I used to see myself in the mirror. Not clearly. Not perfectly. But enough. Enough to believe the face was mine, the eyes were mine, the cracks were mine. Not anymore. Now, it watches me. Like it knows something I don’t. Like it’s waiting. I don’t know when it changed. Maybe it never reflected me at all— just mimicked. Copied. Studied. And now it’s better at being me than I ever was. I catch it moving half a second too late— a blink that forgets to happen, a twitch that shouldn’t be there. Sometimes its mouth stretches into a smile when I’m dead silent inside. Other times it stares with eyes that burn colder than my thoughts ever could. And when I ask, “What are you?” it doesn’t answer. It doesn’t need to. Because I already know: I’ve been replaced. That thing behind the glass— it wears my sadness like silk, wraps my guilt around its neck like a necklace made of bone. It took everything hollow in me and made it home. Now I avoid the mirror. Keep the lights low. Pretend I don’t hear it when I walk past— the soft scrape of a fingernail against the other side. But sometimes, when I’m tired— too tired to pretend— I look. And it’s not me looking back. Not anymore. It’s something that crawled in through my silence, fed on my regret, and made a face from my ruin. And the worst part is, it fits. It fits too well.