Morning arrived like it always did — with the light struggling to enter his half-closed curtains, a faint hum of the city leaking through thin walls, and the muffled sound of someone arguing two floors down.
Kayden blinked awake. His head felt heavy, as if his skull had been lined with fog. For a moment, he forgot where he was — the bed, the walls, the faint smell of coffee left over from yesterday.
Then, memory hit him.
The dream.
The mirror.
The voice that wasn't a voice.
He sat up slowly, staring at the black screen of his phone on the nightstand. For some reason, it unnerved him — not the silence, but the faint shimmer on the glass.
When he picked it up, the screen flickered once before turning on.
No notifications.
No calls.
Just his own reflection in the dark glass — hair messy, eyes tired.
And for half a second, his reflection didn't move with him.
Kayden froze.
Then blinked.
The reflection corrected itself, following perfectly.
"Okay…" he muttered, rubbing his temples. "Definitely need sleep. Or therapy. Or an exorcist."
He pushed himself out of bed, grabbed a hoodie, and shuffled toward the kitchen. The apartment was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the faint sound of water dripping from the sink.
He poured himself a cup of leftover coffee, the bitter taste grounding him.
When he looked up, he caught his own reflection again — this time in the microwave door.
He nearly dropped the cup.
The reflection was smiling.
His real face wasn't.
The smile was small, almost gentle. Then it widened, too wide, like the reflection found something amusing.
The coffee mug hit the counter with a dull thud as Kayden stumbled back, eyes fixed on the impossible grin.
"...What the hell—"
The lights flickered. The reflection tilted its head. And then, just as suddenly, it was normal again — a mirror image, blank and harmless.
The silence after was deafening.
Kayden's heart hammered in his chest. He stared for a long moment, then laughed weakly, the sound brittle. "Right. Totally normal. Just… hallucinations brought on by caffeine withdrawal and low income."
He forced a shaky breath and reached for his phone again, hesitating before unlocking it.
One new notification blinked on the screen.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: You saw it too, didn't you?
The message vanished before he could react.
Gone — not deleted, just… erased.
He stared at the blank chat, throat dry. Then the phone vibrated again.
This time, the sender name wasn't Unknown.
Seren Vale: We need to talk.
He exhaled slowly, forcing down the rising unease. "Yeah," he muttered. "I think we really do."
Across town, Seren stood outside a café, phone in hand, her reflection on the glass faintly distorted — like the world behind her didn't quite agree with her existence.
A man in a gray suit passed her, glancing at her reflection instead of her face. He didn't notice that her mirrored self didn't blink.
The veil was thinning.
---
Rain.
The city hadn't seen it in weeks, yet when Kayden stepped outside that afternoon, the sky was already bleeding grey. A low hum filled the air, like the clouds themselves were charged with static.
He pulled his hood over his head and glanced once more at the message on his phone.
Seren Vale: Café Elysium. 4:00 PM. Come alone.
A normal person would've ignored it. Maybe blocked her, maybe called the cops. But Kayden's curiosity had always been his worst habit — and lately, reality felt like a dare he couldn't ignore.
He arrived early.
The café sat at the corner of an old street, the kind of place that had too much charm to still exist. Small round tables under flickering lights, mismatched chairs, the faint smell of roasted beans and damp books.
He pushed open the door. The bell above it chimed softly.
Inside, it was almost empty — except for a woman sitting near the window, her coat still wet from the rain. Her hair was dark, her eyes sharper than the smile she tried to wear. Seren Vale.
When she looked up, Kayden felt something shift. Not in the air — in his head.
A faint pressure, like a radio signal tuning itself to a new frequency.
"Kayden," she said, her tone neutral but edged. "You came."
He hesitated before sitting opposite her. "You texted me from a number I didn't give you. I figured that either meant stalker or government. And you're too calm for the first one."
Her lips twitched. "You're not far off."
He raised an eyebrow. "So which is it?"
Seren slid a small black badge across the table — no logo, no name, just an embossed symbol: an eye split by static lines.
"Neither," she said. "We're what happens when the government stops pretending it can explain the world."
Kayden frowned. "That's… comforting."
"I'm part of an observation division. We monitor anomalies — distortions, breaches, reflections that move without a source. You've seen one."
He almost laughed. "Yeah, my mirror tried to smile at me this morning. Thought it was sleep deprivation."
"It wasn't," she said simply.
Something in her tone made him stop joking. She leaned forward, voice low. "Listen carefully, Kayden. You're not crazy. What you saw — it's not a hallucination. It's the veil thinning."
He blinked. "The what?"
Seren tapped her fingers against her coffee cup. "The thin layer between what we see and what watches back. Most people never notice. Some do — briefly — before their minds break under it. And a very rare few… survive the look."
Kayden felt a chill crawl down his spine. "You mean like you?"
She smiled faintly. "Exactly like me."
Silence filled the space between them. Rain drummed softly against the window.
He looked at her for a long moment, trying to gauge whether she was delusional or dead serious. The longer he looked, the more he realized — it didn't matter. Something was wrong with the world. He'd felt it before anyone told him.
"So what now?" he asked quietly.
Seren's gaze shifted toward the window. "Now we wait. It always comes back after the first breach."
"The reflection?"
She didn't answer.
Outside, the rain thickened, turning the glass into a trembling canvas of light and motion. People walked by, umbrellas flashing like broken signals in the gloom.
And then, one of them stopped.
Kayden didn't notice at first — not until the air pressure dropped, and every electronic in the café flickered for a second. He looked up just as Seren's expression hardened.
"Don't move," she said softly.
"What?"
She stood abruptly, hand slipping inside her coat — not for a gun, but for a small black device humming faintly.
Through the rain-streaked window, Kayden finally saw what made her tense.
The man outside — or what looked like a man — was standing perfectly still. His face was turned toward the glass, blank, mouth slightly open. But his reflection wasn't facing the same direction.
The mirrored version stared directly at Kayden.
He felt the world tilt, a high-pitched whine filling his ears. His vision doubled — one image, then two, then too many.
Seren muttered something under her breath, the black device glowing in her palm. "We're too exposed."
The lights in the café burst — soft pops, raining glass.
Kayden stumbled back as his reflection in the window turned toward him, independent now, like it had peeled free. The figure outside twitched, head jerking once, twice—
Then it vanished.
No — shifted.
It was inside.
The hum of static filled the café, sharp enough to taste. The figure stood by the counter, limbs too long, face a smear of wrongness, like reality had forgotten its geometry.
Seren threw the device forward — a pulse of blue light erupted, slamming into the thing. The windows cracked outward, glass shivering in unison.
Kayden's thoughts were a blur. His instincts screamed to run — but something deep inside him moved.
Not muscle.
Not will.
Something else.
The world slowed. Sound collapsed. He could see the particles of dust frozen midair, the droplets of rain hovering inches from his skin.
In the silence, a voice — faint, almost kind — whispered from nowhere and everywhere:
"You looked, Kayden. So now it looks back through you."
His body moved before his fear could stop it.
The lights flared white, a shockwave rippling from him — shattering every reflective surface nearby.
The static creature screamed, its form unraveling like smoke pulled backward into the mirrors.
When time resumed, Kayden was on his knees. Seren stood a few feet away, her expression caught between awe and fear.
He looked down at his hands — faint trails of blue static danced along his fingertips before fading.
"What… was that?" he whispered.
Seren holstered the dead device, eyes still locked on him. "That," she said quietly, "is why they'll come for you."
The café was silent except for the sound of the rain — and the faint whisper of shattered reflections trying to piece themselves back together.