REFLECTED IN HIM

Episode2-TheFirstContact

Auren

Somewhere in the mirror, Auren watched.

He could feel her now. She was remembering. Not everything. But enough. Enough for the bond to pulse again—hot and bitter.

He pressed a hand to the other side of the glass. The fog from her breath was still there. Her voice, too soft for the world, still echoed inside his chest.

He’d waited too long. Suffered too deeply.

And now, she’d seen him.

When Cecily finally returned, tray in hand, the lights were humming overhead again—steady and warm. The room looked normal. Too normal. The mirror was just a mirror.

But Liora was still on the floor, knees to her chest, eyes glassy like she’d seen something she wasn’t supposed to remember.

“Oh sweetheart,” Cecily whispered, setting the tray aside. She knelt beside her, brushing hair from Liora’s face with a nurse’s careful hands. “Did you fall?”

Liora blinked slowly. Then nodded.

She didn’t have the words. Or maybe she did—and they scared her more than the silence.

“You’ve got to eat, okay?” Cecily’s voice stayed soft, too soft, like she was scared she’d startle her. “You’re already so small. Let me help you up.”

Liora didn’t move.

Instead, her eyes drifted to the mirror again.

There was nothing there.

But she felt him.

⸻

In the dark, mirrors remember.

And so do monsters.

The tapes played on mute.

Grainy footage flickered across the monitors—Liora Dell in her room, curled on the cold tile floor, arms wrapped around herself like the world had grown teeth. She hadn’t moved in almost ten minutes.

Dr. Elias Graye leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin.

He watched her—not with pity, but with fascination. Like a scientist observing the final moments of a dying star.

“You saw him again, didn’t you?” he murmured to no one.

The mirror in her room was untouched. No cracks. No fingerprints. No evidence of the thing he knew still lingered behind the glass.

Still, her body gave her away.

Tremors in her hands. That wide-eyed, flickering stare. And the whisper he caught from the audio earlier: “Not again.”

He clicked a pen slowly, once… twice… letting the sound punctuate the silence.

His office smelled of lavender and sterilized air, but the inside of his mind was cluttered. Loud. Still echoing with the ghost of her voice.

Liora was remembering.

Not fully, not yet. But the trauma was waking. And that made her dangerous.

Beautiful. But dangerous.

He tapped the edge of her file, reading over her chart for the fifth time that morning. Scribbled notes. Drawings. The little sentence she’d written last week in the art room:

“He has eyes like gold. I think I knew him before the dark.”

Elias smiled softly.

He’d been waiting for that line.

The thing inside the mirror—Auren—wasn’t supposed to be remembered. The Order had seen to that. The sealing ritual had stripped Liora clean, torn away memory like flesh from bone. And yet… it was bleeding back through. Somehow.

Because Auren always came back.

And because, deep down, she still wanted him.

Elias stood, adjusting the cuffs of his white coat with practiced elegance. His reflection in the dark monitor screens stared back—sharp, neat, controlled.

But under the surface, he burned.

It wasn’t jealousy. Not exactly. Auren was a myth. A man turned to shadow. A creature made of obsession and mirror glass.

No, what Elias felt was something deeper.

Possession.

Liora belonged to him now.

He was the one who helped her sleep.

He was the one who kept her sane.

He was the one still here.

And Auren?

Auren was a story.

Elias ran a hand through his dark hair, then pressed the intercom.

“Send her in.”

Outside, the door opened with a soft click.

Liora stepped in slowly, barefoot, thin arms wrapped in the sleeves of her sweater. She looked even smaller in person than on the screen. Fragile. Like she could c***k open just from being spoken to too harshly.

“Good morning, Liora,” Elias said gently.

She didn’t answer. Just sat down and pulled her knees to her chest on the chair.

He waited.

“Did you sleep?” he asked softly.

She nodded once.

“You had another episode last night.”

A pause. Her eyes flicked to the corner of the room—toward the one place she knew didn’t have a mirror.

“I saw someone,” she said. Her voice was quieter than breath. “He was standing in the glass.”

Elias smiled kindly, writing something down he didn’t need to.

“That’s okay,” he said. “We’ve talked about this before, haven’t we? Sometimes when the mind is healing, it projects old fears.”

“But it wasn’t a fear,” she whispered. “It felt like… like I knew him.”

She looked up at him then, really looked.

Her eyes, wide and trembling, searched his face like she hoped he would confirm it.

Elias’s smile deepened—warm, reassuring, practiced.

“You’re safe now, Liora. You’re here. With me.”

And then, gently, “There’s no one inside the mirror.”

But deep in the belly of the hospital, where no patients were allowed to go, an old mirror that had been sealed shut for years cracked clean down the center.

Just once.

Then held.

Liora – Years Ago

The first time she saw him, she was seven.

It was raining. Hard. One of those violent storms that made the windows rattle and the lights flicker like the house was alive and frightened.

She had been hiding in the upstairs bathroom with a flashlight and her favorite bear, the hallway too dark to cross back to her bedroom. Her mother was yelling again—on the phone, or maybe at her father. It all blurred together when the thunder came.

The mirror above the sink had always scared her.

She didn’t like the way it stared. Didn’t like the way her reflection sometimes felt… late. Like it moved just a second after she did.

That night, it didn’t move at all.

She remembered that clearly.

She’d been staring into the glass, knees tucked to her chest on the floor, waiting for the storm to pass—and then she noticed it. Her reflection was gone.

But someone else was there.

A boy.

Older than her. Pale. Eyes like gold coins caught in firelight. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He just stood on the other side of the mirror, watching her with a kind of sadness she didn’t have words for yet.

Liora hadn’t screamed.

She didn’t remember being afraid—not then.

She’d only felt a strange kind of stillness. Like the storm outside had quieted inside her for the first time in hours.

And then… he lifted his hand.

Just barely.

She remembered lifting hers too. Pressing her tiny fingers to the glass. There was no warmth. No pressure. But something passed between them.

A feeling.

Like he was trying to say:

I see you.

I remember.

You’re not alone.

Her mother had found her there sometime later, fast asleep against the sink cabinet, the flashlight flickering in her lap.

“Such a strange little girl,” she’d muttered.

Liora never told anyone about the boy.

Not back then. Not even now.

But sometimes, even years later, when thunder cracked and lightning lit the sky—she felt the urge to look into a mirror.

To check.

To see if he’d come back.

They walked the rest of the corridor in silence—Cecily a few steps ahead, her heels tapping sharp against the old tiles. Liora’s hands stayed clenched at her sides.

She could still hear it. That whisper. Not just in her mind, but behind her ribcage. Like it had settled there.

They reached the top of the stairs when Cecily finally spoke.

“That mirror was uncovered,” she said flatly, without looking at her.

Liora blinked. “Was it?” Her voice came out softer than she meant. Like the lie didn’t even want to try.

Cecily turned, studying her. “You’ve been here before. You think I don’t notice, but I do. The East Wing isn’t locked for decoration, Liora. There are reasons.”

“Then maybe someone should explain them to me,” Liora snapped before she could stop herself.

Cecily’s jaw tensed. For a moment, she looked like she wanted to say something sharp—but then her expression shifted. Softer. Almost… pitying.

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

That stopped Liora.

She tilted her head. “Try me.”

A long pause.

Cecily looked over her shoulder—checking the empty hallway—then leaned in, lowering her voice.

“There are mirrors in this house that don’t just reflect,” she said.

“They remember.”

Liora swallowed.

Cecily stepped back. Her tone clipped again. “Come. You should rest.”

⸻

Liora didn’t sleep.

She lay curled under the covers in the narrow guest bed, one hand resting on her chest like it could press down the fluttering ache beneath. Her eyes traced the c***k in the ceiling. Her thoughts stayed in the glass.

Liora…”

The whisper hadn’t sounded threatening. If anything, it had sounded tired. Familiar. Like someone who’d been waiting too long to say her name again.

She didn’t mean to speak aloud. But she did.

“Auren…”

The name tasted strange on her tongue. Like a word she hadn’t used in years but had never forgotten how to pronounce.

And then—

The mirror across the room—a small oval above her dresser—fogged slightly at the center.

Just a breath. A single blur of condensation, like someone had exhaled on the other side.

Liora sat up slowly.

Her throat tightened. Her voice came out in a whisper.

“Are you… still in there?”

Silence.

And then—faint, almost lost in the stillness—

A knock.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Three soft knocks. From inside the mirror.

Liora froze.

The breath caught in her throat was no longer her own—it felt borrowed, like something she wasn’t supposed to be holding.

She rose slowly, the bedsheets whispering off her skin. Her bare feet pressed into the cold wooden floor. One step. Another. The air grew colder the closer she came.

The oval mirror above the dresser looked ordinary in the dark. But that fog—just a single clouded bloom in the glass—remained, right at the center.

Like someone had pressed their forehead against it.

Like someone had waited there.

She didn’t speak.

She just raised her hand.

Her fingers hovered above the mirror’s surface, shaking slightly. Her heartbeat thudded through her wrist. She didn’t know why she was doing this. Only that she had to.

And then—she touched it.

At first, nothing.

Just cool glass.

But then—

It shivered beneath her skin.

Like breath. Like a sigh.

And then a voice. Not outside her. Not in the room. But within her bones.

“Liora.”

She gasped and jerked her hand back—but her fingers wouldn’t move. The mirror held them. Not like glue. Not like force. Like recognition.

“You’re here,” the voice said.

Not loud. Not commanding. Just… aching. A voice that had been silenced for too long.

“I’ve waited,” it whispered. “You always forget… and still, you come back.”

Her eyes stung. She didn’t know why. She didn’t remember him. Not truly. Just flashes. Feelings. A boy with pale hands behind a bedroom mirror. A name spoken like a secret.

“Auren,” she said. Her own voice cracking like ice.

The mirror pulsed under her fingers. A ripple of light flickered through it.

And then—a hand.

Pressed gently from the inside.

It wasn’t solid. Not fully formed. Just a silhouette in silver. Long fingers. A palm. Resting against hers.

Glass between them. Nothing else.

And then, just barely—his voice again.

“please don’t leave me here”

His hand stayed pressed to hers—flesh to shimmer, skin to silence. She didn’t breathe. She couldn’t.

Every part of her felt suspended. Like time had stopped to make room for this—this fragile, shivering moment.

Then the silver shimmer thickened.

Moved.

Shifted like mist drawn into shape.

And there—behind the glass—a face began to form.

At first, just the shadow of it. Cheekbones, high and delicate. A sharp jaw. Hollowed eyes that caught the faintest flicker of light and turned it into something watchful.

Then his mouth. Full. Still. Sorrowful.

Auren.

She didn’t remember meeting him—but her soul did.

Something inside her recoiled and reached at the same time.

Her lips parted.

“How…” she began, barely audible. “How are you here?”

“I never left,” he said.

His voice didn’t echo in the room—it echoed in her chest, like a second heartbeat.

“They sealed the mirrors to keep me in. But you…”

“You always find me.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks, sudden and inexplicable. Her body remembered something her mind refused to—like grief with no photograph.

“I don’t remember you,” she whispered. “Not fully.”

“You will.”

His lips didn’t move.

But she felt the words in her bones.

“They took me from you.”

“They said I wasn’t real.”

“They buried your memory so deep it cracked you open.”

Liora shook her head slowly. “This isn’t possible.”

“Look at me.”

She did.

His eyes—if they were eyes—glowed faintly like the last light before dusk. Not golden. Not blue. Just endless.

And full of something unspeakably old.

And yet—still full of her.

“You were the only one who saw me,” he murmured. “Back then. You were just a child. But you looked into the mirror and you said my. You called me Auren. You saved me.”

Her breath caught.

“Do you remember?”

Her voice was barely there.

“No.”

But she was lying.

Because something inside her had already begun to break open.

Auren leaned closer. The mirror shimmered like water beneath his breath.

“Then let me remind you.”

And the moment his words reached her—

The glass cracked.

“Please don’t leave me here.”