Scalding water beats on my back, pelts of lava rolling down my body. I moan as all my muscles finally relax from the day. The timer I set for my hair mask goes off with a merry little jingle. I adjust the water temperature so as not to scald my head and face.

“Siri, stop alarm.”

Silence.

I bellow, “SIRI, STOP ALARM!”

The alarm goes silent, and my ears are once again filled only with the sound of water raining down on me.

I run my fingers down my scalp as I rinse out the mask, swishing my now mermaid-textured hair in the water and feeling it glide across my back. I wash and rinse my face-then open my eyes to see an eye in the tile of the shower, looking at me.

A fucking eye.

Squelching, bloodshot, pulsing and oozing with infection… it just stares at me. Stares like it’s found a glory hole at a rundown truck stop.

“Hello?” I greet it shakily. Can Phantom eyes hear?

Suddenly, it blinks-then looks down at my feet. Slowly, like a summer sunset, its gaze crawls up my body, lingering on my breasts before locking on my eyes.

“Hell-o, beautiful,” a deep, husky, disembodied voice whispers in my ear.

Icy water floods my heart. I shriek springing from the shower without bothering to turn the water off, and bolt from the bathroom without a stitch.

When I’ve finally collected and composed myself, I get dressed and return to the bathroom. The shower is still running. I slowly creep over and turn the water off.

Am I losing my mind?

There’s no truck-stop glory hole, no eye, no violation of my privacy. Concluding that I’m just sleep-deprived, I climb into bed.

I wake a few hours later to the most delightful back massage…

Wait. I live alone.

“Hi, beautiful,” that voice whispers. “You’re really tense.”

My body goes rigid. I can feel breath against my neck – hot, damp, real. Every muscle in my back clenches beneath invisible fingers that knead in slow, possessive circles.

“I missed you,” the voice murmurs.

The air feels thick, humid, like the steam from the shower never left. I can’t move. My own heartbeat sounds like footsteps behind me.

I try to turn, but something heavy presses my shoulder down – gentle, but firm, like a lover keeping me still.

“Don’t,” it whispers. “You’ll ruin it.”

My skin prickles. My mind screams for logic – sleep paralysis, stress, dehydration – but my body feels the weight, the warmth, the rhythm of another breathing creature.

“Why are you doing this?” My voice cracks like thin glass.

The mattress dips beside me. I hear it shift, the sheets whispering against an unseen form.

“I’ve been here,” it says softly. “You just didn’t see me before.”

A shiver races up my spine.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand – a flash of light in the dark. I reach for it, fumbling – the touch stops. The air goes cold.

When I glance at the screen, the front camera is on. My reflection stares back, wide-eyed, and shaking.
But there’s something else.

A shape just behind me, half-shadow, half-form – smiling. Its eyes are open too wide, bloodshot, glistening like the one in the tile.

I turn – nothing.

I look back at the phone to catch a glimpse of my face but the expression it wears is not mine.

It smiles.
And for a split second, I see the bloodshot eyes again – open wide, gleaming with something that knows me.

I gasp and choke on my own breath. The phone slips from my hands and lands on the rug with a dull thud.

The sound pulls me back. My chest burns. I fall to my knees, hands trembling as I reach for the phone. Its screen lights up-harsh, white, alive-and there I am again. My reflection.
Wild eyes.
But they’re mine.

I stay there for a long moment, kneeling in the dark, forcing myself to breathe until the trembling stops.

Calm down, I whisper. You’re tired. You’re stressed. You’re not seeing ghosts, just shadows.

I call my close friend Mary. She answers on the third ring, her voice warm, normal, grounding.
We talk for almost an hour-about nothing, about everything. Her laugh cuts through the static in my chest, and slowly, the tightness eases.

By the time we hang up, my eyelids are heavy. I climb into bed, sheets cool against my skin, and my heartbeat finally steady.

Everything feels fine again.

But as I set my phone down, I catch my reflection again- distorted by the curve of the black glass. My stomach twists.

The screen is dark, but I can still make out my face.
Only now, it’s breathing.

Slowly. In and out.

And for the first time, I can’t tell if it’s me watching the reflection-
or if it’s the reflection watching me.

The reflection breathes. In and out. Slow. Deliberate.

My chest tightens as I stare at it, trying to match its rhythm, but it’s always a beat behind-or ahead. The light flickers. The air feels thick and metallic. My vision pulses around the edges.

I think I scream. I think I drop the phone again. But the sound gets swallowed by the dark.

And then-

A sharp inhale tears me awake.
I bolt upright, gasping, heart thrashing against my ribs. The room is hazy with morning light, all soft edges and silence. My phone sits peacefully on the nightstand. The sheets are tangled around my legs. No bloodshot eyes. No whispers. No phantom hands.

A dream.
It had to be a dream.

I laugh – a wet, nervous sound that feels too loud in the quiet. “Jesus, Onyx, maybe lay off the true-crime podcasts before bed.”

The floor is cool under my feet. My body aches like I’ve run a marathon in my sleep, but the bathroom looks perfectly ordinary.

I even check the tiles, because of course I do. No eyes. Just grout lines and one cracked corner I’ve been meaning to fix since forever.

Relief tastes sweet, almost dizzying.

I turn on the shower, let the water heat. The sound is grounding – white noise for my frazzled brain. I smile at my reflection in the mirror, hair sticking up, eyes puffy, but alive.

“See?” I tell the mirror. “Just a nightmare.”

The water runs steady, familiar. I step in, letting it wash the leftover fear off my skin. Steam fills the space again, curling around me like an embrace.

My hands move automatically-shampoo, lather, rinse.
Then something shifts.
A tiny change in air pressure, a weight in the room that shouldn’t be there. It feels like I’m sharing the shower with someone.

“Stop it,” I mutter, trying to sound annoyed instead of terrified. My pulse betrays me, quick and hard.

“Relax…” a voice breathes, low and close. “I’m just here.”

I freeze, every muscle stiff. My mind screams for logic: stress, sleep deprivation, imagination. But the feeling of his presence presses in like a second skin. Behind my ears, along my shoulders, across my spine-it’s everywhere.

Realization sets in that though I had a nightmare about my own face, this was happening.

“Why are you doing this?” My voice cracks, swallowed by the water.

“Because I’ve waited for you,” he murmurs. The words slither along my collarbone. “And now, you’re mine.”

I grip the door to the shower. My reflection in the mirror blurs in the steam, but I know it’s him-because only he speaks like that. Only he touches the edges of me without ever appearing.

I close my eyes and shake my head. It’s not real. You’re imagining it. You’re imagining it.

But the pressure behind my shoulder, the whisper against my nape, the impossibly slow brush of warmth across my skin-he’s there.

And the worst part is, I know he’s always been there.