The mirror shattered — but the glass didn’t fall. It hung in the air, frozen, sharp edges glinting like teeth. Each shard reflected something different.
One showed the boy wearing my face, laughing with my mom. Another showed me, hollow-eyed and broken. The rest showed things — shapes that shouldn’t exist, writhing in the shadows.
The thing behind me leaned in close, its voice a sickly whisper.
“Pick one.”
My throat tightened. “What?”
It chuckled, a wet, gurgling sound.
“Pick a shard. Pick a life.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. The shards rippled, and for a moment, I saw lives that weren’t mine — a boy running through a forest, a woman staring at a family she didn’t belong to, a man crying in a room that wasn’t his.
The thing’s voice dripped with something that almost sounded like joy.
“You didn’t think this was just about you, did you?”
The mirror shards twisted again, and this time, I saw something worse.
I saw my mom.
But not the one I knew.
She was standing in our kitchen, her face pale, eyes red from crying. The boy wearing my face sat at the table, smiling like nothing was wrong.
“Mom!” I screamed, slamming my fists against the space where the mirror used to be.
She didn’t hear me. She didn’t even flinch.
The boy looked up — and his eyes met mine through the shard. He grinned.
Then he spoke.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice playful, mocking. “She doesn’t miss you. She likes me better.”
I felt something snap inside me.
The thing behind me laughed again, louder this time.
“Pick a shard,” it said. “Or I’ll pick for you.”
The glass began to vibrate, faster and faster, the reflections blurring together into a mess of lives and faces.
The Stranger In My Photos 45 🤔🤔