The walk home was quiet, interrupted only by the soft rustle of leaves and the sound of their shoes against the gravel sidewalk.
Noah glanced at his sister. Leah walked a few paces ahead of him, arms crossed, her ponytail swaying with each step. She looked calm—too calm.
Something didn't feel right.
"I thought you were sleeping," he finally said, his voice low. "Why were you out? I didn't even know you were friends with Jamie's sister."
Leah didn't stop walking, but her pace quickened slightly.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Huh?" he added, stepping a little faster to keep up with her. "Hey, Leah?"
She suddenly blushed, glancing back just enough for him to see the pink blooming across her cheeks. "Mind your business," she muttered, then rushed ahead, nearly jogging the rest of the way home.
Noah stared after her, completely thrown. "Heh?!"
He scratched his head.
Weird.
---
The next day at school, everything seemed to return to normal—at least on the surface.
Noah sat at the back of the classroom, the journal hidden inside his notebook. As the teacher droned on about old colonial history, he cracked open the first page under his desk and began to read.
The handwriting was childish and chaotic, yet strangely poetic.
The first entries were filled with urban legends and impossible creatures—dragons that slept beneath cornfields, people with shadowy heads, and a lake that whispered names at night. Wild stuff. Kid stuff.
But then the tone shifted.
He skimmed further… pages began to mention Grayeridge.
Abnormalities. Disappearances. The same town he lived in.
His breath caught when he turned to a page with a drawing.
It showed a warped figure emerging from a mirror—arms too long, head too tilted, with a reflection that smiled too wide.
Above it, in jagged, heavy letters, it read:
> Shards of the Mimicker
> A parasitic mirror entity that learns and replaces. It copies.
Then waits.
Then takes.
Noah's throat went dry.
He read on.
> One teacher has already been taken. No one noticed.
He looked around the classroom slowly.
His math teacher was at the front, writing formulas on the board.
Noah stared at her reflection in the window.
It smiled faintly… even though she wasn't.
---
At lunch, Noah darted out to find Jamie and Quinn. They were in their usual corner near the bleachers, munching on overpriced cafeteria snacks and scribbling notes in Quinn's mystery notebook.
This time, someone new was with them.
Ezra.
Tall, cool, and oddly elegant. Her short silver hair curled slightly at the edges, and her voice had a soft, confident cadence. She wore a faded hoodie and slim black pants tucked into worn boots. Her posture screamed "I don't care," but her eyes studied everything.
Jamie looked up. "Yo! You're alive."
Noah nodded. "Barely."
Quinn waved with a timid smile. "Hey."
Ezra, seated casually on the bench, turned as Noah approached. Her eyes lingered on him a second longer than necessary. "So, you're the guy who got sucked into mirror horror hour with these two?"
Noah smirked. "Guess so."
She smiled faintly, then glanced at Jamie. "You didn't say he was cute."
Jamie groaned. "Please don't flirt with my friends."
"I'm not," Ezra said, clearly lying.
Noah shook his head and pulled out the journal. "Anyway. This."
He opened it to the page with the sketch and shoved it forward.
As soon as Jamie saw it, he nearly choked on his drink.
"You—YOU F***ING TOOK A BOOK OUT OF THAT PLACE?!"
Heads turned.
"Shhh!" Quinn hissed, smacking Jamie's arm.
"Do you want to get us all haunted?!" Jamie whispered.
Ezra raised an eyebrow. "Book?"
Noah stayed calm. "I picked it up when the mirror thing went berserk. It was on a shelf."
Quinn leaned in, eyes wide. "Shards of the Mimicker…" she read. "A mirror entity… parasitic…"
Ezra squinted at the drawing. "Wait, this… looks like—"
"Exactly what we saw," Noah finished.
Jamie looked queasy again. "I thought I was gonna die, man…"
Ezra tapped the book thoughtfully. "So this wasn't just a ghost story." skeptical of the situation.
Quinn nodded slowly. "This might be what took Cassidy."
Everyone went still.
Noah closed the book. "If this is real, then something in Grayeridge is already replacing people."
Jamie rubbed his face. "I knew this place was weird but—dude. Shapeshifting mirrors? Seriously?"
Quinn held her notebook tighter. "There's more. This book might have all the answers."
Ezra looked at them one by one, serious now.
"Then we need to read every page."
Noah nodded.
He felt it deep in his bones.
Something was coming.
And this journal?
It was their best chance of investigating it.