Chapter 60 – The Second Reflection

Chapter 60 – The Second Reflection


The moment Lucas slammed the door behind us, I knew we were in trouble.

Not because we were sneaking into the abandoned art room again—which was basically a second home by now—but because of the way his jaw was set, sharp with tension. He was pacing. And Lucas only paced when things were either Very Bad or he was feeling Too Much.

Maybe both.

“Okay,” I said, sitting cross-legged on the dusty desk. “You’re pacing. That’s never a good sign. What did we miss?”

Lucas ran a hand through his hair, messing it up worse than usual. “The mirror in the East Building—it cracked again. But differently this time. Like it was reacting to us.”

“Reacting… how?”

He looked up, his eyes stormy. “It showed us, Rae. You and me. Not just reflections. A version of us—but we were different.”

“Different like how?”

He hesitated. “Like… happier. Normal. No mirror curses. No switching. Just you and me, in school. Laughing. Holding hands.”

That hit me like a freight train I wasn’t prepared for.

Holding hands. Laughing. Normal.

Was that what we could’ve had if none of this happened?

Or worse—was the mirror taunting us with something we’d never get?

Lucas must’ve seen my expression shift, because he crossed the room in two strides and sat on the desk beside me.

“It freaked me out,” he admitted. “Seeing that.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

A silence settled between us—not awkward this time, but charged. Like the static that comes before a thunderstorm.

“Do you ever think about it?” I asked quietly. “What we’d be like… without all this?”

Lucas’s shoulder bumped mine. “Yeah. More than I should.”

I turned to look at him.

His eyes were softer now. Honest. And maybe a little scared.

“But then,” he added, “we wouldn’t be us.”

My breath caught. “Lucas…”

“I’m serious. You were right before. About the kiss. About everything. I didn’t know what to do with it because I’ve never felt like this about someone before. Not like this.”

My heart was doing backflips.

“Then stop overthinking it,” I whispered.

He laughed—short, surprised. “You’re really bad at giving people time, you know that?”

“You’re really bad at letting people in.”

That shut him up.

For a second.

Then, without another word, he leaned in.

And this time, there was no mirror between us. No curses. No monsters. Just lips meeting lips—warm and real and a little bit shaky. Like we were both scared of what it meant, but too far in to pull back.

I kissed him back like I meant it.

Because I did.

When we pulled apart, our foreheads stayed pressed together, breaths mingling.

Lucas’s voice was low. “That thing we saw… the version of us in the mirror…”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want that to be fake.”

“It’s not,” I said. “It’s just… future us.”

He smiled, and God, it made him look younger. Lighter. Like the weight he always carried was finally slipping.

Then, of course, the universe remembered we weren’t allowed to be happy for more than thirty seconds.

A loud CRACK echoed through the building.

Lucas jumped up, yanking me to my feet. “That came from downstairs.”

I didn’t even argue. We ran, heartbeats in sync, feet pounding against dusty linoleum. As we hit the stairs, the air changed. Heavy. Cold.

The kind of cold that whispered your name wrong.

We burst into the East Building hallway—and stopped dead.

The mirror was there.

But not just there.

It had grown.

It now stretched across the entire hallway wall, shimmering like water and fire and something that didn’t belong in this world.

And in front of it—

Jamie Carter.

Or what was left of him.

He stood motionless, arms slack, but his eyes—if you could call them eyes—glowed silver. His reflection grinned wide, too wide, like it was stretching skin.

“Jamie,” I whispered.

He didn’t move.

But the reflection did.

It stepped out of the mirror.

No longer a reflection—no longer bound.

Lucas shoved me behind him instinctively. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

But I couldn’t move.

Because the thing that stepped out of the mirror didn’t just look like Jamie.

It shifted.

One blink—and it looked like me.

Another—and it looked like Lucas.

Then both. Merged. Warped. Like it couldn’t decide which of us to copy.

I grabbed Lucas’s sleeve. “It’s trying to become one of us.”

“It’s been watching,” he said grimly. “Learning.”

The creature tilted its head. “You don’t belong here,” it said in a voice that was both of ours layered together.

“Yeah, well, neither do you,” Lucas snapped.

The thing smiled.

Then charged.

We barely dove out of the way in time. The hallway lights exploded above us. Sparks rained down as the creature slammed into the lockers, denting them like paper.

Lucas grabbed a fallen pipe from the floor. “Rae—run!”

“Not without you!”

I searched frantically for anything—anything—that could help. Then I saw it.

The art supply closet.

The mirror shards.

I darted toward it, yanked the door open, and found what I needed—an old handheld mirror, cracked but intact.

“HEY!” I yelled.

The creature turned—just in time to see its own face reflected back.

It screamed.

The sound was wrong. Like glass shattering in reverse.

Lucas didn’t hesitate. He drove the pipe into the creature’s center while it was stunned.

It collapsed, convulsing, and melted into a puddle of liquid glass.

The real Jamie crumpled beside it—unconscious, but breathing.

We stood in silence, panting, staring at what was left.

Lucas was the first to speak.

“I think… I think it tried to replace us.”

I nodded slowly, holding the cracked mirror tight. “But it didn’t expect us to fight back.”

Lucas touched my arm gently. “We need to destroy the big one. The original.”

My throat tightened. “And if that means we switch again?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Then: “Then we do. Together.”

I looked at him.

Really looked.

And realized I wasn’t afraid anymore.

Of the mirror. Of the curse. Of us.

I stepped closer, lacing our fingers together.

“Let’s end this.”

But just as we turned—

The hallway pulsed.

The mirror—the real one—glowed red.

A deep, ancient voice echoed from within it.

“You cannot destroy what you are.”

The reflection of Lucas and me flickered back into view.

Only… it wasn’t us.

Not anymore.

They smiled.

And started walking toward the glass.

From the other side.

The mirror twins—darker, stronger, and no longer just reflections—reached out.

And this time, the glass didn’t stop them.