Chapter 13: The Thing in the Mirror
734 Words
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It didn’t have a name.
Not one that could be spoken.
But it knew hers.
> “Elara.”
The voice wasn’t sound—it was thought, pain, and memory rolled into one. It slithered through her skull, soft as silk, sharp as glass.
She stood before the mirror, hand trembling, breath shallow. Kael hovered behind her, silent but ready.
The thing inside the mirror writhed.
It looked like her. And Kael. And Isobel. All at once and not at all. Shifting. Unstable. Its form made of flickers and gasps—every memory she had ever tried to bury.
> “You came to destroy me.”
Elara swallowed hard. “I came to understand you.”
The thing grinned.
> “Then look.”
The mirror darkened. Swirled.
A scene bloomed in its surface:
St. Briar’s Academy—decades ago. Students in grey uniforms. A girl standing in front of the mirror. Wide-eyed. Curious.
Isobel.
No.
It wasn’t her.
But it looked like her—another Ashborne.
“Aunt Lydia,” Elara whispered. She’d only seen her in old family photographs.
The girl pressed her palm to the mirror.
A pulse of light—and then darkness.
> “She was the first,” the entity purred. “She opened the gate. She let me in. And in return, I gave her everything.”
The scene shifted.
Lydia was popular. Powerful. Loved. But behind her eyes—something hollow. Something growing.
She jumped from the tower six months later.
The mirror rippled again.
Another girl. Then another. Then dozens—each drawn to the same mirror. Each seduced by the promise of being seen. Heard. Loved.
Then used. Broken. Discarded.
The curse wasn’t a fluke. It was a pattern.
St. Briar’s was the hunting ground.
And the mirror—the predator.
> “We feed on longing,” the voice whispered. “On secrets. On wounds no one else can see. This school is a banquet.”
Elara’s blood turned cold.
It hadn’t just taken Isobel.
It had taken hundreds.
And no one ever remembered.
“You used her,” Elara said, voice shaking. “My sister. She found you. You promised her… something. What did you offer her?”
> “To bring you back.”
Elara’s heart dropped.
“What?”
The mirror flickered—showing a memory she didn’t know she had.
She was younger. Crying. Sitting on the floor of her childhood bedroom. Blood on her arm. A razor dropped beside her. Isobel screaming. Holding her. Promising to never let her fall again.
> “She begged me to save you. She gave herself willingly.”
Elara gasped. “No—no, she wouldn’t—”
> “She did. She traded her soul for your pain.”
And suddenly, she felt it.
All the days she should’ve felt worse. All the nights when the numbness passed too quickly. It had been stolen—siphoned away.
By Isobel.
To protect her.
Tears streamed down Elara’s face.
“I don’t want that,” she whispered. “I never asked for that.”
> “But you benefited.”
The thing’s voice coiled around her, sickly sweet.
> “So many do. That’s why I endure.”
Behind her, Kael gripped her shoulder.
“Elara, this isn’t just your guilt. It’s everyone’s. Don’t carry it alone.”
She nodded.
For the first time, she understood.
The mirror fed on isolation.
It had no power over those who loved openly, grieved honestly, remembered the dead and the living without shame.
It thrived on secrets.
And she was done hiding.
She took the journal from her coat—the one Isobel had filled with dreams, drawings, and final thoughts.
She pressed it to the mirror.
“Her story ends with me.”
The mirror screamed.
The sound shattered the room—shards of thought and light exploding outward.
The entity writhed, flailed, tried to take form—but Elara held firm.
She poured everything into the mirror.
Her sorrow.
Her guilt.
Her love.
And finally—her forgiveness.
The mirror cracked.
Then broke.
Then vanished.
Only silence remained.
Elara collapsed to her knees.
Kael caught her.
“You did it,” he whispered.
“No,” she said, eyes wet. “We did.”
And in the silence, for the first time in years, she thought she heard Isobel’s laughter.
Free.
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- Writer
