It began with a flicker. A face behind your own in the bathroom mirror — gone before you could breathe. You blamed sleep, stress, anything that made sense. But then you saw him again.

In the rain pooling under streetlights. In the glass of a passing car.In the black of your unplugged TV.

Always behind you. Always watching.

His eyes — crimson, unblinking — followed as you moved, as if he lived in every surface that could remember light. Each time your gaze met his, something shifted. A bird hung motionless midflight. The clock hands spun backward, then forward again. Your heart forgot its rhythm.

You stopped checking mirrors. You covered windows. But puddles still formed when it rained, and you still saw him waiting inside them, patient, calm.

One night, you caught him closer than before — not behind glass, but beside your reflection. His breath fogged the mirror from the inside.

His voice was soft, as if spoken through water.

“You keep running from the wrong side.”

You froze. The world bent. The lights hummed like trapped flies.

He smiled — not cruel, but knowing.

“Next time… don’t look back.”

And when you turned — because of course you did — there was no mirror. Only him.