Dr. Elijah Vale was a man of reason.Twelve years a licensed clinical psychologist, board certified, Ivy League educated. He believed in the mind, not the supernatural. The mind could play tricks, yes—but those tricks were symptoms, not omens. They were distortions, not realities.
He sat in his sterile, beige-walled office inside Ashridge Mental Wellness Center, reviewing the chart of a newly admitted patient: Mara Ellin, 29. Diagnosed with schizophrenia at 24. History of visual and auditory hallucinations, religious delusions, paranoia. No violent history. Transferred from a public hospital due to worsening episodes.
He flipped to the intake notes.
"Claims she sees 'them' watching through glass, through reflections. Refuses to look in mirrors. Suffers frequent panic attacks, excessive sweating, reports of tremors. Claims therapist before her 'was taken.'"
Dr. Vale sighed, then checked his watch. 9:02 a.m. He buzzed the front desk.
"Send in Ms. Ellin."
Session One
Mara entered stiffly, shoulders hunched. Her hair clung to her forehead, damp with sweat, and her arms trembled violently. Her fingers picked at the hem of her sleeves like she was trying to unravel herself. She wouldn't sit until Vale gestured calmly to the chair.
"Do you know why you're here, Mara?"
She nodded, but her eyes darted around the room, refusing to meet his.
"They said I need help.""And do you think you do?"
She licked her lips. "I'm not crazy, Dr. Vale. I just see... what you don't."
"Tell me what you see."
Mara finally looked at him. Her eyes were pale green and wide with terror. "They follow me. Through the mirrors. Through anything reflective. They're not hallucinations. They're real. The last therapist, Dr. Kinn, laughed at me too. He's dead now."
Dr. Vale resisted a smirk. "He moved states for personal reasons."
"No," she said, her voice trembling. "That's what they told you."
She pointed to the two-way observation mirror on the far wall.
"They're behind that. Always watching. They wear your face sometimes. It's not always you in here."
Dr. Vale turned slowly to the mirror, feeling a sudden weight in his chest. Of course it was just glass. But when he looked... he wasn't entirely sure he liked the way his reflection stared back.
Session Three
He started seeing flickers.
Out of the corner of his eye, shapes moved where there was no one. Dark shapes. He dismissed it as stress. After all, his caseload had doubled.
Mara was worse. Or better, depending on how one looked at it. Still sweating buckets. Her chair was stained from it. Her lips were cracked, like she barely drank water. She refused to use the sink in her room.
"They whisper in the water," she said today. "I heard your name."
Dr. Vale chuckled, uneasy. "What did they say?"
Her mouth twitched into something like pity. "That you were next."
That night, he dreamt of the sink in his private bathroom. Something inside the drain pulsing like a throat. Breathing. When he woke up, he was standing in front of the mirror with a shard of glass in his hand, blood on his palm.
Session Five
Mara wouldn't come in until he covered the mirror. So he did, annoyed at himself for humoring it. But she sat easier that way, even though her hands still shook.
"I saw them again last night," she whispered.
"Where?"
"In your office.""You weren't in my office."
"I don't have to be. They're drawn to you now. I'm sorry."
He narrowed his eyes. "Sorry?"
"They like minds that are wide open. Brains that aren't broken yet. Fresh walls to crawl in."
He laughed then, too loudly, and wrote something on his notepad: Increased severity of delusions, transference escalating.
"Would you like to try a new medication, Mara?"
She shook her head rapidly. "No, no. That's how they feed. That's how they slip in. Sedation is surrender."
He stared at her. "That's... a new perspective."
Mara leaned forward. "Do you dream of water now, Doctor?"
He didn't answer.
Because he did.
Session Seven
His assistant found him staring at the bathroom mirror for 40 minutes.
He had no recollection of entering the room.
Mara was silent today. Just rocked in the chair, her sweat dripping to the floor, making small puddles. Her fingernails were gone—bitten or torn away. Blood crusted under her cuticles.
"I can hear them walking inside your voice now," she finally muttered.
He rubbed his temples. "There's nothing inside my voice, Mara."
"There will be," she said. "They get in through sound, through reflections, through touch. And when you deny them, that's when they split you. Like mirrors do. Crack, crack, crack…"
"Enough!" Dr. Vale barked, suddenly furious.
She flinched violently. Then laughed. "That wasn't your voice just now. Not all of it."
He stormed out of the office.
He could still hear her laughing, even as the door closed. Even as he walked down the hallway. Even in his own office.
Session Nine
He hadn't slept in two days. Every time he closed his eyes, they opened on a different version of his office. One where the mirror pulsed like skin, where his reflection kept whispering gibberish.
When Mara came in, she paused.
"You're sweating now," she said, voice low. "It started, hasn't it?"
He didn't respond. He'd started keeping his own notes in a locked drawer. Private observations. Not for any board or supervisor.
Day 14: Patient's speech patterns consistent. But I've begun to… hear things.
Day 16: Noticed slight delay in reflection today. Mine blinked out of sync.
Day 17: The drain murmured something this morning. It knew my mother's name.
Mara sat down gently.
"They don't like when you write," she said. "You're warning someone."
"I'm documenting," he corrected hoarsely.
She tilted her head. "Do you think this is still your office?"
He looked around.
Yes… but something was wrong. The lights flickered sometimes—not the way lights normally flicker, but in rhythms. Like blinking eyes. He no longer entered unless the mirror was covered. But once… just once, he caught his reflection smiling when he wasn't.
He'd stopped shaving. The idea of touching his own skin repulsed him.
"I think…" he began slowly, "I need help."
Mara nodded.
"That's the first true thing you've said in here."
Session Eleven
Dr. Vale's recording devices malfunctioned. All the footage from his last session played back distorted—his voice reversed, Mara's words echoing even before she spoke them.
He reported it to IT. They laughed it off.
He didn't laugh.
Mara's hands were bandaged now. She'd tried to claw her ears out. Said she heard herself screaming in the silence.
"It's louder now," she whispered through cracked lips. "Like a hundred mouths pressing against the glass. You hear it too, don't you?"
Dr. Vale's hands trembled. "How do you make it stop?"
"You don't."
She leaned closer. "The last therapist tried. He broke every mirror in the building. Hid the glass in his skin so they couldn't use him. That's why they had to take him."
"They took him?"She nodded.
"And now you," she added. "You listen too closely. You look too much."
He stood, breathing hard.
"I—I think we need to pause treatment."
Mara smiled a cracked, bloody grin.
"There is no pause. You're the reflection now."
Final Session
No one found Dr. Vale the next morning.
His office was locked from the inside. His notes were shredded, waterlogged, and left in the sink. Every mirror in the building was smashed.
Security footage showed nothing—except an empty chair across from Mara. She stared at it, smiling, sweat soaking her gown, trembling as if something sat across from her still.
The police report stated it as an unresolved disappearance. But the custodial staff whispered of something else.
Of catching glimpses of someone else in the mirrors.
Someone who looked like Dr. Vale… but didn't move quite right. Blinked too late. Smiled too long.
And sometimes—just sometimes—when a new therapist walked by Mara's old office, they'd see her silhouette still seated inside. Even though she'd been transferred to a maximum-security ward weeks ago.
Sometimes, she was smiling.
Sometimes, she wasn't.
But the chair across from her… was never empty.
End.