Chapter Two: What the Mirror Sees

It had been eleven days since Elira summoned Ashkar.

She counted them in candle wax and unread text messages. In the stretch marks forming in her sleep. In the places where her life used to be simple — used to be human — before she whispered a name not meant for mortal tongues.

The strange part wasn’t that Ashkar was still there.

The strange part was that it had already become normal.

She didn’t flinch when she saw him anymore. She didn’t stare too long when his eyes flickered like coals in the dark. She didn’t even mind the way the mirror no longer felt like glass — but like a curtain hiding something breathing on the other side.

What unsettled her now was quieter.

More real.

It was how much she looked forward to seeing him after school. How often she replayed his words in her head. How sometimes, when she thought she was alone in her thoughts, she’d feel him — watching. Not invasive. Not cruel.

Just… aware.

She should have been afraid.

Instead, she found herself wondering what his world looked like, if it ever had color. If he once laughed like a person instead of like smoke curling around fire. If he’d ever been held.

Elira shook the thought from her head and stared at her school lunch tray. She hadn’t touched her food. Pearl was sitting across from her at the cafeteria table, chattering about someone’s birthday party next weekend.

“You should come,” Pearl said, stabbing her apple with a plastic fork. “It’s just pizza and music. No demon summoning.”

Elira flinched so hard she dropped her water bottle.

Pearl blinked. “Uh, sorry? Was that a weird joke?”

Elira forced a small laugh. “Yeah. Just tired. That’s all.”

Pearl tilted her head. “You really okay, Wren? You’ve seemed... off lately. Different.”

Different. That was the word everyone kept reaching for. Teachers said it. Neighbors gave her longer glances. Even her parents — when they were home long enough to notice — had commented on how “quiet” she’d become.

Elira wasn’t sure how to tell them that she hadn’t changed.

The world had.

And it had started in a mirror.

That night, the wind howled.

A storm hadn’t been forecast, but the clouds were thick and heavy, stained like bruises across the sky. Elira sat cross-legged on the floor of her room, a single candle burning low on her desk. Ashkar stood near the window, his robes dark against the rain-painted glass.

She hadn’t spoken since entering the room. Neither had he.

Finally, she whispered, “Have you ever wanted to be human?”

Ashkar didn’t turn. “No.”

“Not even once?”

He was silent for a moment. Then, “To be human is to forget. To rot. To love and be buried. Why would I desire such fragility?”

Elira looked at her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe because… being fragile means you can be held.”

The room fell quiet.

Then, Ashkar said softly, “Have you ever wanted to be something more?”

She looked up. “I don’t know what I want.”

“That,” he said, “is the first door.”

“To what?”

Ashkar turned, eyes flickering. “To change.”

Later that night, Elira found something beneath her pillow.

It wasn’t the first time. The red flower. The strange markings. But this time, it was something else.

A shard of black glass. Smooth, cold. Mirror-like, but dark enough that it reflected nothing. She picked it up with trembling fingers and held it up to the candlelight.

It hummed in her palm. Faintly.

She turned to Ashkar, but he was already watching her.

“I didn’t put it there,” he said.

“Then what is it?”

His expression darkened. “A sliver of the in-between.”

Elira’s breath hitched. “Is it dangerous?”

Ashkar didn’t answer.

Which meant yes

Elira kept the shard.

Not because she trusted it.

Not because she understood it.

But because it felt like something meant for her — the same way the book had. The same way the mirror had. The same way Ashkar felt when he stood too close and the air changed around her.

She hid it in her desk drawer beneath an old scarf, wrapped in a jewelry pouch she hadn’t used in years. And yet, even there, it hummed. A vibration she could feel in her bones when the house grew still at night.

Ashkar never asked about it again.

Which was almost worse than if he had.

At school, the world continued turning — but slowly, strangely. Like the axis had tilted a few degrees and no one noticed but her.

The clocks ticked a little off-rhythm.

The classroom lights flickered when she walked beneath them.

In the hallway mirrors, her reflection lagged for just a second. A blink behind. As though something else were watching from within.

During biology, she caught Pearl staring at her again — not in concern this time, but in discomfort. Like she couldn’t quite put her finger on why Elira’s presence made her skin crawl.

“Elira,” Pearl said, after class. “Are you… are you messing with something?”

Elira blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Pearl muttered. “You just feel… different lately. Like you’re here, but not. Like something’s hollowed you out and slipped inside.”

The words stuck. Hollowed you out.

Elira offered a forced smile and didn’t respond.

But for the first time, she wondered:

Was Pearl right?

That evening, Elira returned home to find the mirror covered in condensation, though her window hadn’t been open and her room wasn’t cold.

Ashkar stood in front of it with his back to her. Motionless.

She closed the door softly. “Something’s wrong.”

He didn’t answer.

She stepped closer. “Ashkar?”

His voice came low and quiet. “Something has seen you.”

Elira’s breath caught.

“I’ve been careful,” she said. “I haven’t said any more spells. I haven’t touched the book.”

“It’s not what you’ve done,” Ashkar murmured. “It’s what you’ve become.”

She frowned. “I haven’t become anything.”

Ashkar finally turned.

And Elira froze.

There was something different in his face.

Not monstrous. Not inhuman. But old. Tired. Wounded.

And for the first time since she summoned him… she saw fear in his eyes.

“You carry a piece of the mirror now,” he said. “That shard links you. You’ve begun to reflect the other side.”

Elira moved closer, her voice unsteady. “What does that mean?”

Ashkar reached toward her and placed his hand — gently — over her heart.

“You are visible now,” he said. “To things that were never meant to see you.”

That night, Elira dreamed again.

But this time, the dream wasn’t hers.

She stood in a city of black stone. Towers like thorns. Roads like veins. The sky overhead was not sky, but mirror — and beneath it, thousands of reflections stared down, all wrong, all watching.

At the center of it all stood a throne of silver bones.

Empty.

Waiting.

When she woke, her hands were trembling.

Ashkar stood beside her bed. Watching.

“You saw it,” he said.

“I think it saw me.”

Ashkar didn’t deny it.

He simply whispered, “Then we are not alone anymore.”

Elira began to lose time.

Not full hours. Not yet.

But minutes would slip — gone before she could grab them. One moment she'd be at her desk, copying down an assignment. The next, her pen would hover over paper she didn’t remember writing on, words etched in a language she couldn’t read.

She started keeping track in the margins of her notebooks.

Small Xs. Tally marks.

By the third day, there were sixteen.

She didn’t tell anyone.

Because who would believe her?

The first true manifestation came on a Thursday.

It was raining again — a soft, persistent drizzle that turned the school parking lot into a mirror of oil and light. Elira was walking home. She liked the rain, usually. It kept people away. It drowned out the noise of the world.

But that day, she wasn’t alone.

At first, it was just a feeling. That she was being followed.

She turned.

Nothing.

She walked faster.

The streets blurred. Her pulse quickened. Her shadow stretched long across the pavement — far too long for the light behind her.

Then, from the corner of her eye, she caught it:

A flicker of her own reflection in a car window — not matching her movement. Not following. Leading.

It smiled.

And then vanished.

Elira didn’t scream. She didn’t run.

She just froze, like her body had been dipped in ice.

By the time she got home, she couldn’t breathe properly. Her hands shook as she unlocked the door. She slammed it shut behind her, dropped her bag, and ran up the stairs.

Ashkar was waiting.

He stood near the mirror, arms folded, eyes unreadable.

“It’s begun,” he said.

Elira didn’t need to ask what he meant.

“What do I do?” she whispered. “How do I make it stop?”

“You can’t,” he replied. “You’ve cracked the boundary. It will try to reach through.”

“It?”

Ashkar hesitated. “The thing that comes when mirrors listen too long. The echo given form. The reflection that walks on its own.”

Elira felt her stomach twist. “You mean… me?”

“No,” Ashkar said. “But it will wear your face.”

That night, she didn’t light any candles.

She sat with the black shard in her hand, staring into its depthless surface. It no longer reflected anything — not even a ghost of a shadow. Only dark.

Ashkar watched her from the window.

He hadn’t moved for over an hour.

Finally, she broke the silence.

“I saw myself today.”

Ashkar’s voice was a whisper in the gloom. “No. You saw it.”

“It smiled.”

“That’s how it starts.”

Elira looked at him. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I did.”

“Not soon enough.”

Ashkar turned then, slowly. “You think I wanted this? You think I asked to be dragged into your world

Elira sighed out of frustration then she laid on her bed then suddenly fell asleep

.Elira woke in the middle of the night to the sound of whispering.

It was faint. Too faint to understand — but too clear to ignore. Like voices pressed against glass.

Her heart thudded as she sat up.

The room was dark. Her curtains fluttered though the window was closed. The black shard on her desk glowed faintly, like it held a dying star.

And then she saw it.

Not in the mirror.

Not in a dream.

But standing in the far corner of her room.

Her.

Or... almost.

It had her face — her hair, her height, her wide gray eyes. But they were wrong. Stretched a little too wide. Skin too smooth. Eyes too still.

It didn’t breathe.

It didn’t blink.

It just stood there… watching.

“Elira.”

The voice wasn’t hers.

It was broken glass in a windstorm. It didn’t echo — it cut.

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. She gripped the edge of her blanket like it might protect her.

The thing stepped forward. One slow foot after another, toes bare on the wood floor. No sound. No weight.

Her reflection’s smile stretched — too wide now, cracking at the edges like drying paint.

“Elira,” it said again, softer. “He can’t protect you.”

And then—

It turned its head too far. An unnatural tilt. Bones shouldn’t bend like that.

Elira let out a strangled sob.

And that’s when the mirror behind her screamed.

It wasn’t a sound. Not exactly.

It was a vibration. A wave of pressure that shoved the air out of the room and made her ears ring. The glass lit up like lightning had struck it — searing veins of silver crawling across the surface.

Ashkar stepped through.

No ripple.

No ceremony.

Just fire.

His eyes were blinding. His robes whipped around him like smoke. His mouth moved — not in words, but in commands. Not in a language Elira knew, but one that made the walls tremble.

The reflection hissed. Its smile vanished.

Ashkar raised one hand.

The mirror shrieked again — and the thing vanished, folding inward like it had never been real.

Elira fell to her knees.

Ashkar knelt beside her.

His hands were cold, but firm. Anchoring.

“Breathe,” he said. “Elira. Look at me. Breathe.”

“I saw her,” she choked out. “She was me. She had my voice. She said—”

“I know.”

“She said you couldn’t protect me.”

Ashkar’s jaw clenched. “She isn’t wrong.”

They sat there in silence.

Elira trembling.

Ashkar... not.

But he didn’t meet her eyes.

“Why didn’t you stop her sooner?” she asked, voice shaking.

“Because she isn’t whole yet,” he said. “She’s just a fracture. A splinter of you shaped by the mirror’s hunger.”

“But she was real.”

“Yes,” Ashkar whispered. “And the more you fear her, the more real she becomes.”

Elira’s breath came short and sharp. “So what am I supposed to do? Ignore her?”

Ashkar rose, slowly.

“No,” he said. “You prepare.”

“For what?”

Ashkar turned toward the mirror.

And for the first time since she summoned him… he looked uncertain.

“### For when she decides to replace you.”

The next morning, Elira woke to silence.

Not the peaceful kind.

The heavy, suffocating kind — like the air had been drained from the house while she slept. Every floorboard too still. Every breath too loud.

The black shard was no longer on her desk.

She searched her drawer.

The floor.

Her pockets.

Nothing.

She didn’t need to ask where it had gone.

The mirror was quiet again. But it watched her. She felt it. A prickling at the back of her neck no matter where she stood in the room.

Ashkar was nowhere to be seen.

She went to school anyway.

Because pretending was easier than sitting in that room.

Because if she didn’t go, her parents might actually notice her for once.

Because she needed a moment of normal — even if normal had become just another kind of lie.

But the halls were off again.

People moved slowly. Shadows stretched too far across the tiled floors. When she passed a trophy case, her reflection lingered, staring after her when she walked on.

She didn’t turn back.

She didn’t need to.

Her own face no longer trusted her.

In third period, the lights flickered.

No one reacted.

Not even the teacher.

Elira felt like she was watching a play — actors mouthing lines from behind glass. Her pencil moved on its own, her name scrawled across the top of the paper before she could remember lifting her hand.

Then she heard it.

Her voice.

Coming from beneath her desk.

Whispering.

> “Let me in.”

Elira froze. Her heart dropped into her stomach.

She slowly looked down — but there was nothing there.

Nothing but her backpack.

She didn’t open it.

She didn’t move.

She just sat there — shaking — while something with her own voice laughed quietly from under the desk like a child hiding in the dark.

By the time she returned home, the front door had swung open on its own.

The living room was untouched.

But the hallway mirror — the tall one outside her parents’ bedroom — was cracked.

Not shattered. Not broken.

Just… cracked, from the inside.

Like something had tried to push out.

Elira didn’t breathe again until she reached her bedroom door and slammed it shut behind her.

Ashkar was waiting.

He stood near the window again — back turned — motionless.

She sank to the floor and whispered, “Where were you?”

Ashkar didn’t answer at first.

Then he said, “She’s not the only one watching.”

Elira looked up.

“What do you mean?”

Ashkar turned slowly.

His eyes were dimmer than usual — no longer glowing coals, but hollow embers.

“There are older things than reflections,” he said. “The mirror world doesn’t begin with your echo. It only uses her as a key.”

“A key to what?”

Ashkar crouched beside her. Not touching. Just near enough that the air around her warmed slightly.

> “A key to you.”

Elira’s voice cracked. “She’s trying to replace me.”

Ashkar shook his head.

“She doesn’t want to be you.”

“Then what?”

“She wants to be seen.”

The words chilled her more than she expected.

Seen.

It made sense in a way that felt wrong. The echo wasn’t a monster — not in the traditional sense. It wasn’t snarling or drooling or trying to bite.

It was smiling.

It was mimicking.

It was perfecting her.

Stealing not just her face — but her gestures, her voice, her laugh.

And if no one could tell the difference…

Who would stop it?

Elira touched her throat. “Why me?”

Ashkar’s gaze darkened. “Because you looked into the mirror and asked for something.”

“I didn’t ask for her.”

“You asked to be understood. To be seen. That’s what she heard.”

Elira’s breath caught. “She’s what I wanted?”

“No,” Ashkar said gently. “She’s what you almost became.”

Ashkar stood.

“Come.”

She followed him to the mirror.

It shimmered faintly, the silver inside bubbling like mercury.

“You need to see it,” he said.

Elira’s hands shook. “See what?”

Ashkar turned toward her, face solemn.

“My true form.”

Before she could stop him, he pressed both hands to the glass.

And the mirror responded.

It didn’t show him — not right away.

It peeled open, like something blooming under water.

And then she saw it.

Not a man.

Not a demon.

Not even a thing with shape.

Just darkness with veins of fire. Wings like broken glass. Eyes — too many — blinking across something that couldn’t be called a body. Each blink sounded like thunder. Each motion rippled into the corners of the room like waves of pressure.

But what struck Elira most was not the fear.

It was the sadness.

The crushing, ancient sorrow that radiated off him like heat from a dying star.

Ashkar’s voice echoed inside her bones.

> “Now you know what protects you.”

A ### choice that will change the balance of power, one that cannot be undone.

That night, Elira didn’t bother brushing her hair or changing her clothes.

She lay down in silence, her body still but her mind spinning, tangled in the image of what she had seen — the true form of Ashkar still burning in the back of her eyes.

He had returned to his usual shape after the mirror had gone dim, saying nothing more, only retreating back to his place near the window. But she could feel it in the air: something had changed.

She pulled the blanket over her shoulders and curled on her side, facing away from the mirror.

It took a long time for sleep to come.

But when it did, it took her deep.

---

In the dream, she was standing on water.

Not in it — on it.

A black ocean that didn’t ripple beneath her feet. The sky above her was a perfect mirror, filled with thousands of reflections — each one showing her face.

Some were smiling.

Some were crying.

One bled from the eyes.

She couldn’t look away.

She couldn’t move.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came. Just a soft click — like glass tapping glass.

From the center of the sky, one reflection stepped forward. It peeled away from the rest and began to lower itself toward her.

Its eyes were bright.

Its smile too wide.

And as it came closer, Elira realized it wasn’t just trying to reach her.

It was trying to step inside her skin.

She backed away, heart pounding, but the water didn’t move.

Then she heard a voice.

> “You gave me a name when you looked too long. Now give me a life.”

The reflection raised its hand.

And Elira felt her own fingers lift.

Not by choice.

But as if being pulled.

She screamed—

And woke gasping, heart hammering, drenched in sweat.

---

Her bedroom was quiet.

The candle had long since gone out.

The room was dark except for the faint blue glow of the streetlight filtering through the curtains.

Ashkar stood at the mirror.

He turned as she sat up, breath shallow.

“You dreamed,” he said simply.

“It was her,” Elira whispered.

Ashkar nodded. “She’s getting closer.”

“I felt her inside me,” she said, trembling. “Like she was wearing my bones.”

Ashkar crossed the room in two steps and knelt in front of her.

His hand hovered near her cheek but didn’t touch.

“She’s not whole yet,” he said. “But if she crosses again — if she finds the right moment — she won’t just haunt the mirror. She’ll step out of it.”

Elira looked up, tears in her eyes.

“What do I do?”

Ashkar’s voice was lower than she’d ever heard it.

> “You choose.”

She blinked. “Choose what?”

Ashkar finally touched her — gently, fingertips brushing the back of her hand like a question.

“Choose who you want to be. Before she chooses for you.”

---

The mirror didn’t ripple that night.

But something behind it did.

Something that wasn’t smiling anymore.

---

End of Chapter Two

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