brittle wind curled through the streets, the odors of damp asphalt and faint decay could be smelled. A man treaded through a narrow alley, the often crunch of shattered glass beneath his feet reverberating in the still streets. Something about him felt profoundly off.
Each reflection in the broken windows glared back at him. They were foreign, unrecognizable. They felt like a stranger's hollow expression, memories pressed against his head like a crushing voice. He clutched his head with his hands, his breathing shallow.
"This isn't real," he talked to himself, although the words felt hollow as they slowly fell from his lips. The walls around him shrunk, the bricks shifted like tectonic plates. He stumbled forward in a daze, holding onto a nearby rusted metal pipe to balance himself, his reflection was on every surface of the mirrors. The city was alive in the worst way possible. Streetlights pulsed like dying hearts, and shadows ran dark along the ground, darting just out of sight. He felt the gazes but dared to look.
He'd been here before… At least someone had. The memories didn't feel exactly like his: first it's a faceless figure stands at the edge of a rooftop, then a feeling of icy water filling his lungs, and he can hear the sound of distant distorted laughter. Each recollection felt like a blade carving into his mind in an unbearable way, he couldn't tell if what he was seeing was visions of a past life or the nightmares of someone inhabiting his body.
He stopped before one of the half-shattered mirrors, which was larger and in way better shape than all the others. It was leaning nicely and precariously against a crumbling building.
His reflection blinked out of sync with him, eventually tilting its head as if studying him. "Why are you here?" it asked in a calm yet raspy, ethereal voice. It sounded like his voice; but it wasn't.
The man stumbled back, shaking his head in panic.
"I don't know! I don't know what's happening!" The reflection sneered, its movements jerky, disjointed, and fast. "You… you… Living parasite!"
"No," he said, with his voice cracking. "No, I'm… not a parasite"
The words that dropped from his mouth stunk of weakness, like a lie told to pleasure himself. The reflection in the mirror took a large, smiling step forward, out of the mirror, which shattered it.
And it looked different as it stepped out, it was less perfect than it seemed at first, Its face was his face, but a patchwork of features, similar to if someone had wanted to piece him together.
The eyes were hollow, black endless pits that stared at him, yet they had an intensity that made his chest hurt.
It hissed as it advanced on him.
"Let me think… so you've finally forgotten about me, honestly… It sounds like you deserve to be here. You're here because you followed this path"
He chose a direction and ran, the sound of his panicked breaths filled his ears. The alley twisted and warped in an uncanny way. The walls warped so much that they began to have a fleshy and pulsating look. Doors had begun to appear and disappear at random leading nowhere. He grabbed a random handle on one of them and yanked it open, tripping into an empty room lit by a single, dim, flickering bulb.
Lay on the floor a journal. Its pages yellowed and brittle, the handwriting was erratic.
Day 2: The eyes aren't mine. The hands aren't mine. The memories aren't mine. What is… mine?
His hands trembled as he flipped pages.
Day 47: I remember drowning, but I never swam. I remember falling, but I never climbed. The world feels wrong. Like I'm living in punishment.
The final page was blank except for a single word scrawled in bold, angry strokes…
Deserving
The door behind him creaked open, and he turned around with dread in his eyes. The figure from the mirror stood there. It had even more mismatched features, the thing's mouth twisted into a huge, grotesque smile that looked human but didn't fit it's face.
"You can't run from yourself," it said, stepping into the room.
As the horror jerked into the room, he scrambled off the floor tripping on his foot and hitting the journal. The world around him spun in circles, the walls collapsed into themselves like a vortex. He fell, clutching his head as the person's memories started to surge again. A rooftop, the water, the laughter. The laughter was his, exactly his, he thought, even though he didn't remember ever laughing which was weird. And then it stopped. The room silent, the figure gone. The man opened his eyes and found himself lying in the middle of the street, the rain washing him. The city was still again.
He rose to his feet, his body trembling with exhaustion. Rain dripped into his eyes, but he didn't bother wiping it away. He was beyond exhausted, and he looked around empty on the street, searching for any sign of life. "Hello?" he called, his voice hoarse and cracking. The only response was the sound of the rain hitting the pavement. "Is anyone there?"
He started walking, his footsteps sounded louder than they were, they had been echoing because of how large and silent the city was. Unlike before, the world around him was a patchwork of colors, the textures like the brick on the wall didn't quite fit as if someone had tried to rebuild reality from pure memory and failed. Storefronts melted into one another, and streetlights floated and flickered, which had been casting unnatural shadows that danced along the streets and walls, like a demonic celebration.
His breathing grew hoarse as the oppressive emptiness of the streets pressed down on him. He turned a corner and found himself in a plaza, the ground cracked and littered with debris. In the center stood a lamppost, its bulb swinging even in the lack of wind. Beneath it, a figure slumped down resting against it.
He ran toward the figure, relief flooding his chest. "Hey! Are you okay?" he shouted. As he drew closer, his steps faltered. The figure was lifeless, its body crumpled in a heap. Its face was a mirror image, staring up, dead, towards the sky with wide, beautiful eyes.
"No," He whispered, "No, no no." His mind raced, the horror of the situation crashing down on him. He turned and bolted, his harsh screams echoing through empty streets.
As he continued to run, the buildings leaned toward him. The reflections returned, flashing in and out. Every surface showed him smiling, screaming, crying. The cacophony of images overwhelming him.
So he collapsed to his knees in the middle of an intersection.
"Stop!" he cried, clutching his head. His screams rose in pitch until the entire city was vibrating with his agony. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the rain. The world continued to pulled and warped around him, and he felt himself unraveling, his sense of self slipping away even more.
The noise subsided, fading into stillness. His breathing slowed, he shakily raised his head. For a moment, the world appeared normal, the rain soothed the city making it silent. He stood up, his knees were weak, he began walking aimlessly again, each step heavier.
He turned another corner and froze.
A crowd of mannequins stood in the distance and began to march away in unison, their dark silhouettes illuminated by the dim glow of a neon sign. For some reason, grief surged through him, he stumbled forward. "Wait!" he called, his voice cracking.
As he approached, his hopes merged with dread. The figures were still too still. Their bodies looked sculpted out of shadows, their features indistinguishable. They stood in perfect, unnatural rows, their heads tilted to him.
His voice stopped, caught in his throat. and he took slow a step back, the figures took a step forward. Their movements were fluid and wrong as if a puppeteer controlled every motion. The neon sign from before them flickered, casting an alternating shadow, their forms rippling.
"Who are you people?" He demanded, but his voice trembled, "What do you want from me?"
One figure stepped forward, its face still featureless, and raised a hand to point at him. It spoke with no mouth, but the voice resonated in its tragic head. "You can never belong here."
The man stumbled back, shaking his head. "I don't understand! And I still don't know what's happening."
The figure's voice deepened, echoing louder with each word.
The crowd surged toward him as if one, he turned and ran into a nearby alleyway, his heart pounding. He began darting through alleys and over debris, his breath coming in panicked gasps. The dark tide followed, devouring the cityscape behind him.
He reached a dead end, the wall towering above him. He turned to face the oncoming mob with his back pressed against cold brick. As the tide neared, it stopped abruptly, from the depths of the crowd emerged a figure, a perfect replica of himself, down to the fear that had been etched on its face.
He closed his eyes, his mind racing. The memories surged once more: the rooftop, the water, the laughter. He opened his eyes and said:
"Oh great world, show me the real sky and show me how to live… Am I a stranger to myself? Because every step I take feels like walking on the edge of someone else's nightmare. Please, I- I wish to live"
The blaring of an alarm shattered the quiet, a shrill, piercing sound grabbing him by the soul and yanking him from the abyss of unconsciousness. His eyes fluttered open restlessly, blurry and unfocused, staring at the cracks in his ceiling. His dream clung to him, the images slipped away slowly like sand through his fingers. Smoke. Screams. A door he couldn't open. He swallowed, his throat dry and aching. He wasn't sure if the horrors had truly ended or if waking up was merely a layer of unease.
His fingers dug into the coarse fabric of his blanket. The clock on his nightstand blinked red, an unrelenting reminder of time's cruel march forward. 6:30 AM.
He had to go to work.
Dragging himself slothfully from his bed, his body felt heavier, exhaustion settled deep in his bones. The air in the room tasted stale and dry, a faint buzz sound resonated somewhere. He ignored it. He always ignored it. He moved through the motions: shower, dress, leave. The routine was the only thing keeping him grounded.
He stumbled out the door and shut it behind him.
The streets outside were lifeless, it felt like a washed out canvas of gray. The city was quiet, the kind that preceded a storm. And as he walked, he saw his reflection in the puddles and it reminded him of the mirrors.
He sat on the worn bench to wait for the bus, staring at the bare, cracked pavement and listening to the sound of the wind slithering between the buildings.
The bus arrived, its headlights cutting the dense fog of the morning. The doors hissed open as he stepped inside.
The driver didn't acknowledge him like always. The other passengers sat in silence, their faces drawn, exhausted as well. He took his usual seat by the bus's window and exhaled, staring at the city outside. The lights flickered in the early morning, and the dull hum of the engine filled the space around them.
Another flash of the dream crept into his mind. The door opened, and behind it, there was an empty black void. And then a hand reached out. Grasping at him. Pulling his shirt.
The bus stopped. He blinked, and the dream faded as he stood and stepped off. The scent of that damp pavement filled him and his lungs. The doors hissed closed behind him, and the bus went off.
His office building stood before him, glass and steel reflected the gray sky above. The lobby was the same as always- too pristine, too still. The receptionist sat behind the counter, fingers poised over a keyboard, and her nails tapping against the desk in a bored fashion. The lights hummed, casting light across the floor.
He moved toward the elevator. It opened, He stepped inside. The doors slowly slid shut.
As the elevator ascended, his pale, depressed reflection in the metal doors stared back at him. He closed his eyes for just a second, and a fragment of the dream resurfaced: the hallway again, the door again, the void with the hand.
The doors opened to his floor.
The office was a maze, each one cubical identical, a prison. He walked past coworkers, their eyes glued to screens, fingers moving over keyboards. The sound of typing filled the air, a rhythmic drumming.
His desk was exactly as he left it as, papers stacked, a coffee cup from yesterday still full but room temperature. He sat down, the chair creaking beneath him. The monitor flickered, on his computer displayed an email, with no sender, and no subject. A single sentence:
Did you sleep well?
His breath hitched. He suddenly broke out in an anxious sweat. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, unsure of what to type. Confused, the words blurred as exhaustion clawed in his mind.
The lights buzzed louder and louder, the fluorescent hum digging into his skull.
Another flash. The dream. The door swung open. The void. The hand reached for him.
He blinked hard, trying to shake himself out of it. The email was there, the words still stared back at him.
He wasn't sure if he had slept at all.
There was a voice that broke the silence. "You look like hell, man."
His expression changed. It was Connor from accounting. He had a coffee cup in his hand and his eyes looked tired. "Long night?"
He thought about it before answering. "Sure! Heh, something like that."
Connor nodded in understanding and then looked at his screen. "Strange email?"
His skin felt like it was being poked. "You... got one too?"
Connor took a sip of his coffee and let out a loud breath. "Yeah, Did you get a good night's sleep? I thought it was a joke from the IT guys or something."
The sound of keyboards clicking filled the air once more. He looked around at the other workers. Most of them looked the same as always: tired and not bothered. But a few… a few were staring at their screens and not moving. They looked blank.
He felt a deep sense of unease in his stomach.
He closed the letter without replying.
"Yeah, some joke."
His hand shook lightly as he drank his coffee.
The day dragged on. The fluorescent lights sounded muted, the air was thick, weighing on him.
Coworkers whispered too low to quite hear. He couldn't help but pick up traces of eyes upon him, empty ones.
At lunch, he walked over to the breakroom, but the vending machine had nothing.
It was just empty, as if never restocked. The fridge nearby was humming along with the vending machine, when he opened it door, nothing was inside. No forgotten lunches, no old cans of soda. Just an empty, cold space.
He spun around, and Connor was standing in the doorway, staring at him.
"Did I sleep okay?" Connor asked, his voice monotonous.
His stomach knotted.
"What? Only you can know t-hat." he had to force out.
Connor was getting annoyed. "Did you sleep okay…?"
The fluorescent lights hummed. The buzz increased.
He felt the cold metal of the fridge against his back. Connor did not move. Did not flinch.
And then -
The hallway. The door. The void. The hand.
The hum turned into a roar.
And before he knew it, he was on the floor
The tiles, cold against his skin, the distant buzz of fluorescent lights rattling
in his head. His breathing came in gasps, the edges of his sight blurred. Above him, somewhere, Connor's voice cut through the white noise.
"What the-"
He forced himself to sit up, his head throbbing. Connor was crouched beside him, brows furrowed. But something was wrong. The breakroom was empty now- besides Conner. The vending machine, the fridge, even the microwave… gone. Just blank white walls where they should have been.
A sharp ringing drilled into his ears. The one dream clawed its way back into his mind.
His stomach twisted. "Conner I need to go."
Connor stood, his face unreadable. "Where?"
He didn't answer. His legs carried him forward, past Connor, through the door except it didn't lead to the office anymore.
It led to the hallway.
The same one from his dream.
The hallway stretched in both directions, dimly lit by buzzing overhead lights. The walls were blank and featureless, never touched by human hands. His breath echoed.
This isn't real.
He turned, expecting to see the breakroom, the office- anything, but the door was gone. Just more of the hallway. No more Conner.
Footsteps.
Slow. Deliberate. Coming from behind.
He turned sharply, but no one was there following him.
"Conner?"
"Did you sleep well?"
His blood ran cold.
He walked forward, each step hesitant, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. a flickering light above revealed something. A door…
The same door from the...
He swallowed, his throat dry…The closer he got, the heavier his limbs felt. His hand trembled as he reached for the handle. The metal was ice-cold beneath his fingers.
A breath whispered in the silence.
He opened the door.
The cold break room air pressed against his skin, the scent of burnt coffee lingering in the silence. Connor still stood in the doorway, unmoving, his expression eerily vacant.
His pulse hammered in his ears.
"Connor," he said slowly, his voice barely above a whisper.
No reaction, He stepped forward cautiously, waving a hand in front of Connor's face. Nothing. No blink, no shift, no recognition. A hollow stare with eyes fully open in front of him.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flickering once, no, twice, before steadying again.
A chill crawled up his spine.
Connor blinked. His body stiffened like he had just woken up. He frowned, rubbing his temple.
"Shi- sorry," Connor muttered, shaking his head. "I- what was I saying?"
"…asked if I slept well?"
Connor gave a half-laugh, but there was unease behind it. "Yeah? Guess I'm out of it today." He rubbed his face aggressively making his eyes even more red than they had been.
The words felt familiar, but he didn't press. He exhaled, forcing himself to move past Connor and back toward his desk. His hands trembling.
The office was different. But as he sat at his desk and stared at his monitor, that feeling didn't leave.
And when he checked his email again, the creepy message that was sent to him was gone. He was calmed.
The rest of the afternoon passed by in a quick blur, the weight in his chest gradually easing. Maybe it was just exhaustion playing tricks on him. Maybe Connor had just been zoning out, the same as anyone would on a Monday.
The sun dipped below the skyline, casting a warm amber glow over the city, his shoulders loosened up and his breaths came back easier. The office, sterile and suffocating, just felt like what it was- routine, nothing more.
On the bus ride home, he watched the streets, the neon signs, and people. It felt grounding, familiar. When he stepped inside his apartment, the air was still dry. He changed into something comfortable, brewed a cup of tea, and sat by the window, letting the city lights fill the silence.
No eerie stares. Just the hum of distant traffic and the soft clinking of his mug against the table. For the first time in what felt like days, he let himself breathe and then-
…
The hallway. The door. The void. The hand.
The words pulsed in his skull, looping over and over like a broken record.
The hallway. The door. The void. The hand.
His tea had gone cold. The city lights blurred outside the window, mushing together in his vision. His limbs felt heavy, his chest tight. His breathing slowed, but his thoughts sped up, spiraling, repeating.
The hallway. The door. The void. The hand.
He pressed his palms against his temples, squeezing his eyes shut. He was fine. He was home. He was-
The hallway. The door. The void. The hand.
His stomach lurched. His skin prickled. His reflection in the darkened window looked off- but just slightly, subtly.
He turned away.
His apartment was too quiet, too still. The air seemed to thicken around him. His pulse pounded, and his vision swam. Overwhelmed, he jolted out the door far away from his house…
He stumbled into the streets. A glass doctor- something inside him urged him forward.
His feet carried him past familiar landmarks, a convenience store, where he'd bought late-night snacks in the past, he went past the bus stop where he'd sit in silence.
He found it- a tiny shop tucked between a laundromat and a closed café. A flickering sign read:
"Doctor's Glasswork: We Fix!"
The doorbell jingled as he stepped in. The air had weight and something sharp, like melted metal. Shelves filled with glass objects- mirrors, vases.
A hunched figure emerged from the back. His glasses reflected, obscuring his eyes.
"You look lost," the man- Doctor, presumably- said in a voice both tired and knowing.
He swallowed. "I think I'm, broken?"
Doctor nodded as if this was something he'd heard before. "Then let's see what needs fixing."
Without another word, he gestured to a chair in the middle of the shop, surrounded by shards of shattered glass.
The man hesitated, staring at the chair. It was old, smooth in places where others had sat. But what unsettled him most was the floor being thick with broken glass, shards glittering in the dim light. Some pieces were so small they looked like dust; others were large enough to slice a deep wound.
Doctor watched him with a gentle expression. "Go on," he said softly gesturing to the chair.
He lowered himself into the chair.
Doctor knelt before him, reaching into his coat. "People misunderstand glass," he mused, pulling out a tiny, silver hammer. "They think it's fragile. Weak. But glass doesn't just break."
His breath hitched. "What do you mean?"
Doctor tapped the hammer against the floor. The sound was sharp, and for a second, the glass shards around them moved. Just slightly.
"You've been broken before, haven't you?" Doctor asked. He didn't wait for an answer. He raised the hammer and gently pressed the cold metal to the man's forehead. "You've cracked, splintered, held yourself together even when you shouldn't have."
He flinched. The pressure wasn't painful, but it wasn't right.
"Do you know why glass shatters?" Doctor continued, "Because it's tired of holding shape. It gives in, it lets go."
His pulse roared in his ears. His body wouldn't listen. He looked down- and his breath had caught in his throat.
The man's breath quickened. He felt wrong like something deep inside him was shifting, realigning in ways he couldn't understand. His body trembled, but not from cold.
Doctor lifted the hammer from his forehead and studied him. "You're holding back," he murmured. "You've spent so much time trying to stay whole,"
He tried to answer, but his throat was dry, his words stuck deep inside him. A memory surfaced- his desk, buried in papers; the hum of fluorescent lights overhead; his boss's voice droning in about missing deadlines, and his expectations. He remembered staring at the clock, watching all the hands drag on forward, feeling like he would never catch up.
The glass on the floor shifted again. He swore it was breathing.
Doctor smiled. It wasn't comforting. "You don't have to answer," he said, voice thick with something unreadable. "I already know."
The lights flickered.
Something crunched behind him.
His spine went rigid. Slowly he turned his head toward the darkened corners of the shop. The shelves loomed over him now, warped and taller than before. And within them, something moved.
No… many things.
Reflections blinked back at him from the glass, warped, distorted faces. They pressed against the surface, mouths open in screams, eyes pleading.
He shot to his feet, heart slamming against his ribs. The chair rocked, its legs scraping against the shards below.
Doctor just watched. One of them whispered.
"Let go."
Something behind the glass knocked.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
And then the glass started to crack.
The cracks spread outward like veins, thin first, then splitting deeper. The sound of it was through his bones. The faces behind the glass weren't trapped anymore.
The man stumbled, his heel crunched against the floor. A reflection watched with a sick sort of patience, its lips curling into something that wasn't quite a smile.
Doctor didn't move.
"Have you ever wondered… who's been keeping you inside?"
From the widening cracks, something leaked out. It wasn't blood, wasn't liquid at all- it was darker, thicker, wrong. It crawled along the surface of his skin, shifting like a mass of writhing fingers, of twisting mouths gasping for air. The faces behind the glass watched it hungrily.
A scream built in his throat, but he never got the chance to release it.
The lights died.
For a single moment, the room was drowned in darkness. Then-
A snap.
And the whole world came crashing down.
Shards rained from every direction, slicing through the air, through his skin. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for pain.
But there was none.
He forced himself to look.
The walls were gone. The shop was gone.
All that remained was a vast, endless void, stretching in all directions like the inside of a shattered mirror. And standing before him, among the floating, jagged remnants of the shop, was a person.
It studied him with something close to amusement. "You fought it for so long," it said, voice layered. "You thought you could keep it buried?"
His hands clenched into fists. Doctor's voice drifted from the void.
"You're not here to be fixed." The reflection smiled.
"You're here to remember."
"You've been here before."
The man turned wildly. "No," he choked out. "No, I would remember- "
But deep down, something inside him did remember.
The mirrors. The endless halls. The shattering.
And the figure in front of him, watched it all unfold with quiet satisfaction.
Then, it reached out.
"Come back," it whispered.
And the glass exploded.
His eyes shot open. Sitting at his desk.
Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, their sterile glow washing over stacks of untouched paperwork. The computer screen flickered in front of him, displaying an open spreadsheet. The clock on the wall read 3:47 AM.
His heart pounded against his ribs. He ran his trembling fingers slowly over the skin on his face. Real.
He turned, half-expecting Doctor to be standing behind him. But there was no shop, no broken glass, no void... just the empty, lifeless office.
A dream.
A hallucination.
A breakdown.
But as he reached for his mouse, he froze.
A small sliver of glass sat beside his keyboard.
It was impossibly smooth, a single perfect shard, reflecting just a bit too much light. And when he looked into it, just for a second he saw himself staring back.
But his reflection wasn't moving with him.
It was smiling. For the first time in years, he simply stopped.
He walked. He'd never noticed it before, past buildings he'd never looked twice at. He watched the world breathe and watched the sun melt nicely into the skyline, and listened to the quiet hum of life beyond the office walls.
Days passed like rain and he found a job at a small bookstore, the hole-in-the-wall kind of place with dust in the corners and one of those bells that jingled when customers usually walked in. It didn't pay much, but it was enough. Enough to live. And enough to be.