Late at night, when the world should have been asleep, cars began to arrive at Grayeridge High.
One by one, their engines purred softly into the school's cracked parking lot.
The doors opened slowly.
Teachers, janitors, and even a few students in hoodies and pajamas stepped out in silence.
None of them spoke.
Their footsteps were synchronized, soft against the pavement. Their faces were pale, almost blank, and their eyes shimmered like silver under the moonlight.
A teacher—Mr. Halbrook, the history teacher Noah knew to be notoriously grumpy—walked stiffly across the lot, his eyes glowing with an unnatural stillness. Behind him, a student who had been absent all week trudged along, gaze fixed forward like a moth drawn to a flame.
From inside the cars, reflections shimmered.
On windshields and side mirrors, a single, shifting eye watched silently. Its pupil pulsed with light, as if breathing in rhythm with the moon itself.
The procession entered the school through the front doors.
One of the janitors locked the door behind them.
---
Inside the school, in the science room, six teenagers stared at each other.
The silence felt heavier now.
Noah clenched the journal in his hands, flipping to a page where a jagged diagram of a mirror shard had been etched in frantic pencil lines. His dad's words echoed in his mind:
> "There's no problem without a solution. If you can't find it, change your point of view."
He looked up. "We have to split up now. We don't have time."
Ezra, arms crossed, leaned against a cabinet. "The radio room's on the third floor, far east wing."
"I'll go," she said before anyone could object.
Jamie looked uneasy. "Are you sure?"
She smirked. "Unless you want to sing into the mic and pray the monster hates karaoke?"
"…Fair point."
Quinn stepped beside her. "I'll go with Ezra."
Noah nodded. "Good. You'll need someone to watch your back."
Ezra raised a brow at Quinn. "You sure?"
"I can handle it."
"Alright then," Noah said. "Quinn, Ezra—you two are Team Broadcast."
Ezra adjusted her jacket and slung a metal pipe from the lab over her shoulder. "Cool name."
Jamie turned to Noah. "Guess that makes us Team Suicide, huh?"
Noah gave a dry smile. "More like Team Bait." He turned to the others. "Jamie, you're with me. We'll find the mirror."
Quinn looked at him seriously. "Are you sure you can carry it? If the monster catches up—"
"We'll move fast," Noah interrupted. "We find it, get it near the hallway leading to the speaker system, and you time the sound. We shatter it when it's close."
A beat of silence.
Ezra broke the silence. "Let's go."
As they headed for the door, a low rumble echoed from upstairs.
Jamie paused. "Did you feel that?"
Noah glanced at the hallway and froze.
From the far end of the corridor, silver light flickered.
Dozens of glowing eyes blinked open in the dark.
Quinn's face went pale. "We're not the only ones in the school anymore."
"They're multiplying," Ezra whispered. "The mirror's influence…"
"Move," Noah hissed. "Split up now."
Ezra grabbed Quinn's hand and darted down the left hallway toward the stairs.
Jamie and Noah turned the opposite direction, ducking behind a row of lockers and heading toward the old storage wing.
Behind them, the hall lights flickered, and the building itself seemed to breathe.
The mirror was waiting.
And so was everything inside it.