Chapter 23 – Phantom Touches
830 Words
The mirror was gone.
Camille stared at the empty wall, her breath caught in her throat. The antique mirror—the one that had reflected not just her face, but something else—was no longer there. The screws were still embedded in the plaster like silver eyes, watching her, accusing her. She hadn’t moved it. No one had. It was just… gone.
She backed away slowly, her spine brushing against the doorframe. Her heart pounded in wild, syncopated beats. It wasn’t just the missing mirror. It was the silence. That bone-deep, unnatural hush. Even the city outside felt muted—as though it too was holding its breath.
She touched the place where the mirror had hung. Her fingers came away cold.
“Damien?” Her voice barely rose above a whisper. “Julian?”
No answer. Not even an echo.
Her skin prickled with the sensation of being watched—closely, intently—like prey in a cage. She spun around.
Nothing.
Except the hallway lights were dimmer than she remembered. And the floorboards creaked behind her when she hadn’t moved.
She started to run.
Down the hallway, past the room where she’d kissed Julian too hard and Damien had watched with a darkness in his eyes that didn’t match his smile. Past the kitchen where Archer had once whispered things she couldn’t forget. Past the shadows that pooled in places where light should have reached.
She didn’t stop until she was in her bedroom. She locked the door. Then the bathroom. Lock. Then the closet. Lock.
Camille leaned against the door, panting. She was losing her mind. Or something was helping her lose it.
The phone rang.
She nearly screamed.
It was on the nightstand. It shouldn’t have been. She’d thrown it across the room two nights ago during a fight with Damien—or had it been a hallucination?
She answered.
“I told you not to fall in love,” a voice rasped. Feminine. Twisted. Wrong. “And now you’ve made me real.”
Click.
Camille threw the phone again, watched it shatter against the wardrobe, battery skidding across the floor. Her chest heaved. Her mouth was dry. But her mind—her mind was wet with thoughts that dripped, sticky and black.
She was seeing her again. The mirror girl. Not just in glass now. She appeared in reflections, in dreams, in her own body. Camille could feel her inside. Curling up like smoke in her lungs. Breathing with her.
Touching with her.
Then the knock came.
Soft. Three taps. Familiar.
“Camille,” said a voice she hadn’t heard in weeks. “It’s me. Open the door.”
Marcus.
She moved toward the door, hand trembling. She hadn’t spoken to her brother since the night she disappeared from his dinner party without a word. Since before the club. Before Damien. Before she made obsession her new religion.
“Marcus?” Her voice broke as she unlocked the door.
He looked different. Gaunt. Tired. But his eyes were clear—too clear. He stepped in and locked the door behind him.
“I needed to see you before it gets worse.”
Camille blinked. “Before what gets worse?”
He moved past her and sat on the edge of the bed like he used to when they were kids and one of them had a nightmare.
“I know about the woman watching you,” he said. “The one who stares when you sleep. The one in the mirror.”
Camille’s body went cold.
“How do you—?”
“Because I’ve seen her too.”
Silence. Thick. Heavy.
Marcus looked at her with something between fear and love. “I started seeing her after Dad died. I thought I was losing it. But then she started mimicking you. Saying things only you would say. I thought it was grief. But she’s not just in my head. And now she’s in yours.”
Camille sank to the floor. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she wanted me to. She was pushing me to break your trust. I didn’t know how far she’d gotten into you until I started hearing your voice at night. Except it wasn’t you.”
Camille shook her head. “She’s taken something from me.”
“No,” Marcus said. “She’s becoming you.”
The lights flickered. A shadow passed behind the window, but there was no one outside.
Marcus stood. “You need to choose. Her or yourself. Because the longer you let her in, the less of you there’ll be left.”
“I don’t know how,” Camille whispered.
“Yes, you do. She feeds on obsession. On secrets. On everything you keep buried. You have to let it out.”
Camille closed her eyes. And when she opened them, something behind her eyes blinked too.
“Then help me,” she said. “Before I lose everything.”
- Writer
