A normal day. A normal moment. A normal bedroom.
At least, that's what it would look like to anyone passing by.
But normal is a fragile illusion.
What appeared to be the room of an ordinary teenager had slowly transformed into something else entirely — a quiet chamber of uncertainty, heavy with unspoken thoughts and the kind of silence that presses against your ribs until breathing feels deliberate.
In the center of the room stood a girl.
At first glance, she was forgettable — the kind of person you might pass in a crowded market without a second look. Not striking. Not loud. Not extraordinary.
Except she wasn't ordinary at all.
Dark crescents shadowed her eyes, as though sleep had abandoned her long ago. There was a stillness about her that didn't belong to someone her age — not calm, not peace, but the exhaustion that comes from thinking too much and saying too little.
Her fingers curled and uncurled at her sides, restless. Faint crescent marks traced her skin — remnants of a nervous habit she'd never quite unlearned. When doubt crept too close, she would tug lightly at the back of her left ear, a small unconscious gesture she had carried with her since she was eight.
Since the day everything changed.
She stood before the squeaky mirror, its frame slightly crooked, its surface imperfect, thin scratches spidering through the corners like quiet fractures.
And yet it reflected her with cruel precision.
The girl in the glass looked back at her — silent, questioning.
Waiting.
Mira's Point of View
I hate the way she looks at me.
Those eyes — fragile, almost apologetic — but beneath that, something worse.
Disappointment.
Not from the world.
From me.
My stomach twists every time our gazes meet, like she knows something I don't. Like she's measuring me and finding me lacking.
But I'm doing everything right.
Aren't I?
I'm quiet when I should be quiet.
Helpful when I should be helpful.
Agreeable when I should be agreeable.
Invisible when I should be invisible.
That's how you survive.
That's how you stay needed.
That's how you avoid being left behind.
I had just turned off the lights, pretending I might sleep, when my phone lit up beside me, its glow cutting through the dark.
Delilah.
My best friend.
Or at least, that's what I told myself whenever the word felt hollow.
My heart jumped — embarrassingly hopeful. For a second, warmth spread through me so quickly it almost hurt.
She's going to invite me, I thought.
This time, she'll remember me.
This time, I won't feel like background noise.
My fingers trembled as I answered. Not from fear.
From anticipation.
From that desperate, quiet hope that maybe — just maybe — I belonged somewhere.
Laughter burst through the speaker before her voice did.
Loud. Bright. Distant.
Like I was already outside of it.
"Guess what?" she said. "I got an A on my history project! We're celebrating!"
The words were sharp.
Too sharp.
The history project.
The one I stayed up until three finishing.
The one I rewrote twice because she said it "didn't sound impressive enough."
The one I formatted, edited, printed, stapled.
The one with my thoughts wearing her name.
"That's great," I managed.
My voice sounded smaller than I expected.
There was more laughter behind her — overlapping voices, music, movement. A world happening somewhere I wasn't.
I waited.
For the invitation.
For the pause.
For the moment she would remember I existed.
It never came.
She didn't invite me.
She didn't hesitate.
The call ended with a distracted, "Talk later!"
The line clicked dead.
Silence rushed back into my room, thicker than before. It felt different now — heavier, like it had been waiting patiently for this exact moment.
I stared at the dark screen long after it went black.
So this is what doing everything right feels like.
Empty.
I set the phone down carefully, like it might shatter if I moved too quickly.
Then I stood.
The floor felt colder than it should have as I walked toward the mirror.
The frame gave its usual faint squeak when I stopped in front of it.
The girl inside it looked the same.
Small.
Replaceable.
Forgettable.
I stepped closer.
Closer.
Until my breath fogged the glass.
"I hate myself," I whispered.
The words barely reached the surface.
But they echoed inside me.
It didn't sound like hatred.
It didn't sound like sadness either.
It sounded like exhaustion.
"I wish I could change."
For a moment, nothing happened.
Just me.
And her.
Then—
The girl in the mirror tilted her head slightly.
I froze.
My heart skipped once.
Maybe that was just me.
Maybe I moved without realizing.
I straightened slowly.
She didn't.
The air in the room felt wrong.
Heavier.
Thicker.
My reflection's eyes no longer looked fragile.
They looked steady.
Focused.
Certain.
Like she wasn't the one unsure anymore.
I lifted my hand cautiously.
She waited a second too long before copying me.
A second.
But it was enough.
Cold crept up my spine.
"That's not funny," I whispered, though I wasn't sure who I was speaking to.
The glass beneath my fingertips wasn't cold anymore.
It was warm.
No.
Not warm.
Pulsing.
Like something alive was breathing beneath it.
I tried to pull my hand back.
It didn't move.
My reflection's fingers pressed harder against mine from the other side.
The surface rippled.
Not cracked.
Rippled.
Like disturbed water.
My breath came faster now. "Stop."
The mirror didn't listen.
My fingers sank.
Just slightly.
Just enough for panic to take shape.
The glass swallowed my knuckles.
I yanked back.
It held me.
The room stretched — walls bending, ceiling warping, shadows bleeding outward.
The light flickered violently.
My phone slid off my bed and hit the floor, but the sound came too far away, like it belonged to another world.
The reflection smiled.
Not cruel.
Not kind.
Knowing.
Then everything moved at once.
The mirror surged forward — or I fell into it.
I couldn't tell.
Cold swallowed me whole.
There was no room.
No air.
No up or down.
Only pressure.
And falling.
And the sound of something ancient cracking open.
Then—
Impact.
Stone.
Hard. Unforgiving.
Air tore back into my lungs painfully as I gasped.
Dust filled my mouth. My palms scraped against rough ground.
I coughed, blinking rapidly.
The world around me was dim — tinted in ash and dying light.
This wasn't my room.
The air smelled different. Like smoke. Like rust. Like something abandoned.
Slowly, I pushed myself up onto trembling elbows.
Broken pillars surrounded me.
Fragments of carved stone littered the ground, half-buried in dust. What once might have been walls now stood jagged and torn, like ribs exposed after something violent.
Wind moved through the ruins with a low, hollow sound.
I turned in a slow circle.
Crumbling arches.
Fallen statues.
Cracked marble beneath my hands.
A place destroyed long ago.
Or waiting to be.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears.
"This isn't real," I whispered.
It had to be a dream.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Opened them.
The ruins remained.
The sky above wasn't the familiar dark of night.
It was streaked with deep crimson and shadowed clouds, like a storm frozen mid-breath.
A chill ran through me.
I looked down at my hands.
Still mine.
Still shaking.
But something felt different.
The air pressed against my skin like recognition.
Like I wasn't a stranger here.
Like this place had been waiting.
And somewhere in the distance, a faint echo of wind carried through the broken pillars —
Not quite a whisper.
Not quite silence.
I swallowed hard.
"What happened to me?"
No answer came.
Only the quiet certainty that nothing about my life was normal anymore.
"Welcome back."
The voice was sharp, yet barely louder than a breath.
It echoed through the ruins —
and inside my skull at the same time.
I spun around.
Broken pillars.
Cracked stone.
Empty air.
But the words lingered — not in the wind.
In me.
( Note:- I am a 13-year-old and this is my first novel. Also English is not my first language so I want to apologize for my poor grammar and writing skills.)