
Reva raised an eyebrow. "Something like... creepy something?"
Lira nodded slowly. "It was me. But not me."
Reva laughed. It was the kind of laugh that usually made Lira smile, but today it felt… flat. As if Reva was reading off a script.
"Girl, you really need to stop watching horror movies at midnight."
Lira studied her friend closely.
"You sure you're Reva?"
The laughter stopped.
Reva blinked. "Huh?"
"You used to have a tiny scar under your right ear. From when you pierced it yourself and it got infected. I don't see it anymore."
Reva's smile froze. For a second, she looked like a doll that had been wound up and suddenly ran out of gears.
"Lira, are you messing with me?"
Before she could answer, her flip phone buzzed quietly in her skirt pocket.
She didn't remember bringing it with her.
She pulled it out.
No ringtone. No sound.
Just a new message on the screen.
"Don't talk to her. She doesn't know she's not Reva."
Lira stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor.
"I need to use the restroom," she mumbled.
Reva just watched her go. But once Lira left, Reva lifted a hand and touched the side of her neck.
There was no scar.
---
Inside the restroom, Lira locked herself in the farthest stall and sat down on the closed toilet lid.
Her hands trembled as she flipped the phone open again.
No new message.
But in the glossy surface of the screen, she saw her reflection.
Or what should have been her reflection.
Her face was there… but her eyes were empty. Hollow. Like her soul had stepped out of frame.
She snapped the phone shut and dropped it onto the floor.
"What's happening to me?" she whispered.
A voice answered.
But not from her phone.
From the stall next to hers.
Soft. Familiar.
Like her own voice speaking back at her.
"If you keep trusting them, we'll never be whole again."
She held her breath.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The voice chuckled.
"I'm you. The version you locked away."
The lights flickered.
Lira looked down. Two feet stood facing her stall from the other side.
They didn't move.
They didn't shift weight like normal people.
They just stood there.
Then the voice said,
"Open the door, Lira. We need to talk."
***
Lira stared at the stall door.
The feet were still there. Perfectly still. No shifting. No sound. Just waiting.
"Open the door, Lira."
She swallowed hard. Her hand hovered over the lock.
"What if I don't want to?" she whispered.
The voice on the other side paused. Then answered, still with that strange calmness.
"Then you'll never know what you gave up."
Lira's fingers trembled as she turned the latch.
Click.
The lock released with a soft snap. She slowly pushed the door open.
It creaked a little, and light from the flickering ceiling bulb spilled into the stall.
No one was there.
The space outside was completely empty. Every other stall wide open. No footsteps. No shadow. No sound.
She stepped out cautiously, scanning the room.
And then her eyes landed on the mirror.
At first, everything looked normal. Her reflection stared back at her, hair a little messy, face a little pale. But definitely her.
Until the writing appeared.
Not on the mirror's surface, but within it. As if the glass itself was bleeding letters.
"You didn't open the door. I let it open."
Lira took a step back.
"No," she whispered. "No, this isn't real."
But the mirror showed otherwise.
There, beside her own reflection, stood another her. Same clothes. Same skin. Same eyes. Except the other Lira smiled, wide, unnatural, unblinking.
"Don't trust the next version of me you see," the reflection said. "She's better at pretending."
Lira spun around.
No one behind her.
She turned back. The other Lira was still there in the mirror, but she wasn't just mimicking anymore. She was watching.
"Are you... me?" Lira asked.
The reflection tilted her head, as if confused.
"I'm the part of you you left behind."
"And what do you want?"
"I want you to remember."
The lights flickered again. Then something dropped onto the sink beside her.
She jumped.
The flip phone.
It sat there, perfectly centered. The same one from her room, the same one she'd dropped in the stall. Now somehow back in front of her.
She picked it up.
It buzzed once in her hand, then lit up with a new message.
"Don't go home. She'll be there. But she's not your mother."
A cold shiver ran down her spine.
The phone vibrated again.
A call. One word on the screen:
Mom
She hesitated. Then slowly pressed the green button.
"Hello?"
Her mother's voice came through, soft and warm. Too warm.
"Lira? Sweetheart, where are you? I've been waiting for you."
Lira swallowed. Her voice shook.
"Are you really my mom?"
A pause.
Then laughter. Slow. Icy.
"Lira," the voice said. "Who else would I be?"
The line went dead.
She stared at the phone, her hands clammy, heart racing. Something was spiraling out of her control. And fast.
---
She walked out of the bathroom, trying to shake off the feeling.
But the school hallway was different now.
Empty. Still.
No students. No teachers. Not even the hum of lights or the scrape of a desk.
It was like the whole building had exhaled and forgotten to breathe back in.
Lira walked forward, slowly, her footsteps echoing.
Then she saw it.
At the far end of the hallway, someone stood completely still.
Tall. Slender. Head down.
Hair loose, like hers.
Lira took a step closer. Her stomach tightened.
It was her.
Not her reflection. Not a photo.
But her, standing in the flesh at the end of the hallway.
And she wasn't looking at Lira.
Yet.
Not until she took one more step.
Then slowly, the girl raised her head.
Lira's heart stopped.
The other Lira had no whites in her eyes. Just dark voids where sight used to be.
And then... she began to walk forward.
***
Lira didn't run.
She couldn't.
Her legs wouldn't move. Her breath caught in her throat like it had nowhere left to go.
The other her, whatever she was, kept walking forward. Not rushing. Not chasing. Just moving like she had all the time in the world.
Lira blinked, and suddenly the distance between them shrank.
Now they were only a few steps apart.
She could see the details clearly now.
Same hair. Same skin. Same faint scar above her right brow. But the eyes were empty. Not just dark. Not just lifeless. They were voids. As if they'd seen everything and chosen to forget it.
Lira finally found her voice.
"What are you?"
The girl smiled, just barely.
"I'm the version you left behind."
"What does that even mean?"
"You chose a path," the other said. "And when you did, you abandoned the rest of you. The choices you didn't make. The truths you didn't face. The version of yourself that remembered what you tried so hard to forget."
Lira's hands curled into fists. Her nails dug into her palms.
"Why now?"
"Because you opened the door. Or maybe... I did."
The girl reached into her pocket and pulled something out.
A folded piece of paper. Small. Faded at the edges. She held it out.
Lira didn't move.
The girl stepped forward again and gently placed the paper in Lira's hand.
It felt too warm. Like someone had been holding it for a very long time.
Lira slowly unfolded it.
It was a letter. Written in her own handwriting. But the words didn't feel like hers.
They felt older. Sharper. Wounded.
To the version of me that arrived too late,
You already know. You've always known.
You let them convince you something was broken, but it wasn't.
It was never about what was real. It was about what you refused to see.
The loop doesn't end until one of us stops running.
Lira's throat tightened.
"Did I write this?" she asked.
"You did," the other said. "The last time. And the time before that."
"What loop?"
But the girl didn't answer.
She only looked at her with a softness that didn't match the coldness of her eyes.
Then she said, "The 11:11 wish isn't a wish. It's a warning."
And the world around them shattered.
Lira blinked, and the hallway was gone.
The school. The floor. The lights. All of it vanished like a page being torn from a book.
She was falling.
Weightless. Directionless.
Then...
She landed in a room. Not crashing. Not hard. Just suddenly there.
The space was white. Perfect. No shadows. No corners. Just light.
And in the center of the room, a single chair.
On it, the flip phone.
Still shut.
Still waiting.
Lira approached it cautiously.
Her footsteps made no sound here.
She picked up the phone. It was warm again. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
It lit up on its own.
A message appeared.
"If you want to go back, you have to choose: memory or reality."
Two buttons followed.
MEMORY
REALITY
She stared at them.
Her heart pounded like it was trying to answer for her.
But before she could press anything, a voice came from behind.
"Lira… don't trust that choice."
She turned.
Standing there was her mother.
But not exactly.
The face was right. The voice was gentle. The presence was… wrong.
Her mother's eyes were kind.
But these weren't.
"Mom?" she whispered.
The woman didn't respond. She just smiled.
"Come here, baby. Give me the phone."
Lira took a step back. The floor didn't resist her. It was like walking on air.
"Are you really my mom?"
The woman tilted her head.
"Who else would I be?"
Behind the woman, another voice echoed.
This time from nowhere. From everywhere.
"Even your mother can lie."
***
Lira took another step back.
The woman who looked like her mother still held out her hand, palm open, voice soft.
"Give it to me, sweetheart. Let me help you forget."
Forget what?
Her name?
Her choices?
The life she'd lived until now?
Lira's grip tightened around the flip phone. She could feel it pulse in her hand, like a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
"I don't think you're my mom," she said.
The smile on the woman's face remained. But the eyes flickered. Just for a second. Like the skin was trying to hide something beneath it.
"No need to be afraid," the woman cooed. "You don't have to carry this alone anymore. Let it go. Just press reality."
The phone screen glowed again.
MEMORY
REALITY
Lira stared at the two words. Each one felt heavier than it should have. One promised peace. The other offered pain. She didn't know which was which.
Her thumb hovered above the screen.
But then something broke the silence.
A crack in the air.
It wasn't sound. It wasn't light. It was presence.
And then...
Another figure stepped forward from behind the woman.
This one had her face too.
But it was her.
Truly her.
Unsmiling. Unblinking. Watching closely.
She didn't say anything. She just looked at Lira and gave a slow, almost imperceptible shake of her head.
Don't choose what's easy, her eyes seemed to say.
Lira's hand trembled. She looked between the two.
One version of herself wanted to forget.
The other wanted her to remember.
And in that moment, she knew.
She pressed MEMORY.
The screen went black instantly.
No flash. No noise. Just...
Dark.
Like the phone died. Or maybe like it was never really on.
The woman in front of her stopped smiling.
"You made it worse," she whispered.
Then her voice deepened.
"You always make it worse."
Her skin cracked like porcelain. Pieces fell away. Beneath, something moved... shifting and twitching, as if wearing a person's shape was too much effort now.
Lira stumbled backward.
The floor began to collapse beneath her feet, pieces vanishing into nothing.
But she didn't scream.
She held on to the phone. Tight.
And as the world gave way, a thought entered her mind.
A loop.
A test.
Every 11:11, a choice. And each time, someone else gets left behind.
Then...
Light.
She gasped and opened her eyes.
She was in her room.
On her bed.
Morning light spilled through the window like nothing had happened.
Everything looked normal.
Too normal.
But the mirror?
Broken.
This time, truly broken. Cracks spidered across its surface, as if something had punched through from the inside out.
And in the largest shard, she saw her reflection.
But behind her reflection, there was another face.
Not quite her own.
Watching. Waiting.
She looked at her desk.
The flip phone sat there. Closed. Still. Silent.
A soft ding broke the silence.
She picked it up and opened it.
One new message.
"Now you know who you replaced."
Lira's heart sank.
The mirror showed two silhouettes now. Both hers.
But only one moved when she blinked.
And from deep within her memory, a voice whispered:
"You don't lose yourself all at once. You give it away. Choice by choice."
***