Episode 38 - Mirror Mouth
Reiko first noticed it in the bathroom mirror.
She had just finished washing her face. Pale. Tired. She hadn't slept since the comb. Every time she closed her eyes, the water came back. The hair. Ayame.
She looked up—and froze.
Her reflection was smiling.
But she wasn't.
Her lips were flat. Her mouth still. But the girl in the mirror grinned from ear to ear, eyes bulging, cheeks twitching as though trying to tear themselves apart from joy.
Reiko stumbled back, breath catching.
The mirror blinked.
She ran.
---
All that morning, the house felt… wrong.
The mirrors—every one of them—seemed to hum softly, as if alive. The sound was like breathing. Wet, raspy, close.
The kitchen mirror caught her eye and showed her bleeding from the mouth.
The long vertical one near Otaki's room showed her walking away, even when she stood still.
The mirror in her own room whispered.
It didn't speak in full words. Just breath. Hiss. Scrape. Moan.
But Reiko knew it was trying to.
And each night, the dreams returned.
Comb. Drowning. Hair. Mouth.
You forgot me.
---
Shin arrived unannounced around noon, still dressed in his academy jacket. His hair was slick with rain, and he held a small paper bag of confections from the bakery near the station.
"Brought sugar," he said. "You look like you need it."
She wanted to smile, but her lips barely moved.
They sat in the parlor. The windows were closed, the lights dim. Even with Shin there, Reiko felt the house breathing.
Shin glanced around, his usual teasing grin fading.
"It's...weird in here," he said. "Like it's listening."
Reiko said nothing.
He leaned forward. "Reiko?"
"Yes?"
He frowned. "That's not your voice."
Her heart stopped.
"What?"
"It echoed. Wrong. Like it bounced from the wrong wall."
She looked around. Nothing moved. But she noticed it too now—when she spoke, it was like something else was speaking just half a second behind her. Like her voice had an echo, not from the room, but from...something inside it.
---
Later, Saika stopped by to bring back a borrowed book. She handed it to Reiko at the genkan but refused to come inside.
She looked up at the house with narrowed eyes, gripping her coat.
"Your house smells like hair," she said. "Like a barbershop left to rot."
Reiko blinked.
Saika's nose wrinkled. "And I'm not going near that room again. Otaki's room? Something touched me there last time. I thought it was your cat."
"I don't have a cat."
Saika stared.
"Then what was brushing my leg?"
---
That night, Reiko went to the shrine.
She lit incense, chanted a small sutra Otaki had taught her. The comb was still sealed under salt, locked behind the inner cabinet door.
But something else was wrong.
A small circular mirror—one used for prayers—lay shattered on the floor.
The glass hadn't just broken.
It had been bitten.
The crack pattern wasn't natural. It spiraled inward from a jagged, tooth-shaped indentation. Almost like a human mouth had pressed against it and chewed.
She picked up the shards slowly.
Her fingers trembled. The reflection in each broken piece still moved slightly.
Even when her hands were still.
---
In her room, she found something worse.
The window was fogged from the inside.
Scrawled across it, as if written with a wet finger in breath and condensation, were the words:
FREE ME
Her breath hitched.
The air grew cold. Her own reflection in the darkened glass suddenly lifted its hand—not hers—and began scratching at the other side of the glass, desperately.
Reiko screamed and slammed the curtains shut.
---
She called Yukishiro that night.
He didn't answer.
Instead, the call failed three times. On the fourth try, someone picked up.
At first, silence.
Then a wet, smacking sound. Like lips parting.
Then a voice.
Not hers. Not Yukishiro's.
But familiar.
"You look just like her," it whispered. "You are not the first Reiko in this house. Nor the last."
She dropped the phone.
It rang again.
This time, she didn't answer.
---
The next morning, she found hair in the sink.
Not strands.
Clumps.
Long, black, water-soaked—like someone had wrung out a drowned woman over her faucet.
It smelled like the sea.
---
She finally opened Otaki's diary.
Hidden beneath a floorboard, where she once saw her aunt hide letters.
She flipped through the ink-smudged pages, some warped from time and water.
July 3rd:
> The comb is humming again. I told Father to burn it, but he sealed it instead. Idiot. He thought paper charms would silence a dead woman's scream.
July 10th:
> Ayame's shadow is still in the mirrors. I see her sometimes, mouth sewn shut, but she still whispers. "Reiko." That was her doll's name. That was also the name she wanted for her daughter.
July 14th:
> If she ever comes back… we have to forget her. That's the only way she stays gone.
July 21st:
> But what happens when the house chooses another Reiko?
---
That night, the mirrors stopped reflecting her at all.
And began watching instead.
---
To be continued...
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