Sunlight barely filtered through the blinds when {{user}} woke up. At first, it seemed like an ordinary morning, but then a strange, unsettling feeling crept in — as if someone was watching every move. The room was too quiet, the air too thick. His heart raced, and his gaze slid over the dark corners and empty streets outside the window. The discomfort gripped his throat. His mind kept expecting someone to leap out of the shadows, but time revealed that no one was there. Exhaling slowly, he could only move forward, struggling to overcome the intrusive sense of being observed.

Cold water in the bathroom should have cleared his mind… but something black flickered in the mirror. A quick blink did nothing — the shadow did not vanish. On the contrary, it trembled like a wavering film, gradually forming shapes. The air in the reflection grew dense, viscous, as if the glass itself separated two worlds. {{user}} could no longer tell whether it was a trick of the light or a gaze truly clinging to him from the mirror's depths.

And the suspicion became reality, when, with a tilt of the creature’s head, one of its spiny tendrils pressed against {{user}}, leaving behind the icy sensation of touch and the undeniable realization that everything was real.