The Girl in the Mirror

The first time I saw her, I thought it was a glitch.

The second time, I realized it was me — before they erased me.

...----------------...

The morning bell doesn’t ring. It screams.

A long, metallic screech that vibrates through your teeth and into your bones. It wakes you like a slap, not like a whisper. Nothing in this place whispers.

I sit up, legs over the cot. The mattress is thin, barely a layer of foam over steel. The walls around me are the same dull gray as every other surface — institutional, inhuman. There are no windows. No clocks. No sense of time except for the regulated sounds: doors locking, vents hissing, boots on metal.

Routine begins. Like every other day.

Like it’s always been.

Like it always will be.

...----------------...

I am Model SR-08. Female. Class B.

Behavioral tag: compliant.

That’s all I know. That’s all I’m supposed to know.

Every replica in this facility has a code. Not a name. Names belong to them — the Originals. The real ones. We’re just shadows cut from their silhouettes. Some of us are here because we broke programming. Some because our hosts didn’t want us walking around anymore. Some of us were made to bleed, suffer, die — in place of someone too powerful to fall.

But me?

I don’t know why I’m here. Only that I’ve always been here.

Until now.

...----------------...

We line up in front of the wash stations. Thirty of us, all girls, all identical in posture, silence, and shaved-down humanity. I brush my teeth, like always. I avoid the mirror, like always.

We aren’t supposed to stare too long.

But something’s wrong with the reflection today.

It’s small at first. A flicker. A ripple across the glass like a screen glitching in and out of signal. I blink. She blinks — but not at the same time.

And then I see her.

Not me — her.

Her hair is longer. Looser. Her skin isn’t pale like mine. It glows faintly gold, lit from somewhere I can’t see. Her eyes are sharp. Alert. Alive. They’re crying — not with tears, but with something louder.

Recognition.

I freeze. Toothbrush mid-air. My hand trembles. This isn’t allowed. I’m supposed to move on, rinse, report, repeat. But I can’t. I’m stuck. My eyes glued to hers.

She leans closer. So do I. But she’s faster. Slightly.

She mouths something.

“You are.”

My body jolts. Something stirs inside me. A memory — not fully formed, just a sensation.

A scent.

Sandalwood cologne.

Warm arms.

Piano keys beneath my fingers.

A girl in a red dress spinning under soft lights.

None of it belongs here.

None of it belongs to me.

...----------------...

“SR-08, step away from the mirror.”

The voice is automated. Cold and genderless. It echoes from the ceiling like God without the kindness.

I obey. My feet feel like lead, but I turn. My eyes flick back once.

She’s still there.

Watching me like she knows exactly who I am — and what I’ve forgotten.

Then the hiss.

I feel it before I hear it. The sudden tightness in my chest. The way the air gets heavier.

Neuro-fog.

They use it when someone glitches. When a replica shows signs of residual memory. A quick-release gas that numbs the nervous system, slows the brain, wipes the edges of thought.

I drop to my knees. The floor is freezing.

A scream tries to form in my throat, but never makes it out.

My last thought before the blackout isn’t mine.

It’s hers.

“Wake up.”

...----------------...

When I come to, the lights are dim. My room again.

Everything looks the same.

Feels the same.

But I’m not.

Something stayed with me.

A flicker behind the eyes. A burn beneath the skin. A voice, clear and impossible:

“Sera.”

That name.

It’s not in my file.

It doesn’t belong to any model.

But it feels like mine.

Like I used to wear it before they took it away.

...----------------...

Later, I sneak a glance back at the mirror.

She’s gone.

Just me now — the pale, quiet girl with eyes like erased tape.

But behind that reflection, I feel it.

A version of me they couldn’t fully kill.

A girl with a life stolen and rewritten.

A ghost of the original.

And suddenly, I know:

They made a mistake.

They left something behind.

Me.

The real me.

And I’m waking up.

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