The rain didn’t start with thunder.
It began as a whisper against the windows—soft, steady. Like the sky was trying to speak through the glass.

Elle stood in the hallway just outside homeroom, eyes locked on the covered mirrors that lined the corridor. Thick sheets of construction paper had been taped over each one—some curling at the edges where dampness had seeped in.

But it wasn’t the mirrors that had her frozen.

It was the air.

Cold again.
Colder than fall should ever feel.

It clung to her skin like damp silk—wrapping around her neck, pressing into her lungs. Too still. Too wrong.

“Elle?”

Luke’s voice snapped her halfway back to reality. He nudged her with the corner of his binder.

“You good?”

She nodded too fast. “Yeah. Just—tired.”

He frowned but didn’t press.

Luke had started doing that lately—watching her, but not asking. Like he knew the answers would scare them both.

The bell rang.

Elle turned—
But not before glancing once more down the hallway toward Locker 237.

It looked like every other locker now.
Perfectly normal.

Except… it wasn’t.

The tape on the mirror just across from it had peeled back—just a sliver. But enough.

Elle’s reflection wasn’t looking at her.

It was looking at the locker.

She blinked—and the reflection snapped back into place.

She didn’t scream. Didn’t run. Didn’t speak.

She walked into class.

Heart hammering against her ribs like a second bell.

That afternoon, the sky cracked open.

Rain lashed the school in violent sheets.
The power flickered during fourth period.

Elle sat at her desk, eyes unfocused.
Her pendant burned cold beneath her shirt—not painful.
Just… alert.
Alive.

And then it happened.

The lights went out.

Just for a second.

But in that second—
The room didn’t go black.

It went blue.

A deep, electric blue. Like lightning, frozen in time.

And in that breathless moment—
Elle saw something move.

Not a shadow.
A ripple.

Like reality had bent—
And then snapped back.

The lights returned.

Students blinked.
The teacher kept lecturing.

No one reacted.

No one… except Elle.

And Mr. Bowers, who stood in the hallway, mop paused mid-swipe, watching her through the narrow classroom window.

Their eyes met.

He gave a single, solemn nod.

And walked away.

When the final bell rang, Elle didn’t leave with the others.

She moved slower than usual. Claimed she’d forgotten a book.

But really—
She needed silence.

Space to think.
To breathe.
Maybe… to confront something.

She walked back toward her locker. Every step echoed in the empty corridor. The lights above flickered once. Then held steady.

Rain hissed against the windows.
Thunder rolled low like a warning.

A section near Locker 237 still wore yellow tape—
The kind no one obeyed anymore.

Elle slipped beneath it.

The mirror across from the locker—still taped, barely—quivered.

Just a flutter, like paper brushed by breath.

Elle reached out, fingers trembling, and peeled back the corner of the tape.

There was her reflection.

But she wasn’t alone.

Behind her—
In the mirror’s depth—
Stood a shape.

Blurred.
Gray.
Wrong.

It towered, head brushing the top of the frame.
Arms too long.

Eyes—if they were eyes—shaped like spirals.

Elle gasped and spun around.

Nothing.

The hallway was empty.

She turned back.

The reflection remained.

And the thing—
Was closer.

She stumbled back, slamming the tape over the mirror with shaking hands.

Her palm burned where it had touched the glass.

Frostbite bloomed across her skin—like a flower of ice, spreading from her touch.

The pendant at her neck glowed.

Faintly blue.

Something was trying to push through.

And the seal—whatever it was—was failing.

“Elowen Wrenwood,” came a voice behind her.

Elle jumped.

Ms. Thorne.

The literature teacher stood just outside her classroom, one hand wrapped around a steaming mug of tea.

Her gaze was sharp.

Not surprised.
Not confused.
Knowing.

“Some reflections aren’t meant to be touched,” she said calmly.

“Not yet.”

Elle couldn’t speak.

Her heart was beating too loudly—like the spiral had moved inside her chest and was echoing through her bones.

Ms. Thorne took a slow sip.

“Run along now,” she murmured.
“Before the hallway remembers you.”

And just like that—
She turned.

And disappeared into her room.

Elle didn’t ask questions.

She ran.

The next morning, Elle sat in class like a ghost of herself.

She hadn’t slept. Not really.

She’d stared at the ceiling for hours, replaying Ms. Thorne’s words over and over—

Before the hallway remembers you.

They echoed in her mind like they’d been carved into bone. What did it mean?

By sunrise, she had taped over her closet mirror again. Moved her bed away from every reflection. Shoved the pendant into her sock drawer like hiding it might stop the glow.

It didn’t.

Now, seated in homeroom, her eyes were bloodshot. Her knuckles pale around her pen. The fluorescent lights above buzzed like wasps trapped inside her skull.

Luke slid into the seat beside her.

“Okay,” he whispered, glancing sideways. “Spill. You’re scaring me.”

Elle didn’t answer at first. Her gaze was fixed on the corner of her notebook—where, in looping ink, a single word shimmered:

Choose.

She hadn’t written it.

She was sure of that.

“Elle?” Luke pressed.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly.

He frowned. “You’re so not fine. I’ve known you since second grade. This is your weirdest week ever.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again.

How could she explain the mirrors, the frost, the voice whispering her name from nowhere? How could she tell him about the janitor scrubbing spirals off the hallway floor… or about Ms. Thorne, who spoke like a myth?

So she said the only thing that didn’t feel like madness.

“I think I’m being watched.”

Luke blinked. “Like, stalker-watched?”

“No. Like…” Her voice dropped. “Like something through glass.”

His brows pinched. “Elle—”

“I know it sounds crazy,” she whispered, voice cracking. “But I’m not making it up.”

Luke stared at her. Quiet.

Then—

“Okay.”

She looked at him, stunned.

“I believe you,” he said simply.

Something cracked open in her chest.

Like sunlight through frost.

She didn’t notice the eyes watching from the mirror across the hall—waiting. Listening.