Title: The Reflection That Stayed

I didn’t think that night would matter.
It was ordinary. Too ordinary. I had eaten dinner alone, watched random videos, and argued with my best friend over something small and pointless. The kind of argument that shouldn’t hurt — but does anyway.
By the time I lay down, my head was full of things I didn’t say.
At 2:17 a.m., my phone buzzed.
I was awake already. Just staring at the ceiling.
I picked it up without thinking.
The message read:
“Don’t trust him.”
It was from my number.
For a second, I just frowned at the screen. No fear. Just confusion. I even checked if I had somehow sent it by mistake. But it clearly said received.
I sat up slowly.
“Okay… weird,” I muttered.
I tried calling my own number.
And that’s when my stomach tightened.
It started ringing.
Not in my hand.
Somewhere else in the house.
The sound was faint but real.
Now here’s the thing — fear doesn’t hit like in movies. It doesn’t explode. It creeps in quietly. It makes your body feel slightly heavier. Your hearing sharper.
I stepped out of my room and stood in the hallway. The house felt… different. Not darker. Just unfamiliar.
The ringing was coming from downstairs.
Each step I took felt wrong, like I was walking into something I shouldn’t see. I kept telling myself it had to be an old phone. Maybe I left it somewhere months ago.
The ringing stopped just before I reached the living room.
There, on the center table, was a phone.
Same model as mine. Same wallpaper — a blurry sunset picture I took last year. Even the small scratch near the corner was there.
My throat went dry.
I picked it up.
Warm.
Like someone had been holding it seconds ago.
The screen lit up.
2:19 a.m.
“You came.”
That message didn’t scare me.
What scared me was how normal it felt reading it.
I unlocked the phone. No password needed.
The gallery opened automatically.
There were photos of me.
Sleeping.
Studying.
Standing near the fridge.
Some were old. Some were recent.
One was from tonight.
It showed me standing at the top of the stairs, looking down.
Taken from behind.
My hands started shaking then. Not dramatically. Just enough that I had to hold the phone tighter.
“This isn’t real,” I whispered. I don’t know who I was trying to convince.
The phone buzzed again.
“You really don’t remember?”
That line hit differently.
Because the truth is… I had been forgetting things lately.
Small gaps in memory. Walking into a room and not knowing why. Finding objects moved. Blaming stress. Blaming lack of sleep.
But what if it wasn’t that?
I walked slowly toward the window. The glass reflected the living room behind me.
And there I was.
Standing.
Breathing.
Scared.
But something felt off.
My reflection looked calmer than I was.
Too calm.
I tilted my head slightly.
It copied me.
But just a second too late.
My heart started racing. I moved my hand quickly.
The reflection followed.
A fraction of a second after.
That tiny delay was enough.
I turned around fast.
The room was empty.
When I looked back at the window, the reflection was perfectly synced again.
The phone buzzed one last time.
“I’ve been helping you.”
Helping me?
I stared at the message, my mind racing.
Then something strange happened.
I suddenly felt… tired.
Like I had just woken up from a deep sleep.
And for a split second, I had this awful thought:
What if I wasn’t the original?
What if I was the reflection that learned how to move on its own?
The lights flickered.
Just once.
When they stabilized, the second phone was gone.
The table was empty.
I was alone.
The next morning, everything seemed normal. No extra phone. No strange messages. I even checked my gallery — nothing unusual.
I almost convinced myself it was a dream.
Until that night.
2:17 a.m.
My phone buzzed again.
This time, the message said:
“Switch back.”
And when I looked toward the window —
I wasn’t the one moving first.