Chapter 1: The Uncovered Glass

The birthday tradition had always felt wrong.

Alex Thorne pressed his back against his bedroom door, listening to the familiar sounds of preparation echoing through the house below. The scrape of furniture being moved, the rustle of fabric, his mother's muffled voice calling out instructions to his father. Every October 23rd, without fail, the same ritual played out—a methodical covering of every reflective surface in their suburban home.

"Just for tonight, sweetheart," his mother had explained when he was seven, draping a white sheet over his dresser mirror with practiced efficiency. "It's an old family tradition. Nothing for you to worry about."

But Alex had always worried. Nine years later, the tradition felt less like harmless superstition and more like a desperate attempt to keep something at bay.

His phone buzzed against his palm—a text from his older sister Clara: Happy Sweet Sixteen, little brother! Sorry I'm stuck at Sarah's for her group project. Promise I'll make it up to you tomorrow. Stay safe tonight. ❤️

Stay safe. As if birthdays were battlefields.

Alex tucked his phone into his pocket and ventured downstairs. The house looked like it was preparing for a wake rather than a celebration. Every mirror, every window, every polished surface had been shrouded in dusty white sheets that transformed familiar rooms into ghostly landscapes. Even the chrome faucets in the kitchen wore cloth bandages.

"There's my birthday boy!" His mother emerged from the living room, flour dusting her apron, forcing a brightness into her voice that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Cake's almost ready. Your father's just finishing up in the bathroom."

The bathroom. Alex's stomach tightened. The medicine cabinet mirror was always the trickiest one—the way it sat recessed into the wall made it easy to miss a corner, leave a sliver of glass exposed.

"Mom, did you double-check—"

"Everything's covered, Alex." She ruffled his dark hair, but her hand trembled slightly. "Every year you ask, and every year I promise. We know what we're doing."

But they didn't, did they? Not really. None of them understood why this tradition existed, only that it had been passed down through generations of Thornes like a genetic curse. His great-grandmother had started it, or so his parents claimed, though they'd grown vague and uncomfortable whenever he pressed for details.

The evening crawled by with forced normalcy. Dinner tasted like cardboard in his mouth, conversation stilted and awkward as they all avoided acknowledging the elephant in the room—or rather, the sheets covering every reflective surface in the room. His parents exchanged meaningful glances when they thought he wasn't looking, the kind of looks that said they knew more than they were telling.

By ten o'clock, Alex couldn't stand it anymore. The house felt suffocating, every covered mirror like a held breath waiting to be released. His parents had retreated to their bedroom with relief evident in their postures, leaving him alone with his churning thoughts.

He wandered the first floor, checking the covered surfaces compulsively. Living room mirror: secured. Hallway mirror: draped. The decorative mirror by the front door: wrapped tight as a mummy.

That's when he saw it.

In the formal dining room they rarely used, tucked in the far corner where the shadows gathered thickest, stood an ornate antique mirror his mother had inherited from her grandmother. The frame was elaborate silver, twisted into flowing patterns that seemed to writhe in his peripheral vision.

It was completely uncovered.

Alex's breath caught in his throat. The sheet that should have been draped over it lay crumpled on the floor instead, as if it had simply... fallen off.

He should turn away. Should call for his parents. Should grab the sheet and fix his mother's mistake.

Instead, he found himself drawn forward, his bare feet silent on the hardwood floor.

The mirror's surface was perfect black glass, darker than the room around it, reflecting nothing—not the dim light from the hallway, not the furniture, not even Alex as he approached.

Until it did.

The reflection appeared suddenly, like a photograph developing in real time. But it wasn't quite right. The face staring back at him was his own—same tousled brown hair, same pale skin, same wide green eyes—but the expression was wrong. Where Alex felt terror creeping up his spine, his reflection looked... calm. Unnaturally still.

Alex raised his hand to his face, touching his cheek.

His reflection didn't move.

The thing in the mirror stood perfectly motionless, its hand at its side, its head tilted at an angle that made Alex's neck ache in sympathy. It was like looking at a photograph of himself, a frozen moment in time while he continued to exist in the present.

"What the hell?" Alex whispered.

The reflection's lips didn't move, but Alex could have sworn he saw something flicker behind those familiar green eyes. Recognition. Intelligence.

Hunger.

Alex tried to step back, but his legs felt rooted to the floor. In the mirror, his motionless double began to change. Not physically—it still looked exactly like Alex—but something in its posture shifted. The stillness became predatory rather than peaceful.

Slowly, impossibly, the reflection raised its hand.

Alex's hand remained frozen at his cheek, but in the glass, his duplicate's palm pressed flat against the mirror's surface from the other side. The contact should have been impossible—mirrors didn't work that way—but Alex could see the pale flesh of the reflection's hand splayed against what should have been solid glass.

The reflection's mouth moved, forming words Alex couldn't hear. But he could read the shape of its lips:

Let me out.

A scream built in Alex's throat, but no sound emerged. He was trapped in place, watching his own face mouth silent pleas—or were they demands?—from the other side of the looking glass. The reflection's eyes never blinked, never looked away, holding his gaze with an intensity that made his vision blur around the edges.

The hand pressed against the glass began to push outward.

The mirror's surface rippled like water, distorting the reflection's features into something grotesque and fluid. But still, it pushed, and Alex could swear he felt something brush against his own palm—cold, desperate fingers trying to find purchase in the real world.

Let me out let me out let me out.

Alex's reflection grew more frantic, its mouth moving faster, its free hand joining the first as it pressed both palms against the impossible barrier between worlds. The ripples in the glass grew larger, more violent, as if something was trying to break through from the other side.

And then Alex blinked.

For just an instant, his eyes closed involuntarily, a natural reflex he couldn't control.

When they opened, the reflection had moved closer.

It was no longer standing at arm's length from the mirror's surface. Somehow, in that fraction of a second, it had pressed itself against the glass, its face mere inches from Alex's own. The features were still his, but wrong—too perfect, too symmetrical, like a computer-generated approximation of humanity.

The reflection smiled.

Alex's own mouth remained slack with terror, but in the mirror, his duplicate's lips curved upward in an expression of pure, alien satisfaction. It lifted one finger and tapped against the glass—tap tap tap—a sound that somehow reached Alex's ears despite the impossibility of it all.

Then it mouthed new words, and this time Alex understood them perfectly:

Soon.

The paralysis finally broke. Alex stumbled backward, his legs tangling as he fought to put distance between himself and the mirror. He crashed into a dining chair, sending it toppling, the sound sharp and violent in the silence.

But in the mirror, his reflection stood perfectly still once again, back in its original position, hands at its sides, expression blank and innocent.

Waiting.

Alex scrambled for his phone with shaking hands, his thumb hovering over Clara's number. She would know what to do. Clara always knew what to do. She was the only one who had ever taken his fears about the family tradition seriously, the only one who seemed to understand that some things were worth being afraid of.

But as he stared at the mirror—where his reflection now moved normally again, mimicking his every gesture—Alex couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just seen something that was never supposed to be seen.

And worse, that it had seen him back.

The ornate silver frame seemed to gleam in the darkness, and Alex realized with cold certainty that his sixteenth birthday was far from over. Whatever his family had been keeping at bay all these years, whatever ancient fear had driven generations of Thornes to cover every mirror in the house...

He had a terrible feeling it was about to get much worse.

His phone felt slick with sweat in his palm as he finally pressed Clara's name, praying she would answer, praying she would have answers.

Praying that the thing in the mirror would stay on its side of the glass.

At least until morning.