Ethan awoke to silence.

  Not the kind of silence that meant peace — this was heavier. Suspicious. As if the air itself had chosen to withhold sound. He blinked at the ceiling, motionless, letting his senses drift outward. The ticking of the wall clock was missing. So was the faint hum of traffic. All that remained was the dull, pressurized ache pulsing just behind his eyes.

  He sat up slowly. His muscles resisted, not with soreness, but stiffness — as though he hadn’t rested, merely paused. His bedsheets were twisted around his legs. Sweat clung to his back. The mirror across the room stared back at him, ordinary and still.

  But only on the surface.

  He stood and crossed the room. His feet felt heavy, like the floor pulled slightly against him. When he reached the mirror, he paused. His reflection blinked when he did. Tilted its head in sync. Everything was… normal.

  Almost.

  He leaned closer. For a breathless second, the reflection’s pupils glinted — not with light, but with the faint shimmer of something fractured. And then it was gone.

  He exhaled. “Not today,” he muttered.

  The water from the faucet hit his palms colder than expected, biting into his skin. He splashed his face and gripped the sink edge, eyes closed. When he looked up, the mirror above the sink showed him — pale, tired, with dark circles under his eyes and his hair clinging damply to his forehead. He looked less like someone who had slept, more like someone who had escaped something.

  He brushed his teeth slowly. Then toast — or what should have been toast. The bread popped out already burned, though he could have sworn he adjusted the timer. He stared at the charred edges, unmoving. Eventually, he threw it out and left the kitchen without a bite.

  His boots echoed dully against the sidewalk. Greyford was blanketed in overcast skies, the kind that filtered light through layers of pollution and cloud until the whole world looked like a faded photograph. Storefront windows passed by on either side, some fogged with dew, others too clean, reflecting the street with uncanny precision.

  Every time Ethan passed a reflective surface, he glanced — not at himself, but behind himself. Just in case.

  He took a shortcut through Denton Alley, a crooked stretch of road between the back of an old laundromat and a long-abandoned toy store. The alley was wet with leftover rain. One puddle shimmered unnaturally, reflecting light that wasn’t there.

  He slowed.

  The alley felt wrong. Quieter than the rest of Greyford. Narrower than he remembered.

  That was when he heard it.

  A distant hum — like electricity running through glass. His pulse quickened. He turned slowly toward the wall of the toy store, where a cracked display mirror was mounted just beside a boarded-up window. The mirror’s surface was trembling, pulsing with tiny ripples as if it were water disturbed by a breeze.

  He stepped back.

  The puddle beside his foot began to vibrate.

  Ethan’s eyes widened.

  From the mirror, a low growl seeped into the air, vibrating in his chest more than his ears. The glass in the shop window began to splinter — not with sharp, sudden breaks, but with slow, calculated fractures, as if something on the other side were tracing claws across it.

  Then it began to emerge.

  A paw — no, a limb, slick with obsidian flesh, dripping with slow-moving shadows — pressed through the puddle like it was pushing through plastic wrap. Glass fragments hovered around its joints, embedded like armor. Its ribs were made of slanted mirror shards that glinted faint gold.

  The Mirrorhound stepped fully into view, its elongated head rotating slightly too far to the left, the cracks in its skull rearranging like puzzle pieces. Its mouth opened wide, but it didn’t snarl.

  It spoke.

  “Greyford does not belong to you anymore, Ethan Gray.”

  Behind it, a second Mirrorhound began to crawl from the side panel of a parked delivery van — its reflection warping the metal, melting physics as it emerged.

  Ethan took a step back.

  Then another.

  Then he ran.

  ...................................................................................................

  The air behind him cracked.

  Not the sound of thunder, not metal — it was glass under strain. A shrill, high-pitched tension that pulled at his spine as Ethan sprinted out of Denton Alley and onto the main street. His boots slapped the pavement, breath sharp in his chest, but no matter how fast he ran, he could hear them — claws on concrete, the scraping of broken glass dragged across stone.

  The Mirrorhounds were following.

  He glanced back once and wished he hadn’t.

  The one that had spoken — taller now, with elongated legs and a jaw that distended sideways when it ran — was only meters behind. And its eyes weren’t glowing anymore.

  They were watching.

  Studying.

  Learning.

  Ethan veered right into another alley, knocking over a trash can to slow his pursuers. It barely helped. The hounds didn’t run — they moved, like sliding images from different angles stitched together. Each step seemed to flicker, half-frame animations glitching through the air.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  One leapt. Ethan ducked under a hanging sign and rolled behind a rusted utility box. He pressed his back to it, heart hammering.

  Silence.

  For a moment.

  Then, a voice — smooth, steady — his voice.

  “You’re burning magic just by panicking.”

  Ethan whipped around. In the broken window behind him, the reflection stood — arms crossed, gaze unreadable.

  “They’re drawn to you now,” the reflection continued. “You activated your power. You left residue. They smelled it.”

  Ethan clenched his fists. “What do they want?”

  “You. Dead or shattered. Preferably both.”

  Ethan cursed under his breath. “Then help me.”

  “I am.”

  The reflection tilted its head toward a cracked rearview mirror hanging from a junked car nearby. The glass shimmered faintly.

  “You’ve done it once before. You can do it again. Focus. Let your fear sharpen. Let it pass through your eyes.”

  Ethan swallowed. His hands trembled. He could hear the hounds circling — one of them scraping its claws against a metal pipe, the other breathing through broken teeth.

  He closed his eyes.

  And reached inward.

  At first, there was only the noise — the chaos, the terror.

  But then came the pulse — like a second heartbeat beneath his own. Slow. Heavy. Carved from fractured rhythm.

  Behind his eyes, something clicked open.

  He stood.

  Just in time.

  The first Mirrorhound lunged.

  And Ethan looked directly at it — eyes wide, power surging.

  A shockwave of refracted light burst from his gaze — not bright, but sharp. It bent the air like heat off metal, rippling forward in concentric circles. The hound howled as the pulse hit it square in the chest, sending it skidding backwards in a tumble of limbs and shards. It collided with a lamppost and shattered its own back.

  The second hound paused, growling low.

  Ethan exhaled, chest rising and falling. He stared at his own hands again — veins glowing faintly with mirrored light, like glass filaments beneath the skin.

  The reflection reappeared in the car mirror, smirking.

  “Good. That was Mirror Pulse. Unfocused, but still effective.”

  Ethan didn’t look away. “I can’t do that again. I feel… empty.”

  “Because you are. You haven’t trained. That burst drained you. The fractures in your soul are still raw.”

  “Then what now?”

  “Now? You run. But not aimlessly.”

  A crack in the sky echoed in the distance — not thunder, but resonance. The reflection’s expression shifted.

  “They’ve opened something. A gate. The one from last time.”

  Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “The factory.”

  “Exactly.”

  A pause. Then:

  “You can still end this. Seal the breach. But not alone.”

  Ethan gritted his teeth. The second hound stepped forward — cautious now, but not done.

  “Go,” the reflection said. “While you still can.”

  Ethan bolted again, this time toward the industrial zone.

  His legs screamed. His lungs burned. His vision blurred from pain and light.

  But he didn’t stop.

  Because behind him, the world was changing.

  And the mirror was watching.

  ..........................................................................................................................................

  The factory loomed like a memory built from rust.

  Twisted smokestacks clawed at the sky like dead trees. Its broken windows reflected the stormlight in jagged patterns, and the walls sagged with decay and something worse — presence. Ethan slowed to a walk, every breath labored, every step heavier than the last.

  He pushed open the warped metal door, its hinges shrieking like a warning.

  Inside, the air was thick with dust and... resonance — not sound, but sensation. The same pulse that vibrated behind his eyes now echoed through the walls. This place was alive, and it was watching.

  He passed collapsed conveyor belts, rusted barrels, and shredded crates. Shards of broken glass littered the floor — some still shimmered faintly. Ethan avoided looking directly into them.

  And then he saw it.

  The mirror gate.

  A massive, vertical shard of glass embedded into the wall, warped at the edges like it had melted and re-solidified mid-breath. Its surface pulsed like liquid mercury, and deep within it, Ethan could see faint shapes moving — shadows pacing the other side.

  Scorch marks clawed across the concrete at its base. A circle of old blood surrounded the frame. Ethan felt the pull immediately — the way the mirror wanted him close, like a mouth waiting to speak.

  But it wasn’t alone.

  A low growl rumbled from the darkness behind a collapsed pillar.

  Then… it stepped out.

  The Runeblight.

  Larger than any Mirrorhound. Its body was half-shadow, half muscle — like sculpted onyx wrapped in black smoke. Along its spine, glowing crimson runes pulsed, their meaning unknown but instinctively hostile. Its head bore two fractured horns, and its jaw was split into three segments, each lined with serrated glass.

  It locked eyes with Ethan.

  And charged.

  Ethan dove left, narrowly missing a swipe that obliterated an entire girder behind him. Sparks and rust exploded across the floor. He rolled, scrambled behind a dead compressor, and raised his hand—

  Nothing.

  No pulse. No shimmer. His power was gone.

  The beast roared — not from its mouth, but from every inch of its runes. It moved with terrifying purpose, like it had been waiting specifically for him.

  Ethan stumbled toward the mirror, breath shallow.

  “I can’t… do this…”

  And then the reflection appeared.

  Not in a nearby shard — in the gate itself.

  “You're out of energy,” it said calmly. “You're not ready for this battle.”

  Ethan backed against the glass, blood on his lip, chest heaving. “You’re still stuck. You can’t cross unless I—”

  “Unless you allow it,” the reflection nodded. “Yes. Give me control. I can end this. Before the breach widens.”

  The Runeblight roared again — closer now, its claws tearing ruts in the steel floor.

  “Ethan,” the reflection said, his voice almost gentle, “trust me.”

  Ethan’s eyes flicked to the beast, then back to himself — to the version of himself that didn’t look tired, didn’t look afraid.

  He touched the mirror.

  And the world fractured.

  The switch was instant.

  Ethan vanished into the glass.

  The reflection stepped out.

  Same face. Same body.

  But different posture. Shoulders squared. Jaw set. Eyes burning with mirrored fire.

  The Runeblight lunged.

  And the reflection moved.

  Where Ethan had flailed, he danced — slipping under claws, vaulting over debris, turning glass into weapon and armor alike.

  “So slow,” he whispered, as Mirror Pulse burst from his eye and cracked the floor beneath the beast.

  He raised his hand — shards from the broken factory mirrors hovered in the air, orbiting like satellites. With a flick, they fired — piercing the beast’s limbs and pinning it against the wall. It roared, but the runes flickered — destabilizing.

  The reflection stepped forward.

  “I told you, Ethan,” he said, forming a sigil midair — a geometric fractal of curved light and shattered energy.

  “You’re not ready.”

  The beast broke free, charging one last time.

  The reflection raised his arm, palm glowing.

  “But I am.”

  He struck.

  A blinding blast of fractal light and shattering glass erupted from his sigil. The Runeblight screamed — not from pain, but from breaking. It collapsed into ash and shards, dissolving at the foot of the gate it had emerged from.

  Silence returned.

  The reflection turned to the mirror — Ethan was there, on the other side, watching with wide eyes.

  “That’s how you end a threat.”

  He smiled.

  Not kindly.

  Not cruelly.

  Just… possessively.

  “Rest, Ethan. I’ll hold your place a while longer.”

  And the mirror went still.