Chapter 2 — Don’t Look in the Mirror
792 Words
I didn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt him again—too close, too aware. The memory of that voice lingered in my head, smooth and dark, like it had carved itself into my thoughts.
Yours.
I sat on the edge of my bed, knees pulled to my chest, watching the room like it might betray me if I blinked. The boarding house had gone quiet after midnight, the kind of silence that rang in your ears.
I checked my wrist again.
The frost-mark was still there.
Faint now, like a bruise that hadn’t decided whether it wanted to fade or bloom darker. I pressed my thumb against it.
Cold.
Not surface-cold. Deep. As if the chill lived inside me.
“This isn’t real,” I whispered.
The mirror across the room disagreed.
A thin layer of fog coated the glass, blooming slowly from the center outward. I froze, breath catching painfully in my throat.
I hadn’t turned on the shower.
The room wasn’t warm.
The fog thickened, curling into deliberate shapes.
Letters.
My heart slammed violently against my ribs as words appeared, written by something I could not see.
DON’T. LOOK.
My gaze snapped away instantly, pulse roaring in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut, nails biting into my palms.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said, louder this time.
A lie.
The air shifted.
Not colder this time. Heavier.
“I warned you,” he said softly.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere—inside the walls, beneath the floor, right behind my thoughts. My body reacted before my mind could stop it, a shiver racing down my spine.
“Warned me about what?” I demanded.
Silence.
Then footsteps.
Slow. Unhurried. Circling me.
I couldn’t see him, but I felt the path he took around the room, the pressure of his attention dragging across my skin like fingertips hovering just short of contact.
“You don’t listen,” he murmured. “You never did.”
“I don’t know you,” I said, though my voice trembled.
A low laugh answered me.
“You will.”
The bed dipped.
Just slightly.
I sucked in a sharp breath, muscles locking as something invisible settled behind me. Heat pooled low in my stomach—unwanted, confusing, terrifying.
I hated my body for responding.
“You should be screaming,” he said quietly. “Why aren’t you?”
I swallowed hard. “Because you’d like that.”
Another pause.
Then something like approval brushed through the air.
“Smart,” he said. “Still stubborn.”
“Stop talking like you know me.”
“Oh, little ghost,” he murmured, closer now—so close I felt the cold of him against my neck. “I know you better than you know yourself.”
The fog on the mirror shifted again.
Against my will, my eyes flicked toward it.
I saw him.
Not fully—just the suggestion of a man standing behind me. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Made of shadow and smoke, eyes glowing faintly like dying stars.
My breath hitched.
“Don’t,” he warned sharply.
I looked away just as the mirror cracked.
A thin line split the glass from top to bottom, the sound sharp and violent. I cried out, scrambling off the bed.
“Don’t test me,” he said, his voice no longer amused.
The room pulsed with power, the walls groaning softly as if responding to his mood. I backed away until my shoulders hit the door.
“You don’t get to control me,” I said, even as my heart pounded.
Silence stretched.
Then he was there.
Not touching me. Not fully visible.
But present.
“So alive when you’re angry,” he murmured. “It’s why I chose you.”
“I didn’t agree to anything!”
“You did,” he replied calmly. “Just not this time.”
His presence pressed closer, pinning me between the door and something far more dangerous than flesh. My breath came shallow, awareness burning beneath my skin.
“You belong here,” he said. “With me.”
“I belong to myself.”
For a moment, something dark flickered—rage, hunger, longing tangled together.
“Say that again,” he whispered, voice tight. “At midnight.”
The pressure vanished.
The air lightened.
The room returned to normal so suddenly my knees almost gave out.
I slid down the door, shaking, heart racing.
The mirror lay shattered across the floor.
From somewhere deep within the house, I heard a satisfied breath.
And then his voice—soft, possessive, final:
“Lock your door tonight.”
“I don’t protect what I haven’t claimed yet.”
- Writer
