The darkness swallowed the bathroom whole.
Only those two cold blue-white circles remained, floating where his eyes had been. A low chuckle echoed off the tiles, soft as a secret.
Emma’s breath caught in her throat. Her phone slipped from her fingers and clattered into the sink.
She stumbled backward until her spine hit the cold wall. The robe clung to her damp skin. Water droplets from the mirror still trickled down her neck like icy fingers.
The lights suddenly surged back on with a violent buzz.
He was standing right in front of her now — not in the mirror, but real, flesh and blood. His face looked normal again. Almost. Except the smile lingered a second too long, stretching just a fraction wider than humanly possible.
“Emma,” he whispered, voice velvet-smooth. “You’ve been under so much stress since the accident.”
The accident.
Her sister’s car plunging off the bridge six months ago. The closed casket. The endless nights Emma had woken screaming her sister’s name.
She had met Daniel three weeks after the funeral. He was kind. Attentive. He knew exactly how she took her coffee, how she liked the pillows arranged, even the lullaby her sister used to sing when they were kids.
Too perfect.
“You’re not him,” she breathed, voice cracking.
Daniel tilted his head, studying her like a curious predator. “I’ve been him for months. Every kiss. Every touch. Every time you whispered you loved me in the dark.”
Emma’s stomach twisted. She remembered the rose petals he scattered on their bed last week. The candlelit dinners. The way he held her while she cried about her sister.
All of it poisoned now.
She lunged for the door. His hand shot out and caught her wrist with terrifying strength.
“Don’t,” he said softly. “She waited so long. She watched you grieve. She watched you fall for me. And now… she’s ready for her turn.”
The mirror behind him rippled like water.
In its surface, Emma saw her own reflection — except the woman in the glass had black eyes and her sister’s smile.
Daniel stepped closer, his breath cold against her ear.
“We’ve shared this body long enough. She wants her sister back. And she’s tired of waiting.”
Emma screamed as the lights flickered again.
The last thing she saw before everything went black was her sister’s face emerging from behind Daniel’s skin — like something peeling away a mask made of flesh and memory.
In the suffocating darkness, two voices spoke as one.
“Come home, little sister.”
The mirror waited. Silent. Patient. Hungry.
And somewhere in the house, rose petals began to fall from nowhere, drifting down like snow across the cold bathroom floor.