Chapter 10
The Mirror Effect
Emily begins to mimic Selly's mannerisms more intensely – her stillness, her vacant stare. Sally is horrified, seeing her daughter slowly change before her eyes.
The air in Emily’s room had grown thick, heavy with an unseen presence that clung to the corners like dust bunnies. Sally stood in the doorway, her heart a frantic hummingbird trapped in her chest, watching her daughter. Emily was no longer the bubbly, bright-eyed child who chased butterflies in the garden. Now, she sat on the rug, utterly still, her small body rigid as if carved from stone. Her gaze was fixed, not on a toy or a drawing, but on the empty space beside her, a space that Sally knew, with a chilling certainty, Selly occupied.
It had started subtly. A tilt of the head, a prolonged silence where a giggle should have been. But tonight, it was different. Emily’s eyes, usually so full of life, were wide and vacant, mirroring the peculiar, unblinking stare Sally had begun to dread. It was Selly’s stare, the one that seemed to look through the walls, through the very fabric of reality, searching for something in the encroaching darkness.
“Emily, honey?” Sally’s voice was a fragile thread, barely audible above the thrumming in her ears.
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