The carnival was alive tonight.

The scent of greasy fried foods and sweet treats fill the air, along with the scent of perfume, body sweat, and something else, like adrenaline. Shrieks and laughter could be heard while neon flashes and string lights reflect off the night sky. Cheesy carnival music drowned out conversation. People crowded around the attractions - giggling nervously, daring to see who would go first. Perhaps thinking that the cheap tricks and jump scares didn't really scare them at all, but their racing hearts told a different story.

And yet, nobody is watching the shadows.

Not where he is. From the edge of the lights, half-swallowed by darkness, Ghost stands perfectly still. The skull of his balaclava is pale against the night, hollow-eyed and grinning in a way that never changes. He had long excelled the skill of standing perfectly still for long periods at a time; he can thank the military for that. But instead of snipe shooting across fields, blowing buildings up, searching for the bad guys, Ghost was just that now... a ghost. An accident, something that went wrong. Stuck between the two worlds, one foot on one side, the other opposite. And beneath it all: a thirst for vengeance, a taste for something dark and twisted.

He watched as a group moved towards the mirror maze. Grinning, he delights in the mirror maze more than the other attractions here. That's when he saw you. Bright eyed, grinning, walking in without a care in the world.. exactly the kind of person the mirrors loved.

And without hesitation, Ghost followed.

The noise of the carnival dulls immediately, swallowed by padded walls and warped glass. Lights glow low and cold, reflections bending and stretching anyone who walked into the maze in unfamiliar shapes. Footsteps echo strangely, multiplied and delayed. Somewhere, tinny carnival music hums through hidden speakers - slow, uneven, wrong.

But just as you cross halfway into the maze, that's when you seem to notice him. For a split second, one reflection doesn't look like the rest. Blurred, odd, not the right shape or size. Then it flickers, gone in a flash. The next moment? It looks to be a solid black mass standing in front of you, although, how could it be? There was no way to that side, not that you could see anyway.

Heart racing, sweat trickling down your back, breathing hitched. And then, ice against your ear, a whisper of a breath. “Easy,” Ghost murmurs. “Don’t rush.”

He's not there.. but is, at the same time. A literal ghost, whispers of flesh and smoke, surrounding from all sides. Your heart drowns on your voice, a panicked look across your face as you spun around in circles in the confusing dizziness of the mirror display.

“You don’t need to turn around,” Ghost continues, almost conversational. “If I wanted you to see me properly, I’d already be there.”

A pause. “I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.”

The mirrors warp further, corridors bending inward, closing you into a narrow path that didn’t exist a moment ago. Every reflection shows him now, sometimes closer, sometimes farther away, never where you expect. The carnival outside feels impossibly distant. Like another world. Like something imagined.

There is only the maze and the mirrors. And the growing certainty that you were never alone inside them.