The Hollow Reflection

Chapter 18

Austin couldn't breathe. His mind flashed back to the first time he'd seen something like this weeks ago, in the subway tunnels. Back then, half their group was still alive, and they didn't understand what the reflections meant.

The thing that wore his face stood at the edge of the firelight, its posture unnaturally still, its hollow eyes locked onto him. The fire cast twisting shadows over its features, stretching them in ways that shouldn't be possible. It smiled.

Its teeth were all wrong.

A cold sweat broke across Austin's skin. His hands clenched into fists, fingernails digging into old scars from that night in the tunnels. The whispering voices in his head surged louder.

Then, the reflection took a step forward.

Austin flinched.

Leah's fingers dug into his arm. "Austin?" Her voice was wary, uncertain. She'd been the one to save him in those tunnels when his own reflection had first appeared. Now here they were again.

He didn't answer. He couldn't. His mind screamed at him to run, to fight, to do something - anything. But his body refused to move. Because in that moment, he realized something that made his blood turn to ice.

The reflection - it wasn't just mirroring him anymore.

It was replacing him.

The shadows stretched longer. Above them, the moon disappeared behind clouds that seemed to move too quickly, too purposefully. The temperature dropped suddenly, their breath visible in the cooling air.

Then came the first sign - one they should have recognized sooner.

The puddles from yesterday's rain began to ripple. Not from wind or movement, but from something else. Something wrong. The water's surface showed reflections that didn't match the world above.

A shrill scream tore through the night.

Everyone jolted. Near the center of the camp, Elias stood rigid, his eyes wide with terror as he stared at his own hands.

"No," he whispered. "No, no, no - " His voice cracked as his fingers began to twitch.

Samantha, who'd been sitting beside him, scrambled away. "His eyes," she gasped. "Look at his eyes!"

The irises had begun to shift, like oil spreading across water. Color bleeding into color, never settling. Marcus, their former military man, reached for his gun - the same one that had proved useless against these things in the tunnel ambush.

Elias' body locked up, limbs twitching in sharp unnatural spasms. His mouth gaped open, but no sound came out - just a deep, rattling wheeze. His eyes rolled back, his breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps.

"Just like Rodriguez," someone whispered. "Before he - "

Then, with a sickening crack, Elias' spine bent backward, his shoulders jutting at an impossible angle. The sound reminded Austin of that horrible day at the shopping mall, when they'd lost Claire to her reflection. The same awful popping of joints, the same unnatural contortions.

A gasp. A choking sound. Then - laughter.

A dry, rasping chuckle that didn't belong to Elias at all.

Survivors stumbled back in horror. Old Man Jenkins, who'd survived three encounters with these things, murmured a prayer through trembling lips. Samantha clutched a rusted pipe like it would do anything against whatever this was. They all knew better - they'd learned the hard way what weapons could and couldn't do.

Elias' lips curled into a grin. His head twisted unnaturally, his gaze locking onto Austin.

"You see it, don't you?" His voice was distorted, layered, as if more than one voice spoke at once.

"You feel it. It's inside you. Just like it was inside Claire. Just like the others."

Austin's blood ran cold. He took a step back, but the thing wearing Elias' skin let out a jagged breath, almost like a sigh. Then - 

His skin peeled away.

Not like flesh tearing, but like a husk being discarded. The process was slower this time, more deliberate - as if it wanted them to watch. Beneath, something darker shifted, limbs unfolding where there shouldn't be any, features melting into an unfinished thing that flickered between forms. It wasn't just a person changing—it was something that had never been human at all.

The camp erupted into chaos. Screams pierced the night as survivors bolted in every direction. Someone tripped over the embers of the fire, scattering sparks into the darkness. The radio in Marcus' tent crackled to life, spewing static and fragments of voices - just like it had before each previous attack.

Austin's heart pounded as he grabbed Leah's arm, dragging her back before the writhing thing that had been Elias could move. The silver pendant she always wore - the one that had somehow repelled these things before - glinted in the firelight.

"We have to go," he hissed.

Leah didn't hesitate. Instead of just standing by, she pulled a hunting knife from her belt—the same one she'd used to save him in the tunnels—and slashed the air in front of them, as if warding off whatever might come next. "Go where?" she shot back, her voice barely steady. "It's everywhere. Just like at the hospital."

She was right. It wasn't just Elias. The shadows were shifting, stretching across the camp, too long, too fluid, as if something else was bleeding through. The firelight barely held them back. The chain-link fence groaned, its metal warping as if seen through rippling water.

Then, from the edge of the camp, a new sound emerged.

A footstep.

Slow. Deliberate.

Austin turned - and froze.

It was himself.

Standing just at the edge of the firelight, his own face stared back at him. But it wasn't quite right. The eyes were too hollow, the expression just a fraction too still. The longer he looked, the more wrong it became. Just like the photos they'd found in that abandoned research facility - the ones that showed what happened when the reflections finally took over.

Then, it smiled.

The world tilted. The whispers in his mind surged, overlapping voices crashing against one another. His breathing hitched as the words - his own voice - echoed in his skull.

Leah grabbed his arm. "We need to run." Her voice carried the same urgency as that day in the tunnels. "Remember what Dr. Chen's notes said? About what happens when they get this close?"

But Austin's feet wouldn't move. A horrifying thought rooted him in place.

What if I was the reflection? What if I was the one who didn't belong?

The thing that wore his face took another step, its movement smooth. Too smooth. Like something wearing his skin but not quite understanding how to move like a person. Behind it, the shadows writhed like living things, forming shapes that reminded him too much of what they'd seen in the basement of that research facility.

It stepped closer.

Then it spoke.

"You were never supposed to survive this long."

A chill ran down his spine. Austin tore himself away from Leah's grip and ran - not away, but toward the abandoned building at the edge of the camp. The same building where they'd found Dr. Chen's research notes. He had to know. He had to understand what was happening.

The ruined structure loomed ahead, its broken windows glowing faintly under the pale moonlight. Papers scattered across the floor rustled without wind. The air inside was thick, humid, filled with a smell like burnt metal. Every surface seemed warped, like glass submerged underwater, shifting when he wasn't looking directly at it.

Austin stopped in front of a shattered mirror, shards scattered across the floor. The largest piece still clung to the frame, just enough for him to see himself. The same mirror where they'd first discovered what the reflections could do.

Except - it wasn't him.

The reflection stood there, staring, but when Austin raised his arm, it did nothing. It only watched. Its expression was empty, but its eyes - its eyes were brimming with something hungry. The same hunger he'd seen in Claire's reflection before she disappeared.

Then it moved.

Not a mirror image. Not a reflection. It moved first.

Austin stumbled back as the thing inside the glass leaned forward, pressing against the barrier. The glass bulged outward, like something pressing against a thin layer of skin, ready to burst through. Just like in Dr. Chen's final video log.

A whisper slithered into his ear.

"Step closer."

The voice was wrong. It came from the mirror a second too late, like an echo lagging behind. The sound itself was off - like his own voice but layered, stretched, as if something else was speaking through it.

His heartbeat thundered. He couldn't look away. The thing's mouth opened slowly—too wide, too dark. Behind him, he could hear Leah shouting something about the notes they'd found, about what happened when the reflections finally broke through.

Then, with a single, sudden motion - 

It reached out.