"The Last Reflection"

I shouldn't have looked in the mirror.

I knew what the old woman said—Don’t watch it happen. Don’t give it power. But I thought maybe if I saw it, I could fight it.

God, I was so stupid.

It started on the left side, just like she warned. Subtle, almost imperceptible at first. I noticed the curl first—just one, spilling over my forehead, heavy and dark and wrong. My hair’s supposed to be tight, cropped, clean. I keep it that way. Kept it.

I grabbed my razor, trembling, tried to shave it off, but when the blade touched it, the hair didn’t even catch. It coiled tighter, glossier. Like it wasn’t hair at all anymore, but something alive.

That’s when I looked up.

And saw it.

The divide.

A perfect line ran vertically down my face. On the left—my face, my real face. Strong jaw, flat cheekbone, familiar eyes. I blinked. So did the reflection. But the right side...

It was hers.

Softer, rounder, sculpted. Not just feminized—alien. That cheek wasn’t mine. That brow, too arched. The lashes, long enough to catch the light like blades. My lip curled, and I saw only her smirk forming.

“What the hell?” I rasped.

The voice that came out was still mine. Barely.

I staggered back, but my feet stayed rooted. I wanted to run, to smash the glass, to scream. But my eyes were locked. Held. It was like the mirror was pulling me in, like my reflection had weight and gravity and hunger.

And the line crept further.

I watched, paralyzed, as the brow bone melted down, contouring into something more delicate. Skin smoothed, pores vanishing. My right eye blinked again—long, luxurious lashes fluttering like they belonged on someone else entirely.

My chest rose and fell in short, gasping breaths.

But only on one side.

My breathing had changed. My ribs shifted on the right, my posture pulling inward, shoulders drawing up, dainty, unsure.

Please stop, I thought. Please—

My right ear popped. My lobe stretched downward, thinned, and gleamed. A gold earring materialized, like a droplet of metal forming from nothing.

I tried to scream. Nothing came out.

The line was at my nose now. I watched it narrow, tilt up ever so slightly. My nostril flared, feminine. Dainty. That side of my face smiled again.

Not me.

Her.

My eye—my real one—was wide with terror. The other stared, calm and resigned. Already gone.

I pressed my palms to the sink, felt my strength waning, the muscle on my right arm twitching and shrinking, tendons relaxing, joints loosening, reforming.

No no no no—

My lips were the next to go. I watched the pink spread from right to left like a disease. Fuller. Softer. Painted with something I never put on. When the line reached the center, I whimpered.

Only half a man now.

The other half smiled.

“Almost done,” she whispered.

I didn’t say that.

But I heard it.

My voice. Her tone.

The line passed over my remaining eye. I screamed.

But the sound was high and breathy now, too light, too sweet.

My jaw, my chin, my cheek followed. All of it smoothed. Replaced. The left side was hers now. The last of me melted under her skin, like wax under flame.

I blinked again.

Both eyes fluttered.

Lashes.

She smiled.

I smiled.

And I could feel it, finally—not like before when there was still a war in my bones—but all at once: I was her. Completely.

The reflection leaned in. So did I.

“I told you not to look,” she said.

I pressed a hand to the mirror. My fingers—slender now, too delicate—met hers.

I don’t know whose breath fogged the glass first.

But it cleared just in time to see myself.

No trace of the man I had been.

Just her.

Pretty. Helpless.

Mine… but no longer me.