EPISODE 9:THE REFLECTION THAT MOVED
619 Words
The words clung to the air like fog.
"It said you already let it in."
Elara stood frozen, her skin crawling. The room felt too small, the candlelight too dim, like the darkness was just waiting to take over again.
Theo ran a hand through his hair, pacing. “Okay. No. That doesn’t make sense. Elara would have known if—if something got inside her, right?”
Neither Madam Ren nor Elara answered.
Ren’s lips pressed into a thin line, her hands shaking as she reached for something beneath the counter—a small, circular mirror, its surface slightly cracked. She held it up toward Elara.
“Look.”
Elara hesitated, her pulse hammering.
She didn’t want to.
A cold certainty settled in her bones—something was wrong with her reflection.
Theo nudged her. “Elara, just do it.”
Slowly, reluctantly, she turned toward the mirror.
At first, nothing seemed off. Her face was pale, eyes wide and shadowed with exhaustion. The dim candlelight flickered across her features.
And then she blinked.
Only… her reflection didn’t.
Elara sucked in a sharp breath, stumbling back so fast she nearly tripped.
Her reflection wasn’t moving.
She could feel Theo beside her, but in the glass, he wasn’t there.
Just her.
Standing still. Watching.
And then—
It smiled.
A slow, unnatural stretch of the lips. The kind of smile a predator gives when the hunt is already over.
Elara’s stomach twisted. That wasn’t her. That thing in the mirror—
The candle flames snapped sideways, blown by a phantom wind.
The glass shattered.
Elara barely had time to flinch before Madam Ren grabbed her wrist, shoving something into her palm. Cold. Smooth. Metal.
A small silver pendant.
“Take this,” Ren said urgently. “You need protection.”
Theo stepped between Elara and the broken mirror. “Ren, what the hell was that? What’s happening to her?”
Ren didn’t answer right away. She knelt, picking up a sharp fragment of the mirror, staring at it like she could still see something moving inside. Then, her face hardened.
“It’s closer than we thought.”
Elara’s hands trembled as she clutched the pendant. “What does that mean?”
Ren turned to her, voice grave.
“It means you’re running out of time.”
Elara stared at the shattered mirror, her pulse hammering against her ribs. That thing had smiled at her.
It knew. It knew she was afraid.
Theo swallowed hard. “So, what do we do? If it’s already inside her—”
“It’s not fully in,” Ren cut in, tightening her grip on the pendant Elara held. “Not yet. But if we don’t act fast, it will be.”
Elara clenched her fists. “How do we stop it?”
Ren hesitated. Then, finally, she spoke.
“There’s only one way.”
She turned, moving quickly to a shelf behind the counter, pulling down an old, leather-bound book. The pages were brittle, the ink faded, but when she flipped to the right section, the meaning was clear.
A ritual. A dangerous one.
Theo leaned in, reading over Ren’s shoulder. His face paled. “Are you serious? This—this could kill her.”
Elara forced herself to look. The text was written in symbols she didn’t understand, but the translation beneath it made her blood run cold.
A severance ritual.
Either she forces the entity out…
Or she lets it take her completely.
Silence filled the room. The candles flickered again, but Elara no longer flinched.
She already knew what she had to do.
She met Ren’s gaze, her voice steady. “Tell me what I need.”
(To be continued)
- Writer
