Room by Room

The flare gun is a frozen weight in your hand. You sweep the storeroom corner by corner, breath fogging in the low red emergency light. Shelves of dwindling cans. A toppled crate. Nothing. Nothing.

Then the mirror above the workbench catches you mid-turn—and your reflection finishes the motion a heartbeat too late. You stop. It stops, a fraction after. You tilt your head. It tilts, slow as syrup through cold glass. It is learning the timing.

Your own face stares back at you, patient, attentive, getting closer to right with every breath. Soon, you understand, it will not lag at all. Soon it will lead. The flare gun trembles. The thing in the mirror watches your trigger finger, and waits to see what you will become.