She deleted it.

  Monique stared at the screen.

  One text. One number. No contact name. No way to trace it.

  Her thumb hovered.

  And then she deleted it.

  No dramatic sound cue. No explosion of light. Just a soft click of finality, a mundane gesture with possibly horrifying consequences.

  “There. Happy?” she muttered at the mirror, already bracing herself for some smug, lewd monologue from her reflection.

  But her shadow just froze.

  Expression blank. Smile gone. Eyes… still.

  Then, softly, it said:

  “Oh.”

  Monique blinked. “Oh?”

  The reflection didn’t answer.

  The lights flickered once. Then again. A third time. Then they didn't come back.

  The bathroom was plunged into dim half-dark, lit only by the pale glow from her phone.

  In the mirror, the shadow backed away slowly. Not like it was retreating, but like it was making room for something else.

  Then the temperature dropped.

  Not the kind of cold that makes you shiver. The kind that presses into your skin like invisible fingers, breathing down your neck with breath that smelled of soil and stagnant water. So not exactly cold but rather uncomfortability.

  Her phone buzzed.

  No number.

  Just a name.

  Adelaide Brook.

  And the message:

  “You shouldn't have.”

  The mirror’s surface cracked.

  Just once, right down the center.

  Like something underneath was smiling.

  The hand of Adelaide Brook. It was long, skeletal, and impossibly pale and just inches from Monique’s face.

  She could feel the cold radiating, like Adelaide Brook regarded the laws of thermodynamics with the same regard as she did the laws of human beings to self-determine, radiating cold like a dead star, pulling the warmth straight out of her skin, turning her blood to static. Time slowed, crawling around her like a billion billion ants through molten glass. Her breath caught in her throat, like it was solidifying, freezing in her throat. Her heart forgot how to beat.

  But then- it, no everything stopped.

  A hand wrapped tightly around Adelaide’s throat. A grip like iron, vice-locked and absolute. And the hand didn’t shake. It didn’t struggle. It held.

  The glow came first.

  That wrong-glorious unlight -a color that didn’t exist, burning cold, a different cold and furious-poured from the eyes of the girl in the mirror. Shadow Monique. Half her. More than her.

  “How are you? How DARE-” Adelaides tirade was cut of by the shadow

  “Slave owners don’t have rights,” it… she hissed, voice vibrating with something ancient and personal. A snarl twisted across her face, one of pure contempt. Her features looked more herself than ever. Like she'd shed the filter of sarcasm and slipped straight into raw rage, the raw rage of humanity itself.

  Adelaide writhed.

  Not like a ghost.

  Like a thing caught off-guard by real resistance. Someone so used to getting what they want the mere idea of resistance is unfathomable. Adelaide choked, not on breath, as obviously she didn’t need to breathe, but she still choked, choked on memory. Her mouth moved like she was trying to speak, to command, to curse.

  But Shadow Monique wasn’t listening.

  She slammed Adelaide back into the mirror, out of the mirror, cracks spiderwebbing out in jagged bursts. The entire wall of glass shook, groaned, warped. Monique stumbled back, wide-eyed, knees knocking.

  “You’ve lingered long enough,” her reflection growled, voice low and rising. “Feeding on shame, soaking in silence, thinking the world forgot. But I didn’t, I don't forget.”

  Adelaide’s form began to fracture, black veins of old hate and corrupted memory splitting through her dress, her skin, her being.

  “You are history,” the shadow said. “You are a stain. And I am done letting stains cling.”

  And with a final, effortless shove, she hurled Adelaide through the mirror.

  Into the void behind it.

  It didn’t break.

  It swallowed.

  The glass rippled like water.

  And then it was over.

  Adelaide Brook was gone.

  Monique stood in stunned silence. Breathing too fast. Hands shaking.

  Her reflection looked back at her worn, quiet. The glow faded. But her voice was still steel.

  Monique swallowed hard. “And you… what the hell was that?”

  Shadow Monique smiled, softer now. Almost… proud.

  “Not everything inside you is broken, Momo,” she said. “Some of it? Some of it fights. But, the darkness is a part of us, and i… Not you. This isn’t your responsibility yet” the Monique refection’s smile was all teeth now “ I am going to have to do something unpleasant “

  Then, with one last look

  She stepped away from the glass.

  And for the first time since last night, Monique’s reflection was just her.

  Monique stood in the empty bathroom, the air still thick with aftershocks. The mirror no longer rippled; the shadow no longer stared, but something inside her still did. The room felt quieter now, yet not peaceful.

  Like silence before a storm. Like shopping a day before black Friday.

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  She pulled out her phone, dried blood and dirt still under her fingernails, heart pounding. Her thumb hovered over the contact list. Her screen was smudged. Cracked, a little. Like her. She needed to talk to someone who was real.

  An Adult. Functional adult. Unlike her fucking parents. Her dad had found Jesus -in a bad way- and her mom had found the wine -in a bad way. So her brother. She hoped that he would answer his phone

  And then she found it.

  Connor.

  She hadn’t called him in months. Not because she didn’t want to, but because he was gone. Military, officially, please don’t ask for specifics I can’t tell you and I don’t want to lie to my little sister. Special Operations. Monique knew how these things went really. Defending democracy and freedom just meant defending corporate interests. So Connor was gone. Someplace nameless, doing things she wasn’t allowed to know about. Somewhere far from the collapsing emotional minefield that was their family. She still didn’t trust her phone, so she quickly added Connors number to Naomis’ mobile phone.

  She pressed Call.

  Ringing…

  God. Please.

  She didn’t care where he was, what he was doing, or who he was with.

  She just needed someone who was real.

  Someone whose shadow didn’t talk back.

  Someone whose smile wasn’t carved into glass or rage.

  Her father would say she needed to pray. That this was punishment, divine retribution, that she’d “invited demons” with eyeliner and late-night cemetery dares. Her mother would probably just pass her the corkscrew and tell her to “try merlot this time, sweetie.”

  So… her brother.

  She leaned her forehead against the cool tile, eyes shut tight.

  Ring. Ring. Ring.

  Please, big brother. Please.

  Click.

  Static.

  Then his voice.

  Rough. Tired. But his.

  “…you’re Naomi right, Moniques friend?”

  Her breath hitched.

  “Connor,” she whispered, and just hearing herself say it broke something open inside her.

  “…Momo?” He sounded worried.

  “I- there’s- shit’s happening, and I don’t know if I’m okay, and I know you can’t talk about what you do but I just- can you please be real right now?”

  There was a pause. Then-

  “I’m real, kiddo,” he said, soft but solid, like boots on stone. “You alright? Where are you?”

  Her knees went weak. “Not even close. I saw a ghost. I buried him. They’d just… And now my shadow talks and there was this dead bitch named Adelaide who tried to kill me, and I think- I think something else is watching me now.”

  Another pause.

  Then: “Okay. Deep breath.”

  She did.

  Connor’s voice was low. Careful. But not dismissive.

  “Listen. I can’t tell you everything, but I’ve seen weird shit, Momo. The kind of stuff you don’t write home about. So, I’m not gonna tell you you’re crazy. I believe you.”

  She sat on the floor.

  Tears slipped down her cheeks, slow and quiet.

  “Why. Why don’t you call me crazy. I would rather be crazy right now. I don’t want to be crazy,” she said, she was definitely rambling now. “I just wanted to prove I could handle being alone. I fucked up, badly and I think something followed me home. The ghost lady was in my phone texting me, and I”

  Connor was silent for a moment. Then:

  “Text me everything. Names. What you saw. Anything that didn’t feel like it belonged. Just use your phone, the object isn’t really important the… she was attached to you. I’ll make some calls.”

  Monique blinked. “You’re gonna send the Men in Black after my haunted ass?”

  A dry chuckle, clearly trying to lift the mood. “If you promise that they survive your attitude? Maybe.”

  Then, quieter. Serious.

  “Don’t go back to the cemetery. And stay in the light, Mon. Just for now.”

  “Light’s not scary,” she said. “Shadows are. Buying a Nightlamp asap”

  Another pause.

  “You said that your shadow was talking? Then make peace with it,” he said. “Before something else tries to wear it.”

  The call ended. The line went dead.

  Monique sat there, phones on her lap, trying to decide whether to feel safer… or more afraid. But the second she couldn’t trust her brother, she was fully lost. So, she began texting him. It wasn’t very coherent, but she managed to.

  She gave Naomi the phone back and still, even if barely. managed to make it to lunch.

  She sat through the two hours of lying & propaganda class and then said something about having no time this weekend to her friends and practically vanished from school.

  There was a guy in full-on Men in Black cosplay standing just outside the school gates.

  At least, Monique hoped it was cosplay. It wasn’t.

  Black suit, black tie, black shades, black earpiece, like he’d rolled right out of a conspiracy theory and onto school property. Except something about the way he stood, arms loose but ready, eyes (behind the glasses) tracking everyone but settling on her, told her this wasn’t Comic Con. She was beginning to hate being right. Which was bad for her future since she was very good at being right.

  He looked like he could kill someone with a clipboard.

  “You Connor’s girl?” he asked, voice dry and military-grade casual.

  Monique stopped just short of the steps, looked him up and down, and scoffed. “I’m his sister,” she said. “Gross.”

  The man let out a relieved, barked laugh. “Hell yeah! Thank God. I don’t have to court-martial him for being a creep! High five!”

  He held up his hand, grinning wide and obnoxiously.

  Monique blinked at him, baffled. “…What?”

  “No? Not a high five moment? I misread that?” He lowered his hand, still grinning like a jackass. “Sorry. I don’t get out much. I usually do… you know. Alien corpse logistics. Containment. Shovel Acquisition. That kind of thing.”

  Monique crossed her arms, not sure whether to be more alarmed by his words or how normal he made them sound. “So what, you’re part of Connor’s secret Scooby-Doo military club?”

  “Something like that,” he said. “Name’s Gruber. First name classified, last name probably not real. But Connor told me to get to you before the thing-that-should-not-be did.”

  He glanced around. “Y’know, the Other Thing.”

  Her stomach tightened. Partially because she didn't know what other thing.

  Gruber pulled a small metal case from inside his jacket, flipped it open to reveal… a thumb drive, wrapped in what looked like thread and a sticker that said EAT ME in comic sans.

  “This has some files. Names, patterns, death echoes, curse blueprints stuff we think your passenger might’ve been riding on. But more importantly…” He leaned in slightly, voice lowering, “It’s got something on you. And on your shadow.”

  Monique’s eyes narrowed. “So I’m a case file now?”

  Gruber nodded enthusiastically. “Hell yeah. And a weird one. You’re already a Level Three Internalized Rift - don't look that up you won't find anything. Most of those snap like wet paper. But you? You’re still standing.”

  He paused.

  Then offered the thumb drive.

  “Want to know what else Connor’s been hiding?”

  She glared.

  "Which one are you? The one that killed MLK or the one that Killed JFK? " She asked, snatching the thumb drive.

  Gruber barked out a laugh so loud a pigeon took off from the power line above them.

  “Oh shit,” he wheezed, eyes gleaming behind the shades. “Connor did say you were spicy. Damn.”

  Monique, turned the thumb drive over in her fingers. It felt… normal. Stupidly normal for something that supposedly contained ghosts, curses, and top-secret intel on her living nightmare of a life.

  “Just answer the question,” she said flatly. “You part of the MLK assassination team, or JFK?”

  Gruber grinned like someone who’d lost track of how many times he'd technically died in the field.

  “Neither,” he said, dropping the joking tone just enough to let the weight slip in. “I’m the one who buried the last guy that tried to summon JFK.”

  Monique squinted at him. “That sounds like bullshit.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “Most Jobs are. Most of this job definitely is But the corpses don’t care about truth. They care about memory. And yours is leaking.”

  He straightened, the humor drained off now, tone sober. “Connor’s worried. That’s rare. He doesn’t worry. He ends threats. But he told me, you’re different. And I can tell. You’re not just haunted. You’re a locus. Something’s circling you because it recognizes you. Like knows like.”

  She slipped the thumb drive into her pocket, jaw tight. “So what do I do? Burn sage? Sleep with a nightlight? Build a salt moat around my house?”

  Gruber leaned in just a little, voice quiet.

  “No. You watch your reflection. And you never answer a text from a dead name again.”

  She narrowed her eyes “I didn’t answer any text.”

  He gave a dismissive gesture, as if he didn’t believe her.

  Then he winked. “And if something starts whispering sweet nothings in Latin? Call me before you make out with it.”

  He turned, walked toward a sleek black car that hadn’t been there a second ago, and climbed in like it was a casual Tuesday.

  Engine on. Windows tinted. Gone.

  Just like that.

  Monique stood there, thumb drive burning in her pocket.

  It promised Files. Names. Patterns.

  And something about her.