HER EYES IN THE MIRROR

Lilith stood in front of the mirror in her mother's room.

It was early morning, but outside the sky bled crimson. No birds. No breeze. Just that eerie silence again like the world was holding its breath.

She had been staring at herself for minutes now, not blinking. The girl in the reflection didn't blink either.

But something was… off.

"Do you trust your reflection?" Emanuel had asked her once.

She didn't then. She didn't now.

The mirror started to fog around the edges, even though the room wasn't cold. Her chest rose and fell, faster and faster.

The girl in the mirror smiled.

Lilith didn't.

She stepped back instinctively, heart hammering. But the reflection just stood there smiling.

"Mom?" Lilith called out, needing to hear something normal, something grounding.

No answer.

She turned quickly and bolted down the hallway, flinging open her mother's door.

The bed was made. Neatly. Too neatly. Like no one had slept in it at all.

"Angela? Francisca?"

Nothing.

The house was empty.

Or… it felt empty.

The silence wasn't natural it was watching her.

She reached into her pocket, feeling for the book's strange weight, but it wasn't there.

Gone.

Panic surged through her chest like cold water.

"Emanuel!" she shouted.

But her voice echoed back to her, distorted.

Emanu-e-e-e-e-e-e-el...

Then she saw it.

The door.

Not one from her house. No. This door was tall, ancient, standing right in the middle of the hallway like it had always belonged there. Its wood was cracked with age, symbols carved deep into its surface. Black veins pulsed through it like it was alive.

Lilith stepped closer.

And then she heard the knock.

One… two… three.

And a voice from behind it, soft, broken… her own voice:

"Let me out, Lilith…"

She froze.

"No," she whispered. "You're not me."

The voice laughed. "Aren't I?"

Suddenly, the door began to glow bright white, searing her eyes and then it burst open.

A hand reached out.

Lilith screamed and stumbled backward but Emanuel grabbed her just in time, yanking her away as the entire hallway shifted around them. The walls stretched. The air twisted. Reality bent like heat on glass.

"Where were you?" she gasped, clinging to him.

"I felt them coming," he said, voice shaking. "They're getting stronger. The book… it's opening more doors than it's closing now."

Lilith looked at the ancient door again it was gone.

Just like that.

"What is happening to me?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"You're becoming the key," he said. "And the lock. That's what the book wants."

She looked up at him, eyes wide with fear. "But what if I break?"

He touched her face gently. "Then I'll hold the pieces until you're whole again."

Her heart fluttered for a moment warmth in the cold. But the moment shattered when they both heard it again:

A child's cry.

Faint.

Francisca.

Lilith turned sharply toward the sound. "That was her. That was my sister."

Emanuel looked worried. "It could be a trick."

"I don't care," she said, already moving. "If they're using my family against me, then I'll make them regret it."

They ran through the house though it no longer looked like her home. The walls shifted behind them. The lights flickered in unnatural rhythms. Her mother's portrait on the hallway wall had been changed her eyes were hollow, her smile torn.

But Lilith didn't stop.

She reached the back door and threw it open only to find herself standing in the middle of the library.

The library from her visions.

Endless aisles. Books with screaming pages. A ceiling too high to see.

And there, at the center of it all, was Francisca curled up, alone, sobbing.

"Francisca!" Lilith yelled, running forward.

But the floor between them cracked open, revealing a dark chasm.

The Watchers stood on the other side.

Dozens of them.

All with one face.

Hers.

They watched her with hollow eyes, and one of them stepped forward.

"You will give in," it said in a thousand voices. "Or they will drown in your story."

And behind them, the book floated glowing like a heart torn from the chest of a god.