The mirror arrived without warning.

One morning I woke to find it leaning against the wall in my bedroom — tall, ornate, framed in dark wood carved with twisting vines. I lived alone. No one had keys. The door had been locked.

My reflection looked normal at first. Same tired eyes, same messy hair. I smiled — it smiled back a fraction too late.

By evening the delay had grown. I'd raise my hand; the reflection would follow three seconds later. I'd turn away; it would linger, watching the spot where I'd been.

The third day, the glass began to ripple like liquid when I wasn't looking directly at it. In peripheral vision I caught movement — my reflection shifting position while my back was turned.

On the fifth night I covered it with a sheet. The whispers started then. Soft, wet sounds from beneath the fabric. Like someone breathing through water.

I uncovered it at dawn.

The reflection wasn't mine anymore.

It wore my face, but the expression was wrong — too knowing, too hungry. The eyes were too dark. When I stepped closer, it stepped closer too, perfectly synchronized for the first time in days.

Then it smiled without me.

The glass bled. Thick crimson droplets formed at the edges of the frame and ran down like tears, pooling on the floor in perfect circles that never spread.

I tried to smash it. The hammer passed through as if the surface was water, splashing red across my arms. The reflection caught the hammer mid-swing and held it there, suspended.

It's been watching me ever since.

Sometimes it mimics me perfectly. Sometimes it does things when I'm not looking — rearranges furniture, writes messages in blood on the walls that vanish when I turn around.

Last night it spoke. Not with my voice, but with something deeper, older.

"You've kept me waiting long enough."

This morning I noticed something new. My real hands have started to fade at the edges, becoming translucent. The reflection's hands look solid, veins dark and pulsing.

I think we're changing places.

I think it's almost done.