CHAPTER VI - The Other Eve
505 Words
The dark swallowed everything.
Not just the room.
Her.
Her breath hitched, caught somewhere between her lungs and throat, trapped like a dying thing.
She wasn’t alone.
Something—someone—was behind her.
Breathing.
Slow. Steady. Wrong.
Eve’s body screamed for movement, for escape, but she was frozen in place, unable to tear herself away from the suffocating stillness. Her fingers twitched, seeking the wall, clawing at the air until they found the switch.
She flicked it.
The bulb buzzed. Flickered.
And the light returned.
A sharp, gasping breath tore from her throat.
The mirror.
It wasn’t her reflection anymore.
It was her. But—wrong.
The other Eve stood in the glass, her head tilted at an unnatural angle, her smile too wide, too knowing. The sockets of her eyes were dark voids, stretching too deep, pulling everything in.
Her fingers curled against the mirror’s surface, pressing lightly—testing it.
The glass flexed.
A thin web of fractures spread outward beneath her palm, like veins, like something living.
Eve’s stomach turned.
Her double opened her mouth, lips forming a whisper of words.
The letters appeared in reverse on the glass, warped and unsteady—but she understood them.
"You are not real."
Her knees nearly buckled.
No. No, this wasn’t happening.
The reflection smirked, tilting its head farther, the bones in her neck audibly cracking.
Soundless laughter rippled through the glass.
And then—
A second set of hands pressed against the mirror.
From inside the reflection.
Eve’s breath faltered. Her vision blurred.
The darkness beyond the glass yawned open, widening into something endless.
Something is waiting.
Someone is stepping forward.
Victor.
His figure slid from the shadows behind the other Eve, his presence filling the space like thick oil, slick and suffocating. His expression was unreadable—steady, expectant.
Then, he moved.
His fingers traced the other Eve’s throat—gentle. Possessive.
Her double didn’t resist.
She leaned into it.
Eve felt a deep, sickening pull in her stomach, her insides twisting into something unfamiliar. It was wrong. Wrong.
Victor’s eyes lifted to hers.
For a long, awful moment, he just watched.
Then—
He spoke.
His lips barely moved.
But his voice—
His voice was inside her head. Crawling through her thoughts like insects burrowing under her skin.
"You’re already mine."
The lights exploded.
The glass shattered.
The mirror burst apart, shards raining down around her, cutting into her skin as she stumbled backward, gasping—
Darkness.
Stillness.
For a second, the world was empty.
And then—
The silence stretched too long.
Her breath came in short, uneven bursts as her eyes darted to the mirror’s remains.
The glass was still up.
Victor was gone.
Her reflection was gone.
But the door inside the mirror—
It was wide open.
Eve’s body was locked up.
And then—
Step.
A soft creak of wood.
Not from behind her.
Not from the floorboards.
From the mirror.
Something inside had taken a step forward.
Something that sounded just like her.
- Writer
