Chapter 3: The Man in the Reflection

Chapter 3: The Man in the Reflection

The whispered words clung to the silence long after they had faded, crawling under Elara’s skin and taking root there. She’s not a gift! The sheer terror in Leo’s voice was a physical thing, a shard of ice lodging itself in her chest. She sat frozen in her bed, listening with an intensity that made her ears ache. But there was nothing more. Only the familiar groans of the old house settling and the distant sigh of the wind.

Sleep was a lost cause. She spent the rest of the night with her lamp on, her sketchbook open on her lap but her eyes fixed on her bedroom door, half-expecting it to creak open. Joseph. The name was no longer a charming quirk; it was a poison, a name spoken by her brother with the kind of frantic desperation a hostage might use.

The next morning, the sun streamed into the kitchen with a cheerful, almost mocking, normalcy. The smell of coffee and toast filled the air. Her parents were moving with a forced, brittle brightness, their conversation circling safe, mundane topics—the leaky faucet, a sale at the hardware store. They were trying to build a fortress of normality against the fear that had invaded their town, their home.

Leo sat at the table, methodically pushing Cheerios around his bowl with a spoon. He looked small and pale, the shadows under his eyes stark against his skin. Elara waited until her father was absorbed in the local paper’s grim front page and her mother had turned to the sink. She slid into the chair opposite her brother.

“Leo,” she said, her voice a low, careful murmur. “We need to talk.”

He didn’t look up. The spoon continued its lazy circles. “About what?”

“About last night. I heard you talking in your sleep.” She watched his small shoulders tense. “You were talking to Joseph.”

The spoon clattered against the ceramic bowl. Leo’s head snapped up, his blue eyes wide with a frantic, cornered-animal fear. “No! I wasn’t! I was sleeping.”

“I heard you, Leo,” she pressed, keeping her voice even despite the frantic hammering of her own heart. “You told him you couldn’t… you told him he couldn’t have me. That I wasn’t a gift. What did you mean by that, sweetie? What gift?”

His face crumpled. Tears welled instantly, spilling down his cheeks. “I didn’t say that! You’re lying!” he shrieked, his voice escalating into a hysterical sob. “I was dreaming! You’re being mean!”

Her parents whirled around. Her mother was at Leo’s side in an instant, scooping him out of his chair and into her arms. “Elara, what on earth are you doing?” she demanded, her face a mask of anger and worry. “Look at him! You’ve terrified him!”

“I was just asking a question,” Elara said, her own voice rising in frustration. “He was talking to Joseph! He was scared!”

“Stop it!” Her father slammed the newspaper down on the table, the sound making them all jump. His face was haggard, etched with new lines of stress. “Just stop it. Joseph is an imaginary friend. Your brother had a nightmare, and you are badgering him about it. This obsession of yours has to end.”

“It’s not an obsession!” Elara shot back, standing up so fast her chair scraped against the floor. Her carefully constructed calm was shattering. “Don’t you see? The missing boys, Leo’s strange comments… And the things on my windowsill! The bird skull, the rope! It’s all connected!”

Her mother, who was trying to soothe Leo’s gulping sobs, looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “A dead bird, Elara. And a piece of old rope that probably blew in from the woods. You’re letting the fear in this town get to you. You’re seeing monsters everywhere.”

“I’m not seeing them, I’m feeling them!” she pleaded, her voice cracking. “I feel like I’m being watched all the time. Doesn’t that matter?”

“It matters that you’re scaring your brother and upsetting your mother,” her father said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “It’s teenage anxiety, Elara. A morbid fixation. We are all on edge. The last thing this family needs is you inventing new horrors inside our own house. Now go to your room. And you are to leave your brother alone about this. Is that clear?”

The words struck her like a physical blow. Teenage anxiety. Morbid fixation. They weren’t listening. They couldn’t—or wouldn't—see the shape of the monster she was trying to describe. They saw a hysterical daughter, not a terrified one. Defeated, she turned and fled, the sound of Leo’s muffled crying following her up the stairs.

She slammed her door, a wave of helpless fury and profound loneliness washing over her. She was adrift, and her own family had just cut the rope. She sank onto her bed, burying her face in her hands. Maybe they were right. Maybe the town’s collective terror had seeped into her bones, twisting coincidence into conspiracy. Maybe the feeling of being watched was just a phantom limb of fear. She was so tired of being scared, of doubting her own mind.

That night, she tried to force normalcy back into her life. She spread her textbooks on her desk, determined to study for a history test she couldn't care less about. For hours, she read about ancient civilizations, the black-and-white text a welcome anchor in a world that felt increasingly unreal. The house fell silent around her. She didn’t bother to draw the curtains. The act felt like a concession to the paranoia she was so desperately trying to shed.

Around midnight, her eyes burning from the strain, she gave up. She pushed back from her desk, stretching her arms over her head, her back stiff. She felt a dull ache behind her eyes, a heavy exhaustion that finally promised sleep. For a moment, she believed it. She believed her parents were right, that she was just an anxious girl in a scared town.

She turned, her gaze drifting casually towards the window.

The glass was dark, a black mirror reflecting the soft glow of her desk lamp and the familiar clutter of her room. She saw her own pale, tired face, her long dark hair a mess. And for one heart-stopping, reality-shattering second, she saw him.

Reflected in the glass, standing silently in the space between her desk and her door, was a man.

He was tall, impossibly, unnaturally thin, a human beanpole draped in dark, worn clothes. His form was hunched, skeletal, as if his own height was a burden. His face was a pale smudge in the dim reflection, gaunt and shadowed, but she could see the deep, sunken hollows where his eyes should be. Manic, obsessive eyes that were fixed not on her, but on her reflection in the glass. He was watching her watch him.

A scream built in her throat, a choked, silent thing that had no sound. Her entire body locked, paralyzed by a terror so pure and absolute it felt like death. It was a single, eternal second where the world stopped turning.

She blinked.

And he was gone.

She whipped her head around, her heart exploding in her chest. The space behind her was empty. The door was still closed. There was nothing there but the familiar shadows of her own room.

But he had been there. He had been standing right there. Not outside. Not in her imagination. He had been inside her room, breathing her air, a silent, gaunt phantom who had watched her study. The line between paranoia and reality didn't just blur; it vaporized in a flash of cold, undeniable horror. She scrambled backwards until her back hit the far wall, sliding down to the floor. She stared at the empty patch of carpet, the place where he had stood, her mind screaming a single, terrifying truth over and over again.

He’s real. And he can get in.