1 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:08,519 Speaker 1: Hullo. I welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here, 2 00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:11,720 Let's get into it. The mirror closed its eyes while 3 00:00:11,759 --> 00:00:14,119 I sat bolt upright, and suspicion tightened my throat like 4 00:00:14,119 --> 00:00:16,519 a hand I could not pry off. I reached for 5 00:00:16,519 --> 00:00:18,320 the frame, and the glass was cool and still beneath 6 00:00:18,320 --> 00:00:20,320 my fingers, the surface showing a face that had already 7 00:00:20,399 --> 00:00:23,039 let its lids fall. Suspicion pushed me out of bed. 8 00:00:23,719 --> 00:00:25,440 I stood, and I did not speak, because the act 9 00:00:25,440 --> 00:00:27,800 had the weight of an accusation. I had missed work 10 00:00:27,839 --> 00:00:29,519 that morning because I had been awake all night watching 11 00:00:29,559 --> 00:00:32,159 the mirror. My name does not matter for this recording, 12 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:34,880 but the place will. The one bedroom apartment on the 13 00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:37,840 second floor, A long, rectangular mirror hung opposite the bed, 14 00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:40,079 and knightston with a dented key on a fade lener. 15 00:00:40,799 --> 00:00:43,679 I kept rules about that mirror for years, concrete rules. 16 00:00:43,679 --> 00:00:45,880 I tapped in the frame until the wood new the rhythm. 17 00:00:46,159 --> 00:00:48,200 I stopped repeating them aloud when I thought no one 18 00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:51,880 was listening. The central problem was simple and urgent. The 19 00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:54,920 person who looked back at me no longer matched my movements. 20 00:00:55,479 --> 00:00:58,679 I tried to calm, deliberate, test. First, I lifted my 21 00:00:58,799 --> 00:01:02,200 left hand. The reflection did not lift its right. My 22 00:01:02,240 --> 00:01:06,359 breath came boxed in shallow, that's surfaced. I told myself 23 00:01:06,359 --> 00:01:08,719 it was fatigue, a trick of sleep deprivation. And then 24 00:01:08,719 --> 00:01:11,280 the reflection yawned, and its malformed words I did not hear. 25 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:14,359 The mismatch moved from strange to threatening, and three slow 26 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:19,400 motions blink, yawn close. My hands began to shake. I 27 00:01:19,439 --> 00:01:22,680 called my aunt speaker, without thinking through the words Meyer, 28 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:26,319 come over now, I said. Her voice arrived tired and sarcastic, 29 00:01:26,439 --> 00:01:28,280 the kind of tone she used when she expected to 30 00:01:28,319 --> 00:01:31,359 hang of her and got a problem instead. Ethan you okay? 31 00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:35,920 What happened? She asked. I kept her on speaker and 32 00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:37,840 walked into the living room so she could hear the 33 00:01:37,879 --> 00:01:41,040 small noises the apartment made when I paced. She arrived 34 00:01:41,079 --> 00:01:43,920 fifteen minutes later, boots on the mat, jackets still wet 35 00:01:43,959 --> 00:01:47,319 from the sprinkler down the block. Meyer is practical, impatient, 36 00:01:47,359 --> 00:01:49,920 and blunt. She says my full name when she wants 37 00:01:49,959 --> 00:01:52,920 me to stop wasting time. Show me, she told me, immediately, 38 00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:55,079 tapping the heel for hand and the door frame. I 39 00:01:55,159 --> 00:01:56,799 led her to the bedroom and kept my hand in 40 00:01:56,799 --> 00:01:59,280 the mirror's edge, as if contact would hold the world together. 41 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:02,719 The mere lay like a pulled photograph. The person in 42 00:02:02,799 --> 00:02:06,439 it had closed his eyes completely. I said, look. Mayor 43 00:02:06,439 --> 00:02:09,719 stepped forward, Hey, brushing her collar, and she frowned. Ethan, 44 00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:14,759 your eyes are open, she pointed. The man in there 45 00:02:14,840 --> 00:02:17,680 is asleep. Maya step back and ran a hand through 46 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:21,759 her hair. You need sleep, she said, I answered, with 47 00:02:21,840 --> 00:02:24,520 a single clench of my jaw and the directive call 48 00:02:24,599 --> 00:02:27,199 Mayor hello if he wakes up when you do, but stay. 49 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:30,319 Maya did not argue. She sat on the foot of 50 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:32,199 the bed and kept staring at the glass until the 51 00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:35,199 silence started to feel like a presence, and knock came. 52 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:39,199 Three minutes later. Rapp practiced. Mister Hallowe's voice was muffled 53 00:02:39,199 --> 00:02:42,120 through the door, heard voices. Everything all right in there, 54 00:02:42,199 --> 00:02:46,159 he asked. Mister Hallowe is the landlord? Short, methodical, always 55 00:02:46,159 --> 00:02:49,159 smelling faintly of cigars and cleaning solvent. He had a 56 00:02:49,199 --> 00:02:51,240 folder of building wolves clipped his hip, and a way 57 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:53,240 of looking at tenants that implied he knew more than 58 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:55,439 he let on. I opened the door with my heart 59 00:02:55,520 --> 00:02:58,319 wanting to run. Mister Hallow paid down the hallway, and 60 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:01,439 I pushed my slightly behind me. Sorry about the noise, 61 00:03:01,520 --> 00:03:04,719 I said. He glanced at my jacket, at the apartment label, 62 00:03:04,759 --> 00:03:06,439 then at the small dentic key on my knightston that 63 00:03:06,439 --> 00:03:08,439 I was still wearing on the chain inside my pocket. 64 00:03:09,080 --> 00:03:12,120 His face shifted and his stone dropped two degrees of familiarity. 65 00:03:12,759 --> 00:03:15,560 Dawn to let that mirror be unattended after dusk, he said, 66 00:03:16,080 --> 00:03:18,560 not since the other thing. He left before I could 67 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:21,240 ask what he meant. Mys Mark made a thin line. 68 00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:23,599 He's something, she said. He didn't say the same thing twice. 69 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:26,759 I felt a new emotion and uncomfortable clarity settle into 70 00:03:26,759 --> 00:03:30,520 my bones. This was not private folklore. The rolls had 71 00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:32,400 a life outside me. I could have let it end 72 00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:34,360 in that allway, with the click of mister Hallow's shoes 73 00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:37,599 instead of cold Marcus, who runs a small decorental service 74 00:03:37,599 --> 00:03:40,000 and owes me a favor. Marcus showed up with the 75 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:42,680 camera at a small tripod and attested impatience for anything 76 00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:46,479 he considered low skilled, superstitious nonsense. Ye sure you don't 77 00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:49,319 want to sleep? First, he asked, studying the tripe at 78 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:51,960 legs like you with a broken chair. I told him 79 00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:54,639 I needed an observer. We set up a single camera 80 00:03:54,639 --> 00:03:56,719 opposite the mirror, pointed to catch both the glass and 81 00:03:56,759 --> 00:03:59,080 the space in front of it. Marcus taped a rule 82 00:03:59,159 --> 00:04:02,120 sheet on the wall. No touching the glass during recording, 83 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:06,080 no shouting, record continuous feed. He had like a list 84 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:09,159 of rental terms. The sheet fell thin and bureaucratic in 85 00:04:09,199 --> 00:04:12,039 the room. Doctor Raise joined on speaker during the set 86 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:13,840 up and read the same rules aloud in his slow, 87 00:04:13,919 --> 00:04:17,000 clinical voice. He called in as a sleek consultant and 88 00:04:17,079 --> 00:04:19,920 sounded skeptical. Keep as in the feet for the first 89 00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:24,279 two hours. De Raised note any desynchronization. He used the 90 00:04:24,319 --> 00:04:26,399 clinical word, and I felt the moment tip from private 91 00:04:26,399 --> 00:04:30,480 to clinical. I paced. Marcus adjusted the camera and made small, 92 00:04:30,519 --> 00:04:33,279 sarcastic comments. I let pass because the camera made everything 93 00:04:33,279 --> 00:04:35,879 fill official. My sat on the couch and kept looking 94 00:04:35,879 --> 00:04:38,319 at the mirror. No one said the word rule again, 95 00:04:38,399 --> 00:04:41,800 that a paper sitted instead. Night passed in small movements, 96 00:04:42,439 --> 00:04:45,319 Marcus drinking can coffee, My tapping her foot to keep awake, 97 00:04:45,439 --> 00:04:48,399 ME running fingers along the mirror frame. At intervals, My 98 00:04:48,519 --> 00:04:51,000 motion shifted tear from suspicion to brittle, hope, hoped that 99 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:53,759 evidence would prove I was not losing my mind. The 100 00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:55,680 camera's red light was a tiny sun in the dim 101 00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:58,199 living room, and it felt like the only honest thing 102 00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:00,920 in the apartment. I fell into watching the live feet 103 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:03,720 on Marcus's lap up next to me. We fast forwarded 104 00:05:03,759 --> 00:05:06,360 through iyros of small adjustments, me toning the lamb onn 105 00:05:06,519 --> 00:05:09,519 me wiping the mirror's edge, me checking my watch. At 106 00:05:09,519 --> 00:05:11,600 three in the morning, the feed showed something that was 107 00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:14,920 not on the surface of the glass. The reflection leaned forward, 108 00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:17,079 pressed its palms flat to the inside of the mirror, 109 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:19,720 and then it moved differently than I had. I stepped 110 00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:21,439 out of the plane of reflection and into the room 111 00:05:21,439 --> 00:05:23,120 on the other side of the glass. For a heartbeat 112 00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:25,920 before the frame went black, Marcus made a sound I 113 00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:28,879 had never heard from him. A short sharping's hair paused 114 00:05:28,959 --> 00:05:31,519 you to raise quick on the speaker. Mayer's hand found 115 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:35,279 mine and squeezed play it again, she said. We watched 116 00:05:35,279 --> 00:05:38,839 the pause frame, the reflection standing shoulders round it, a wet, 117 00:05:38,879 --> 00:05:41,240 dark mark like condensation rising on the inside of the 118 00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:44,279 glass where it had stepped. The camera's time still ticked, 119 00:05:44,279 --> 00:05:46,199 though the image had gone gray for half a second. 120 00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:50,879 A new emotion unspilled through me while fear My hands 121 00:05:50,879 --> 00:05:53,759 moved faster than thought. We need to call someone else, 122 00:05:54,519 --> 00:05:59,560 Marcus voice clipped dra raise for play back at Normal's bead, 123 00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:02,639 and then a Q order scanning and typing notes he 124 00:06:02,959 --> 00:06:05,720 I need to see full resolution. The evidence altered the 125 00:06:05,720 --> 00:06:08,759 towns of the argument. This was no longer about whether 126 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:12,360 I was tired. The reflection had stepped. We watched the 127 00:06:12,399 --> 00:06:15,079 file until dawn. The morning light in the window looked 128 00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:18,240 ordinary and aggressive in it clarity. Marcus packed up with 129 00:06:18,279 --> 00:06:19,800 the air of a man whose tools had become more 130 00:06:19,839 --> 00:06:22,480 dangerous than useful. Dawn let me be the only want 131 00:06:22,480 --> 00:06:25,160 to leave footage on a hard drive, he said. Myra 132 00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:27,199 and I copied the file to two drives and burned 133 00:06:27,199 --> 00:06:30,480 one to a secure cloud. We spread the coppers like insurance. 134 00:06:31,199 --> 00:06:33,160 I returned to the bedroom because the mirror had become 135 00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,000 a decision point. The reflection inside the glass slept in 136 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:39,040 a way that marked my wakefulness. Its chest rose slow 137 00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:41,360 and even as if deep in a dream. I touched 138 00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:43,439 the mirror and felt a vibration like a lost attic, 139 00:06:43,519 --> 00:06:45,480 but a real tremor under the skin of the glass. 140 00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:48,959 My motion shifted again. The brittle hope broke down into 141 00:06:48,959 --> 00:06:53,199 a stubborn, reckless determination. If evidence existed, then rules existed too, 142 00:06:53,319 --> 00:06:54,920 and I needed to find the rules I had been 143 00:06:54,920 --> 00:06:58,240 following blindly for years. I started with small questions I 144 00:06:58,319 --> 00:07:01,800 had always avoided. When did the rules begin? Who taught 145 00:07:01,839 --> 00:07:04,079 them to me? The answers came in the shape of 146 00:07:04,079 --> 00:07:07,439 a memory I had not rehearsed since adolescence, my father 147 00:07:07,519 --> 00:07:09,959 tapping the mirror framan saying never go to sleep looking 148 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:13,160 at it, and then a different centers quieter duntee let, 149 00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:15,920 the other one lonely, rewek. I had written both down 150 00:07:15,959 --> 00:07:17,759 in a notebook, talked under the mattress, and had never 151 00:07:17,759 --> 00:07:21,079 read them aloud, since that should have been private. The 152 00:07:21,160 --> 00:07:24,000 notebook felt like a small solemn object when I pulled 153 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,560 it out. May I read over my shoulder? He wrote these? 154 00:07:28,399 --> 00:07:32,680 She asked. Her voice had curiosity mixed with exasperation. Yea, 155 00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:36,519 I said, I thought it was superstition. I still do, 156 00:07:36,839 --> 00:07:39,720 but the camisuurs otherwise. She flipped through the pages. The 157 00:07:39,759 --> 00:07:42,240 handwriting was cramped and methodical, a list of does and 158 00:07:42,319 --> 00:07:45,519 duns in a hand that matched myne avoid prolongdaye contact 159 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:48,000 after midnight. Do not touch the glass when the reflection 160 00:07:48,120 --> 00:07:50,199 is still. Never say your own name toward the mirror. 161 00:07:50,839 --> 00:07:53,399 The rule stunk of practicality, like a checklist she used 162 00:07:53,399 --> 00:07:56,279 to avoid a recurring problem. Mister Hallow came by gen 163 00:07:56,319 --> 00:07:58,680 at noon. He brought a thin envelope and did not 164 00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:00,600 look at me when he pushed it across my threshold. 165 00:08:01,199 --> 00:08:03,519 For you, he said, And then, do not bring strangers 166 00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:06,360 here to test things. He left as if the conversation 167 00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:10,120 had ended. I opened the envelope on the counter. Inside 168 00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:11,959 was a single sheet of type texts with one line 169 00:08:11,959 --> 00:08:15,199 and a lined if the reflection stopped matching, do not 170 00:08:15,319 --> 00:08:18,560 let it cross. The line suggested a history did not know, 171 00:08:18,680 --> 00:08:20,920 and tied my panic to more than an individual hallucination. 172 00:08:21,560 --> 00:08:23,240 I called the number at the bottom of the paper 173 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:26,040 and listened to a recorded message to look without identifying itself. 174 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:29,519 The line cut off. I felt my stomach drop into 175 00:08:29,519 --> 00:08:32,720 a well of anger and impotence. This building keap files, 176 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:35,399 messer Hallo had said earlier. I thought of the other 177 00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:37,600 tenants and tried to remember any one else who would 178 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:40,240 have spoken like that. That night, I slept as little 179 00:08:40,279 --> 00:08:42,799 as I had the first we reinstalled a camera and 180 00:08:42,799 --> 00:08:45,879 added a microphone because Marcus insisted sound might reveal intent. 181 00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:48,799 My stayed again and argued with me. When I wanted 182 00:08:48,799 --> 00:08:52,600 to touch the glass. Ethan stop, She said, sharply, we 183 00:08:52,679 --> 00:08:57,120 are documenting this. You touching it doesn't help, I argued back. 184 00:08:57,759 --> 00:09:01,320 The exchange became quick and irritated. Maya, you don't understand, 185 00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:04,480 I said, The mirror knows me. You don't get to 186 00:09:04,519 --> 00:09:07,320 tell me true from your tired brain, She said, Show 187 00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:10,840 the footage first, then decide. Fayen, I said, but if 188 00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:12,559 it tries to you and I stopped because I could 189 00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:14,320 feel the old Wolf's slide in under my skin like 190 00:09:14,320 --> 00:09:17,399 a tattoo. The mid chapter turn happened when the microphone 191 00:09:17,399 --> 00:09:19,600 picked up his sound at three in the morning, a 192 00:09:19,639 --> 00:09:22,200 faint scraping, like finger nails against the inside of gas. 193 00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:24,759 We all leaned toward the laptop in the living room 194 00:09:24,759 --> 00:09:28,320 and played it at full volume. Marcus cursed, sure to 195 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:31,559 rays went quiet. The sound had no echo in the room. 196 00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:34,559 It only existed in the recorded track, thin and precise. 197 00:09:35,279 --> 00:09:38,120 Maya's hand went white in the couch. We paused at 198 00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:40,159 that sound, and the room changed shape for two minutes. 199 00:09:40,759 --> 00:09:43,320 Then the living room light flicked twice once twice and 200 00:09:43,399 --> 00:09:46,200 went out. We were in darkness because the building fuse 201 00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:49,679 had dripped. Marcus cursed and rushed to the breaker. The 202 00:09:49,720 --> 00:09:52,480 power came back on in a single violent blink. That 203 00:09:52,600 --> 00:09:55,559 external event forced a decision. Continued to watch or to 204 00:09:55,559 --> 00:09:58,840 see the apartment and coal authorities. I chose to stay. 205 00:09:59,399 --> 00:10:01,799 Marcus left with his drives and told us to be careful, 206 00:10:01,879 --> 00:10:05,919 his voice brittle and fast. Lock the door, he said, dawn, 207 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:09,600 te invite anybody here to night. Mister Hallow's earlier warning 208 00:10:09,639 --> 00:10:11,799 replayed in my head, and the tight line from the envelope. 209 00:10:12,240 --> 00:10:14,879 An emotion that felt like was ignation set in. It 210 00:10:14,879 --> 00:10:16,840 had the shape of someone about to follow a rule 211 00:10:16,879 --> 00:10:20,000 he understood only partly. The climax came in the morning, 212 00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:24,120 absolute and physical. I stood in front of the mirror 213 00:10:24,159 --> 00:10:26,720 and read the rules aloud, because reading felt like ceremony. 214 00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:29,039 Do not light it cross, I said, in a voice 215 00:10:29,039 --> 00:10:32,039 that did not tremble at first. The reflection opened its 216 00:10:32,039 --> 00:10:33,759 eyes when I said the line, and it looked at 217 00:10:33,759 --> 00:10:36,279 me with a movement that was deliberate and slow. It 218 00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:38,240 reached a hand out and pressed its palm flat to 219 00:10:38,279 --> 00:10:40,799 the inside of the glass. I matched the motion with 220 00:10:40,879 --> 00:10:43,639 my hand. The two palms aligned, but there was resistance, 221 00:10:43,639 --> 00:10:46,440 as if a membrane yanked against my skin. I pulled 222 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:48,960 the glass, were resisted with the pressure I could feel 223 00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:52,080 through bone and joint. The reflections face did not strain. 224 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:55,600 It looked calm and intent Ethan it said, not with 225 00:10:55,639 --> 00:10:57,399 my voice, but with the shape of it, like someone 226 00:10:57,399 --> 00:11:02,000 practicing syllables. My fingers numbed. I remembered the notebooks sentence, 227 00:11:02,039 --> 00:11:03,679 the one that had been a hadache, and I did 228 00:11:03,679 --> 00:11:06,159 something I had never told any one. I tapped the 229 00:11:06,159 --> 00:11:08,759 frame three times in the old passion and yelled wake 230 00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:11,519 the glass buckle like a mouth about to speak. And 231 00:11:11,519 --> 00:11:13,320 then the apartment filled with a sound that was not 232 00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:15,240 from my throat, but from inside my skull, A low 233 00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:18,519 ringing and a single metallic snap. The reflection jerked, and then, 234 00:11:18,639 --> 00:11:20,679 in the space of a breath, leaned backward and flattened 235 00:11:20,679 --> 00:11:24,000 against the mirror, like col smoved on glass. The resistant 236 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,840 released in my hand slipped free. I glapsed to the floor, 237 00:11:26,879 --> 00:11:30,120 coughing and grasping for air when mine mirror hallock came 238 00:11:30,159 --> 00:11:32,039 through the door. Minutes later, they found me on the 239 00:11:32,039 --> 00:11:34,679 floor in the mirror, showing only a sleeping double make 240 00:11:34,799 --> 00:11:38,080 nolt and touched my shoulder. Ethan talked to me, she said, 241 00:11:38,799 --> 00:11:41,600 mister Hawell called out, where did it go? Where is 242 00:11:41,639 --> 00:11:44,200 the other one? His voice had a sharpness I had 243 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:47,200 not heard before. I tried to answer and only managed 244 00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:48,879 to point to the knights and where my small dented 245 00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:51,799 key and my digital watch lay. Marcus returned with his 246 00:11:51,879 --> 00:11:54,519 laptop open and showed us the footage again. The tip 247 00:11:54,559 --> 00:11:57,200 stopped at the exact moment my hand slipped. There was 248 00:11:57,240 --> 00:11:59,720 no image of an exchange, no frame capturing the place 249 00:11:59,759 --> 00:12:02,000 where the reflection had been outside the glass after the 250 00:12:02,039 --> 00:12:05,320 initial step. The recording had a final blank second, then 251 00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:07,840 a static bloom that overexposed the image for a full frame, 252 00:12:08,399 --> 00:12:11,279 thaw raising the call said we have to treat this 253 00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:14,240 as a missing person. If you physically disappeared. The phrase 254 00:12:14,279 --> 00:12:17,200 lodged in my chest. Maya's voice hardened in a way 255 00:12:17,240 --> 00:12:19,720 I had never heard, Ethan. If you leave now, I 256 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:23,240 am coming with you, she said, Dawn t Ron, I 257 00:12:23,279 --> 00:12:26,000 thought of running and fell the small animal panic. I 258 00:12:26,039 --> 00:12:28,600 thought of the rules. I picked up my phone and 259 00:12:28,639 --> 00:12:30,919 recorded a single voice memo before I did anything else. 260 00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:33,919 If you find this, I said into the recorder, listen 261 00:12:33,960 --> 00:12:38,240 to the rules. I messed up. Do not. I stopped 262 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:41,320 because I could not finish the sentence. The last paragraph 263 00:12:41,399 --> 00:12:44,639 must anger to a specific tangible outcome. Mayor and Mayor 264 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:47,440 Hallo left the apartment to search the corridors and call 265 00:12:47,519 --> 00:12:50,639 numbers listed in the type page. Mayor found the notebook 266 00:12:50,639 --> 00:12:53,200 and opened to the last entry. In the margin, I 267 00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:56,120 had written three words neat and small. Do not trade places. 268 00:12:56,600 --> 00:12:58,919 She played my voice memo again, and the sound cut through. 269 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:00,600 At the end of it, a metallic click followed by 270 00:13:00,639 --> 00:13:03,200 a door knocked directly in the apartments exterior. Three pats, 271 00:13:03,240 --> 00:13:06,159 casual and deliberate. The knock came from the hallway just 272 00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:08,279 after the audio ended, and my turne to the door, 273 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:10,000 as if the sound on the memo had become prisoned 274 00:13:10,039 --> 00:13:12,360 in the room. She reached for the door knob and 275 00:13:12,360 --> 00:13:16,639 stopped listening. The knock came again, louder and slower. Mister 276 00:13:16,679 --> 00:13:19,120 Hallow froze with his hand half raised. My Ethan and 277 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:22,399 her voice cat wants. Chapter closes with the three knocks 278 00:13:22,399 --> 00:13:24,320 repeating at the door and the room holding its breath 279 00:13:24,320 --> 00:13:26,960 while someone waits to see who will answer. The knock 280 00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:31,200 came in three sharp hollow strikes. Open up ethan Mara's 281 00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:33,639 voice pushed through the door and down the hallway. I 282 00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:35,159 put my hand on the knob before I had time 283 00:13:35,200 --> 00:13:37,080 to answer, and felt the suspicion tight in my throat 284 00:13:37,120 --> 00:13:39,879 into one hard knot. Suspicion had been living with me 285 00:13:39,960 --> 00:13:42,799 for weeks now. It made me check windows twice, count 286 00:13:42,799 --> 00:13:45,600 the locking clicks, and slow my breathing when I moved 287 00:13:45,639 --> 00:13:48,200 in front of any glass. You were on the stairs, Mara, 288 00:13:48,279 --> 00:13:52,039 through the wood. I just saw you. He rebeleeding opened 289 00:13:52,039 --> 00:13:54,360 the door. Her voice had the flat edge of some 290 00:13:54,399 --> 00:13:57,279 one who wanted a yes or no answer. I stepped 291 00:13:57,279 --> 00:13:59,919 back and looked at my watch. It hadn't moved since 292 00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:02,679 I'd been sitting on the sofa. My watch face read 293 00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:05,399 the same minute at had twenty minutes before. I kept 294 00:14:05,399 --> 00:14:07,399 my hand in the knob and forced to measure sound out. 295 00:14:08,039 --> 00:14:10,679 I didn't leave the apartment to night. I haven't left 296 00:14:10,679 --> 00:14:13,240 it all. I could hear her footsteps in the corridor, 297 00:14:13,320 --> 00:14:17,080 impatient and raw. I remembered the other night. The mirror 298 00:14:17,120 --> 00:14:19,120 had closed his eyes while I sat bold upright in 299 00:14:19,159 --> 00:14:21,240 the lids in the glass slid down before my own dead. 300 00:14:21,919 --> 00:14:24,279 That exact event had pushed me into this state of attention. 301 00:14:24,879 --> 00:14:26,600 I mentioned it now because Mara had to know how 302 00:14:26,639 --> 00:14:29,240 specific my fear had become. Telling her would make the 303 00:14:29,279 --> 00:14:32,919 danger concrete, not imaginary. She kept buying, you don't get 304 00:14:32,919 --> 00:14:34,159 to say you didn't go out when I have a 305 00:14:34,159 --> 00:14:37,559 photo of Ethan open it. I unlocked the door with 306 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:39,519 a deliberate slow motion and pulled it wide enough to 307 00:14:39,559 --> 00:14:42,600 slide Mars's phone under my nose. She torust the screen 308 00:14:42,639 --> 00:14:45,399 toward me. The ferter held the stairwell landing with its 309 00:14:45,399 --> 00:14:48,639 concrete steps in the pale fluorescent strip light. A figure 310 00:14:48,639 --> 00:14:50,600 at the landing was a mistake up in me same 311 00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:53,080 slaughched your shoulders, the worn gray hoody hanging for my frame, 312 00:14:53,159 --> 00:14:55,360 the thin silver band twinkling, and the left ring finger. 313 00:14:55,960 --> 00:14:58,639 The time stump printed in the corner said nineteen forty two, 314 00:14:58,759 --> 00:15:01,039 nine minutes earlier than the time on my watch. You 315 00:15:01,159 --> 00:15:04,799 see it, Mara. Her breath lifted the hair at her collar. 316 00:15:04,879 --> 00:15:07,639 It was minutes ago you were walking down those steps. 317 00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:10,279 I was getting mail. I took the phone and felt 318 00:15:10,279 --> 00:15:12,840 the room contract around the image. That's me, I said, 319 00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:16,159 my voice came out flat. I touched my own left 320 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:17,919 ring finger, checking the band as if it might be 321 00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:21,360 a prop. I haven't left the apartment. I was here. 322 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:24,320 I sat on the sofa the whole time. I looked 323 00:15:24,320 --> 00:15:26,240 at the door frame, at the tightness of the lock, 324 00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:27,720 at the denter key, and the knight sun where I 325 00:15:27,759 --> 00:15:30,399 always kept it. I offered the watch locks, the keyed 326 00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:33,279 entry record, anything that would push this into a normal explanation. 327 00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:36,279 Check the building entry locks, I said, asked the night manager. 328 00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:38,320 My hands scraped the wood of the door as I 329 00:15:38,360 --> 00:15:41,200 gestured for calm. Mara held my gaze for one second 330 00:15:41,279 --> 00:15:43,879 too long, Ethan. That picture is your face. You have 331 00:15:44,039 --> 00:15:46,240 to believe me. Her tone thin into something near pleading. 332 00:15:46,799 --> 00:15:49,000 Then she changed it. Open up and let me in. 333 00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:51,039 I don't want to be the one who brings a 334 00:15:51,080 --> 00:15:54,000 dead body down these stairs. She put the phone away 335 00:15:54,039 --> 00:15:55,840 and bashed the knuckles of her hand against the door. 336 00:15:56,440 --> 00:15:59,120 The sound landed like a secondary knock, a punctuation to 337 00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:02,320 what she had already Sae said. Residence in the hole paused. 338 00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:04,679 A neighbor's voice carried from two doors down, asking if 339 00:16:04,720 --> 00:16:08,399 everything was all right. I let her in Inside. I 340 00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:10,240 watched her shut the door and lock it twice before 341 00:16:10,279 --> 00:16:12,759 she faced me. Filly Mara had a short coat that 342 00:16:12,799 --> 00:16:15,559 smelled thinly of laundry, soap and rain. Her hair was 343 00:16:15,559 --> 00:16:18,120 twisted into a practical knot at the nape. He looked exhausted. 344 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:20,879 She said, she used my name, which made the world 345 00:16:20,879 --> 00:16:23,399 feel narrower. She kept the phone on the table in 346 00:16:23,399 --> 00:16:25,279 the hallway and swept to show me the photo again. 347 00:16:25,879 --> 00:16:28,639 When I took the phone, I recognized the angle. It 348 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:30,960 matched the stairwall camera feed that pointed at the landing. 349 00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:32,919 I grabbed it from the mill area camera, she said. 350 00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:36,879 I downloaded it to be sure the times done. Pontee Lie. 351 00:16:37,360 --> 00:16:39,159 I would swear to God I saw you walking away 352 00:16:39,159 --> 00:16:42,039 from the building. Her speech napped. She was trying to 353 00:16:42,039 --> 00:16:44,080 make a fact out of something that didn't fit my fact. 354 00:16:44,720 --> 00:16:47,759 Show me the time stamp, Menedeta, I said. I moved 355 00:16:47,759 --> 00:16:49,840 toward the living room and pointed at the mirror standing 356 00:16:49,879 --> 00:16:52,480 by the sofa. The mirror was propped against the wall 357 00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:55,159 where it had stood for years. It skilt frame micked 358 00:16:55,159 --> 00:16:57,639 where i'd e knocked it on moving day. There's no 359 00:16:57,679 --> 00:17:00,440 way I left and came back. I kept my voice, 360 00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:02,000 even because the pulse of the base of my skull 361 00:17:02,039 --> 00:17:04,920 had started to from. Mara followed me, phone in hand. 362 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:07,960 We can call the manager, Ethan. I already messaged him. 363 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:11,119 He he'll check the elevator camera. She stopped at the 364 00:17:11,119 --> 00:17:13,079 mirror and studded the glass with a stiffness that was 365 00:17:13,119 --> 00:17:16,000 almost like a physical step back. In the mirror, my 366 00:17:16,039 --> 00:17:18,720 reflection weighted on its own rhythm. It blinked with a 367 00:17:18,759 --> 00:17:21,440 gap that wasn't he mine, a deliberate blink. After I moved, 368 00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:24,759 I tested it, lowered my hand slowly and watched the 369 00:17:24,759 --> 00:17:27,680 glass hand follow A breath later, The reflection had the 370 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:30,680 slowness of a puppet on a string. Mara's hand found 371 00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:32,200 the edge of the frame and touched the gold with 372 00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:35,759 one knuckle. Do you see that, She asked Ethan, ir 373 00:17:35,759 --> 00:17:39,200 reflection is off. She my name again, and this time 374 00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:42,000 her voice carried the crack of genuine alarm. I felt 375 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:45,200 a sudden shift from suspicion into doubt. Doubt first surface 376 00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:48,799 as a practical checklist, what cameras, time stamped, who at keys? 377 00:17:49,039 --> 00:17:52,400 Whether the building security system had glitches? My hands, at 378 00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:55,039 first steady, started to tremble on the mirror frame. I 379 00:17:55,079 --> 00:17:57,640 cleared my froot huddle in the kitchen, lock the door 380 00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:00,799 between us and the hallway. Stay with me while figures out. 381 00:18:01,839 --> 00:18:04,440 I tried to sound like someone organizing steps rather than 382 00:18:04,440 --> 00:18:08,039 someone trying to hold themselves together. Mara moved without arguing. 383 00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:11,359 We went through action. I pulled the mirror away from 384 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:13,880 the wall and set it in the carpet. Mars again 385 00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:16,799 the apartment with sharp eyes, moving reflective surfaces to cover 386 00:18:16,839 --> 00:18:19,880 them with dish towels and blotders. She taped foil over 387 00:18:19,920 --> 00:18:22,400 the small bathroom mirror and turned framed photos to the wall. 388 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:24,920 The ritual felt absurd, and yet the air was quick. 389 00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:28,359 With practical motion, we worked by specific tasks. Taped the lamp, 390 00:18:28,400 --> 00:18:30,799 faced the TV screen down, stack the silverware with the 391 00:18:30,799 --> 00:18:33,880 handles in her Each besides motion brushed my mind away 392 00:18:33,880 --> 00:18:37,279 from silent catastropherzing into the narrow channel of method. We 393 00:18:37,319 --> 00:18:39,599 found the folded paper wedge between the mirror frame and 394 00:18:39,599 --> 00:18:41,519 the plats of the moment to scrape my knuckle along 395 00:18:41,559 --> 00:18:44,400 the back of the frame, Mar's fingers fumbled the paper 396 00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:47,400 free and unfolded it. The type was blocky, blacked out 397 00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:50,039 in places where someone had used a heavy marker. One 398 00:18:50,119 --> 00:18:53,319 sentence remained unobscured and very plain, do not let the 399 00:18:53,359 --> 00:18:56,160 reflections sleep first. The rest of the page had been 400 00:18:56,200 --> 00:18:59,839 redacted in long, angry strokes. Marv read the line aloud 401 00:18:59,839 --> 00:19:02,519 and then pressed both palms to her mouth. What is that? 402 00:19:03,119 --> 00:19:06,599 Where did you get this? She asked? I told her 403 00:19:06,599 --> 00:19:08,960 I had not seen it before. I could feel the 404 00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:12,039 doubt hardened interfere fear made my throat dry and my 405 00:19:12,039 --> 00:19:14,799 fingers go cold. I touched the corner of the paper 406 00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:16,680 with the tip of my finger, feeling the slight grit 407 00:19:16,680 --> 00:19:19,319 where the inker bled into the fibers. We compared the 408 00:19:19,319 --> 00:19:21,480 handwriting on the paper to mine, and somewhere in the 409 00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:23,480 margin I found a pencil scrawl in ink that matched 410 00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,359 my looping lawer ks. It looked like my hand had 411 00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:28,240 written it at some point when I couldn't ever remember 412 00:19:28,319 --> 00:19:31,079 doing so. The presence of my handwriting on or warning 413 00:19:31,119 --> 00:19:33,200 not to let the reflections sleep first turned the paper 414 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:36,519 from evidence into a threat. An external then interrupted us. 415 00:19:37,279 --> 00:19:40,359 Someone screamed in the corridor, a short, sharp sound of recognition. 416 00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:43,279 A resident had come into the lobby and pointed toward 417 00:19:43,279 --> 00:19:46,039 the windows along the street. From where we stood, I 418 00:19:46,079 --> 00:19:48,119 could see the reflection of street light in the glass 419 00:19:48,119 --> 00:19:50,759 of the building. Across the way. A man was pacing 420 00:19:50,759 --> 00:19:53,240 in front of those windows. He kept moving at the 421 00:19:53,279 --> 00:19:56,880 same narrow path for a second. My stomach dropped. The 422 00:19:56,960 --> 00:19:58,920 figure matched my height, the curve of the hoodie, the 423 00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:01,640 way the hoodie sat on the shore. Mara grabbed my 424 00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:03,599 wrist and her voice came out like a chopped order. 425 00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:06,559 Ethan look, new person down the hall, Say some one 426 00:20:06,559 --> 00:20:08,480 who looks like he was walking outside the building. Her 427 00:20:08,519 --> 00:20:11,440 grip tightened. She might name three times in a row, 428 00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:13,839 like a way to keep me present. I pulled the 429 00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:16,759 cut in his side with two fingers and watched. The 430 00:20:16,759 --> 00:20:19,240 man at the other building toned his head and looked back. 431 00:20:19,839 --> 00:20:22,279 When he did, his lids fluttered in a small, steady 432 00:20:22,319 --> 00:20:24,480 motion that was not the same as mine. He was 433 00:20:24,519 --> 00:20:27,799 not on the sidewalk. He was pacing inside another apartment 434 00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:31,039 and inside the glass. His movement looked patient considered. This 435 00:20:31,240 --> 00:20:34,519 was the moment suspicion became active. Fear. Fear altered how 436 00:20:34,519 --> 00:20:37,920 I breathed. It shortened the space between inhale and exhale. 437 00:20:38,359 --> 00:20:40,359 I moved without thinking into the hall. Witch checked the 438 00:20:40,359 --> 00:20:43,200 locks again. Mark called to a neighbor, a stocky woman 439 00:20:43,279 --> 00:20:45,240 named Rosa, who had a key to the laundry room, 440 00:20:45,279 --> 00:20:47,880 to ask whether any one had seen me. Rosa pressed 441 00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:49,759 her face through the doorway and said, that man at 442 00:20:49,759 --> 00:20:52,160 the window looked like you, Ethan. He was only at 443 00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:55,000 the other buildings windows for a while. He kept turning 444 00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:57,759 his face like he was looking for something inside. Rose's 445 00:20:57,839 --> 00:21:00,799 voice showed confusion and a concrete detail the man in 446 00:21:00,839 --> 00:21:03,440 the other building had been searching with his eyes. I 447 00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:05,200 put my hand to the mirror and felt the glass 448 00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:08,160 col against my palm. The reflection inside the glass did 449 00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:11,079 not meet my eyes. It kept watching its own hands, 450 00:21:11,240 --> 00:21:13,240 the slow rise and fall of the chest just slightly 451 00:21:13,279 --> 00:21:15,119 out of sync with me. I said, if the reflection 452 00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:16,960 can appear in the windows, we can tegui us cover 453 00:21:17,039 --> 00:21:19,519 mirrors and to help estacee. But my words were a 454 00:21:19,559 --> 00:21:22,440 plan and a surrender at once. Mara paced a quick 455 00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:24,279 line in the living room and stopped in front of 456 00:21:24,279 --> 00:21:28,440 the mirror. What do we do, she asked. We tried 457 00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:31,799 containment with more method. I dragged the small entryway mirror 458 00:21:31,839 --> 00:21:33,440 into the bath room and set it under the bath 459 00:21:33,519 --> 00:21:36,079 to brim. Mara taped a trash back over the TV, 460 00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:38,640 and then laid the sink with a towel. We worked 461 00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:42,759 with quick, ugly ingenuity, turn every reflective surface away, stackplates 462 00:21:42,799 --> 00:21:45,039 face down, smeared the stainless steel with two paces, so 463 00:21:45,079 --> 00:21:47,880 it became mat Each task felt like plugging leaks in 464 00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:50,680 a dam that might not hold an external event. Realed 465 00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:52,480 us back. Some one in the lobbish out of my 466 00:21:52,559 --> 00:21:54,440 name and knocked on the door three times, but they 467 00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:57,440 were not coming up the stairs. A new voice, what 468 00:21:57,559 --> 00:21:59,880 sounded like the building manager's, called that he had found 469 00:21:59,880 --> 00:22:02,119 a broken mirror in the lobby and a small pool 470 00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:04,680 of blood on Stowell landing. I walked to the hallway 471 00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:07,279 and peered through the people down stairs. A cluster of 472 00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:09,279 faces pershed at the glass of the lobby doors to 473 00:22:09,279 --> 00:22:12,160 see inside the lobby. Mirror at the tall mirror by 474 00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:15,200 the stairwell had a spiderweb fracture across the corner. A 475 00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:17,319 smear of red marked one shark, but not the rest. 476 00:22:18,039 --> 00:22:20,119 I swallowed and led. The motion of my fingers traced 477 00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:22,440 the seam of my scab on my palm. Mara had 478 00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:25,799 accidentally nicked me while cracking a frame earler. The cut 479 00:22:25,839 --> 00:22:29,160 head blood, the proof of injury made the conflict concrete 480 00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:32,559 for others. We went down at the lobby. The mirror's 481 00:22:32,559 --> 00:22:35,640 broken corner reflected an image so precise it felt like betrayal. 482 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:38,519 The reflection in that fratchured mirror moved with a fluency 483 00:22:38,519 --> 00:22:40,480 that matched my own. Out were gestures only when it 484 00:22:40,519 --> 00:22:43,480 wanted to. When Mara talked, the lobby mirror's figure kept 485 00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:46,079 his hands tucked and tilted its head away. People in 486 00:22:46,079 --> 00:22:49,079 the lobby clustered with their phones up. Someone whispered, it 487 00:22:49,079 --> 00:22:52,680 looks like him, Then another said he was walking outside 488 00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:55,720 a minute ago. The crowd's attention hammered to space into 489 00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:58,839 a new shape. I was a person standing inside an apartment, 490 00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:01,839 match to face someone else had seen moving between glass surfaces. 491 00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:04,880 The reflection used the lobby mirror the way puppeteeria uses 492 00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:07,519 stage props. Mara and I argued in front of the 493 00:23:07,559 --> 00:23:10,680 mirror with three quick rounds where words collided like falling objects. 494 00:23:10,839 --> 00:23:13,119 We can trap it, I said, We can cover every 495 00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:15,119 surface and keep it in one place until we figured 496 00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:17,400 this out. You keep talking like ye no plan, he 497 00:23:17,519 --> 00:23:19,720 the mirror. What is your plan? You tell me and 498 00:23:19,799 --> 00:23:21,839 I will help a papers out of rule, I replied, 499 00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:24,480 do not let the reflection. Sleep first. If it's about sleep, 500 00:23:24,519 --> 00:23:27,519 then we control the states. Keep it awake, Mara, snap back. 501 00:23:27,599 --> 00:23:29,960 We can tease stay awake for ever you think. I 502 00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:31,839 can watch every mirror for the rest of my life. 503 00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,039 The exchange was compressed and hectic, both of us speaking 504 00:23:35,079 --> 00:23:38,319 in short lines, each name repeaated, so bestanned Asktrak, who 505 00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:41,079 said what? During a push of motion by the crowd, 506 00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:43,559 A shard cut me. The pain across my palm was 507 00:23:43,599 --> 00:23:46,960 immediate and very specific, a shallow slices along the left 508 00:23:47,039 --> 00:23:50,160 knuckle that left a warm'smer blood flowered on the skin. 509 00:23:50,839 --> 00:23:52,839 Then Marr cursed and grabbed a paper towel from the 510 00:23:52,839 --> 00:23:55,640 lobby vending machine. She pressed it to my hand and 511 00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:57,920 did what she could to stop the bleeding. The sight 512 00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:00,880 of my blood made another event occur. The building manager 513 00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:02,880 said he found a motion on the sterwle camera that 514 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:05,640 matched the photo Morra had sure earlier. There is a 515 00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:07,839 figure with your hoodion walking away from the building at 516 00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,680 nineteen forty to you, he says, But the door locks 517 00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:12,960 show you in your apartment the whole time. I don't 518 00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:14,400 know what to make of it. His baff when it 519 00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:17,440 made the problem public. Back in my apartment. The reflection 520 00:24:17,519 --> 00:24:20,720 performed a tiny, intentional act while we were talking. It 521 00:24:20,759 --> 00:24:22,839 tapped the inside of the mirror frame with two knuckles. 522 00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:25,440 I watched the motion and realized it was not an 523 00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:28,039 involuntary mimic of my own rhythm. The tap was a 524 00:24:28,079 --> 00:24:31,440 deliberate signal. It paused between taps, tied like someone counting 525 00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:34,759 out a beat. Mara fro's midstep, looking at me with 526 00:24:34,799 --> 00:24:37,599 an expression that mixed his belief with the rising hard edge. 527 00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,640 It just tapped the frame, she said. The words came 528 00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,640 out in a broken exhale. It did it just she 529 00:24:43,759 --> 00:24:47,200 stopped speaking my name instead of finishing ethan. It knows 530 00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:50,079 what it's doing. It knows how to be seen. The 531 00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:53,119 sentence landed like a key dropped into a lock. This 532 00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,279 discovery shifted our tactics. Where doubt had made us check 533 00:24:56,319 --> 00:24:58,559 facts and fear had pushed us a barricade, the deliberate 534 00:24:58,599 --> 00:25:01,480 tap force a change into urgent. We could no longer 535 00:25:01,599 --> 00:25:05,200 cheat this like a malfunction. It was agency. We worked 536 00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:09,359 through possibilities. Allowed. If it taps, it's communicating, I said. 537 00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:13,440 If it's communicating, then maybe it follows rules. Mara listened 538 00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:15,599 and then reached from my arm with a quick pointer grip. 539 00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:19,279 The note said, Dante, let it sleep first. She reminded me, 540 00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:22,400 what if it's a rule with a deadline. Her eyes 541 00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:25,160 were bright and grim. We made a plan, stay awake, 542 00:25:25,279 --> 00:25:28,119 keep the reflections attention on us, prevent its lids from dropping. 543 00:25:28,599 --> 00:25:31,400 The next eye was moved into fined actions. We brew 544 00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:34,400 coffee and drank black cups until our hands trembled. We 545 00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:37,079 simulated movement in front of every mirror so the reflections 546 00:25:37,079 --> 00:25:39,759 had nothing to imitate besides us. When an eyes in 547 00:25:39,799 --> 00:25:41,599 the glass started to narrow in a way, my real 548 00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:44,079 face didn't ye. We snapped our heads in another's names, 549 00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:47,279 MARAA and a spoken short burst of dialog. While we worked. 550 00:25:48,079 --> 00:25:51,559 Our lines were instructions and checks Ethan, keep your right 551 00:25:51,599 --> 00:25:54,960 hand visible, Mara, dawn t turn your head away for 552 00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,039 more than ten seconds, Erosa, take the shift to two 553 00:25:58,079 --> 00:26:01,559 eh a, ma'am. Each instruction forced the problem into a 554 00:26:01,559 --> 00:26:05,359 grid of tasks. An unexpected reveal broke the rhythm. The 555 00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,160 other building's man stopped pacing and pressed his face to 556 00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,960 the glass and stayed toward our building. Someone in the 557 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,880 hall called out that he had been mouthing words marrigab 558 00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,519 my sleeve and pulled me to the window. From across 559 00:26:16,559 --> 00:26:18,599 the street, through two panes and the smear of wet light, 560 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:20,559 I could see the man's mouth shape out a single 561 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:24,519 slow phrase, Dante's Sleep. The phrase was the same blunt 562 00:26:24,599 --> 00:26:27,440 rule we had found in the redacted page. Hearing it 563 00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:29,759 from another witness, changed had the earl if fur to read. 564 00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:32,880 It was not proof of a duplicate alone. It was 565 00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:36,680 instructions spreading through reflected surfaces. By now the entire building 566 00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,960 had the problem on its lips. Residents banged on doors 567 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:44,200 to warn one another. Some people stayed away. Others came 568 00:26:44,279 --> 00:26:46,759 up with odd ideas, like covering every mirror with cardboard 569 00:26:46,839 --> 00:26:49,640 until morning. The manager posted a message in the lobby 570 00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,480 that he would be on sided all night. Marollne closed 571 00:26:52,519 --> 00:26:55,400 and said, Ethan, you wrote the note. At least the 572 00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,920 handwriting match yours. Do you remember writing a warning like that? 573 00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:01,839 My mind scraped for a memory and came up empty. 574 00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:04,000 There was a gap what the act of writing might 575 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,200 have happened? I said, no, If I wrote it, I 576 00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,799 didn't remember, but it carries my handwriting. The admission sounded small, dangerous. 577 00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:15,319 The reflections behavior escalated it stopped copying me and started 578 00:27:15,319 --> 00:27:17,640 to act independently in a way that made the crowd flinch. 579 00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:20,440 In a lobby mirror, it stood still while I moved 580 00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,039 my hand. Then it turned its head and looked straight 581 00:27:23,039 --> 00:27:25,880 toward morrowers if answering a call. Then it put it 582 00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:29,319 palms against the glass, facing inward. Morrow Ethan look. Her 583 00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,400 voice broke on my name. The reflection's face went slack, 584 00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:35,200 and its lid slid down. For the first time in days, 585 00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:37,359 a reflection in my vicinity closed its eyes. Before I 586 00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,680 had I heard the blood in my ears. I heard 587 00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,839 Marsey Dante. She lunged forward and slapped the lobby mirror 588 00:27:43,839 --> 00:27:46,119 with the heel of her hand as staccatto animal motion 589 00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:49,799 meant to startle. The reflection did not jerk awake. It 590 00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:52,319 kept its eyelids down and settled, as though choosing sleep. 591 00:27:52,839 --> 00:27:55,319 The room around us blowed into quick, harsh motions, people 592 00:27:55,319 --> 00:27:58,039 stepping back, someone dropping their phone. The managers were in 593 00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:02,160 under his breath. My response was immediate and reckless. I 594 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:04,799 sprinted for the stairwell, up two short flights into the 595 00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:07,920 quiet of the corridor outside my apartment. My feet went 596 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:09,599 light in the carpet, and my breathing hitched her a 597 00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,640 new cadence. I stood in front of the full length 598 00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:15,480 mirror with both hands pressed flat to the glass. The 599 00:28:15,599 --> 00:28:18,559 reflections palms were already there on the other side. Its 600 00:28:18,559 --> 00:28:21,359 eyes were closed, like someone asleep in a chair. Behind 601 00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:23,640 the closed lids, the features slackened into a stillness that 602 00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,759 didn't belong to me. The papers and coated warnings circulated 603 00:28:26,799 --> 00:28:29,599 in my head. Do not let the reflections sleep. First, 604 00:28:30,279 --> 00:28:32,079 I could feel the change in my body from fear 605 00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,680 into a furious clarity. The emotion became a knife edged focus. 606 00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,160 I had to decide. Mara called my name from the 607 00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:43,720 doorway in fractured bursts. It then dawnty. Her voice doubled, 608 00:28:43,759 --> 00:28:46,559 and then she dropped silent listening. I glanced over my 609 00:28:46,599 --> 00:28:48,400 shoulder and found her framed in the light, her muff 610 00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,480 forming small syllables I couldn't hear. Her hand was over 611 00:28:51,519 --> 00:28:53,960 her mouth. Her eyes tracked welke a gauge across the room. 612 00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:55,960 The nights. The lamp cast a narrow pull of sickly 613 00:28:56,079 --> 00:28:58,400 light on the floor. The crack while of after she 614 00:28:58,559 --> 00:29:00,640 rolled the small inch. When I shifted my wait outside, 615 00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:02,920 a neighbor's flashlight being cut across the window pane in 616 00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:06,279 quick sweeps. I thought through options aloud, because thought needed 617 00:29:06,279 --> 00:29:08,960 to become action. We can break it, I said, We 618 00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,119 can force the glass and see effagiency remains on the 619 00:29:11,119 --> 00:29:14,559 other side. Mar's head shook, and if it breaks free, 620 00:29:14,599 --> 00:29:17,200 she asked, if it takes a phase in leaves. Her 621 00:29:17,279 --> 00:29:20,920 voice was small and raw. The decision was not only mine. 622 00:29:21,319 --> 00:29:23,680 Mara had to be part of it. She stepped forward 623 00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,559 and put both palms on my shoulder. She if you 624 00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:28,720 go through, promise me you'll do something to stop if 625 00:29:28,759 --> 00:29:31,480 from moving to other windows. I heard the pleading there, 626 00:29:31,599 --> 00:29:34,640 the fear translated into a tactical demand. I thought of 627 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,599 the shod in the lobby, and the way the reflection 628 00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:39,079 had used the lobby mirror like a tool. I thought 629 00:29:39,119 --> 00:29:41,759 of the redacted note in my own handwriting. I thought 630 00:29:41,759 --> 00:29:43,599 of the man pacing across the street who had mild 631 00:29:43,599 --> 00:29:46,279 the phrase we had found. The motif that threaded through 632 00:29:46,359 --> 00:29:47,920 these moments was not a word I could use as 633 00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,960 a metaphor. It was a repeated rule. Someone had written instructions, 634 00:29:52,039 --> 00:29:54,200 some one else had enforced them, and lines were being 635 00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,440 drawn between states of being. The only concrete step left 636 00:29:57,480 --> 00:29:59,960 was in exchange. The moment of Troyce had the shape 637 00:30:00,079 --> 00:30:03,039 small mechanical motions. I braced my hands on the mirror 638 00:30:03,079 --> 00:30:06,440 frame and inhaled until my LUNs burned. Mara moved behind 639 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:09,000 me like a second set of hand shudders. She jammed 640 00:30:09,039 --> 00:30:11,359 her shoulder into my back and pushed wile I shoved outward. 641 00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:14,480 The glass bowed under our combined force, and then gave 642 00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:16,839 her a sound like a hell breath letting go. The 643 00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:18,920 surface rippled as the liquid, and for a heartbeat, I 644 00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,880 saw faces stuck behind the reflection. Two other faces, one 645 00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,119 a child's, one older, all folded into the space behind 646 00:30:25,119 --> 00:30:27,680 the glass. They slid away like carrots, and then the 647 00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:31,640 surface opened. I stepped through the other side was immediate, 648 00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:33,559 with air and a light that was my apartment's, cold 649 00:30:33,559 --> 00:30:36,400 and thin, like hallway lighting. I found myself standing in 650 00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:38,480 a narrow corridor that was not mine, but looked like 651 00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,839 a distorted trin the same rick pattern, slightly off scale. 652 00:30:42,279 --> 00:30:44,599 Mara's hands slammed into my shoulder, and a muffled shot 653 00:30:44,599 --> 00:30:47,400 came from my side of the glass. The surface closed 654 00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,039 behind me like the drawer of a lid. I tried 655 00:30:50,039 --> 00:30:51,720 to pound the mirror from the other side, but my 656 00:30:51,759 --> 00:30:54,559 fist met fabric and a seal vibration. I could hear 657 00:30:54,559 --> 00:30:56,279 my own breathing from as if some one else were 658 00:30:56,319 --> 00:31:00,039 standing there. I picked myself up and looked back. The 659 00:31:00,039 --> 00:31:02,160 glass was clear in one place, and in another it 660 00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:03,920 held a sleeping face turned toward the lamp on the 661 00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:07,200 night stuent. In the reflections bed, I saw myself lying 662 00:31:07,279 --> 00:31:09,480 like someone who had fallen hard and not yet woken. 663 00:31:10,039 --> 00:31:11,960 My clothes were the same. The scar on the eyebrow 664 00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,880 was visible even in sleep. I reached forward and pressed 665 00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:16,359 my palm to the glass, just when my sleep in 666 00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,400 devil's hand lay. The contact hummed through skin and bone. 667 00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,480 My fingers met cold and yielded resistance from the inside. 668 00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:25,240 From the other side, I heard Mara's voice in a roar, 669 00:31:25,279 --> 00:31:29,599 thin edge eaten ethan Dante, do this come back. Her 670 00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:32,799 hands beat against the frame and frantic thumps. Her voice 671 00:31:32,839 --> 00:31:35,680 was stading and breaking at once. She called out to 672 00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:39,160 the other residents. Someone called an ambulance. He fell through 673 00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:41,960 the mirror. Her choice to say that converted the incident 674 00:31:42,039 --> 00:31:45,200 into an immediate external event. I watched her through the 675 00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,519 glass as the building's manager and two neighbors rushed to 676 00:31:47,559 --> 00:31:50,480 the door. The lobby became a focus of movement and sound. 677 00:31:51,119 --> 00:31:52,680 I could have tried to rip the glass from its 678 00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:54,680 frame and come back through, but the surface would not 679 00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:58,319 open that way. It had folded clothes like a lid. Instead, 680 00:31:58,319 --> 00:32:00,759 I did the only thing that felt like control. I 681 00:32:00,799 --> 00:32:03,079 found the redacted page, folded under a loose corner of 682 00:32:03,119 --> 00:32:06,279 wallpaper inside the corridor and smooth a flat The writting 683 00:32:06,319 --> 00:32:09,200 that remained visible was the same blunt, black type do 684 00:32:09,319 --> 00:32:12,359 not let the reflections sleep. First. Below that, someone had 685 00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,359 scold small letters that looked like my handwriting, cheap your 686 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:19,400 eyes open. The line was a literal instruction. I pressed 687 00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:21,039 my forehead to the glass and shouted to Mar in 688 00:32:21,079 --> 00:32:24,519 short bursts, Marr, tape the edges, Dawn, te let any 689 00:32:24,519 --> 00:32:27,519 glass be uncovered, watch it with it, weakes, keep it awake. 690 00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,599 My lines were commands for the living, and also a confession. 691 00:32:31,119 --> 00:32:33,400 She repeated my sentences to the people in the corridor, 692 00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:37,240 barking short phrases that echoed like orders. Tape it, tape it, now, 693 00:32:37,839 --> 00:32:40,960 watch the eyes if it closes, Dante, touch it. Rosser 694 00:32:41,039 --> 00:32:42,720 and the manager obeyed in the way people due and 695 00:32:42,759 --> 00:32:45,720 fee mixed them practical tips stretched across the frame in 696 00:32:45,799 --> 00:32:50,119 rough strips cardboard covers pressed to the lampshade. Someone turned 697 00:32:50,119 --> 00:32:52,119 off the main lights and left a single low bull 698 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,000 burning in the hallway like a statement. The motion made 699 00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:57,119 the scene into a set of tasks rather than a tableau. 700 00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,839 The reflection woke with a small, precise jerk when the 701 00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:02,640 eyes opened the in focus for a moment and then 702 00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:04,640 hit my face with an intentant felt like a lens. 703 00:33:05,319 --> 00:33:07,079 It slid his hand away from the lamp and rested 704 00:33:07,079 --> 00:33:09,119 it on the duvet, like some one testing a muscle. 705 00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:12,240 Mara stared at it, and then, in emotion I didn't expect, 706 00:33:12,319 --> 00:33:15,240 lifted her phone and recorded ethan. She said to the screen, 707 00:33:15,319 --> 00:33:18,039 we are recording. We are doing this so some one knows. 708 00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:20,640 Her voice to the phone was brisk and business like. 709 00:33:21,279 --> 00:33:23,359 I heard the tape recorders more click, as a detail 710 00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,160 that made the moment official. We had no unexpected twist. 711 00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,839 Then the manager found a pair of old building memos 712 00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:30,920 in a drawer that matched the font and redactions of 713 00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:33,559 the page we had found. He handed one Tomorrow, who 714 00:33:33,559 --> 00:33:37,079 read a name out loud Lockward Tenement reflection protocol. The 715 00:33:37,119 --> 00:33:40,319 memo was yellowed and bureaucratic in its tone. It contained 716 00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,640 entries about containment and an unusual blan claws that matched 717 00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:47,000 our rule. The presence of institutional language changed the problem 718 00:33:47,039 --> 00:33:49,359 from a private weirdness into something that had been governed 719 00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:52,920 before with signatures and dates. The twist refrained our panic 720 00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:55,160 into the hard reality that some one had cataloged this 721 00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:58,319 before and left a method behind. Mars spoke to me, then, 722 00:33:58,599 --> 00:34:01,759 clear and direct ethan they tried to contain it before. 723 00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:04,279 The memo says they used to keep people in rooms 724 00:34:04,279 --> 00:34:07,599 without mirror until the reflection collapsed. Her voice held a small, 725 00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,840 grave curiosity. The new knowledge made the early gap in 726 00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,880 my head feel like part of a pattern. I realized someone, 727 00:34:14,159 --> 00:34:17,000 maybe myself, had been involved in a previous containment attempt 728 00:34:17,639 --> 00:34:20,880 that might display in the handwriting. That realization moved me 729 00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,320 from panic toward an icy responsibility. If the system had 730 00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:27,280 been used before, someone had paid a price. I tapped 731 00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:28,840 on the glass and felt the echo of my finger 732 00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:31,719 nails On the other side. The reflection watched me, and 733 00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,039 then slowly slid its hand to its mouth and mouthed 734 00:34:34,079 --> 00:34:37,440 my name without sound. The gesture was intimate and terrifying. 735 00:34:38,199 --> 00:34:40,280 It made my lungs catch and then gave me a clarity. 736 00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:43,039 I had to expect it. If the reflection could mimic 737 00:34:43,119 --> 00:34:45,480 not just actions, but speech, then the rule about sleep 738 00:34:45,559 --> 00:34:48,639 might be about identity exchange. If it slept first, the 739 00:34:48,679 --> 00:34:51,840 exchange could finalize. The thought was a cold, precise thing 740 00:34:52,519 --> 00:34:54,559 I have in final choice, and I made it with small, 741 00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:58,280 brutal arithmetic, though with three possible outcomes I could imagine 742 00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,000 in concrete terms. I I could break the surface and 743 00:35:01,119 --> 00:35:03,719 risk the reflection, leaving its skin behind to roam other windows. 744 00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:05,920 I could leave things as they were, in hope the 745 00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:07,679 tape held. Or I could step through and take the 746 00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,000 place the reflection might slip into if it finished its sleep. 747 00:35:10,599 --> 00:35:14,159 My rational brain evaluated each option. The last choice threatened 748 00:35:14,199 --> 00:35:16,920 me with a life beyond the glass. The first threatened 749 00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:20,519 anyone with windows in the neighborhood. The second rested nothing immediate, 750 00:35:20,559 --> 00:35:23,400 but left the rule untested. I chose the one action 751 00:35:23,519 --> 00:35:26,519 guaranteed a state change. I pressed my palm against the 752 00:35:26,519 --> 00:35:28,800 clear place in the glass and pushed and slow deliberate 753 00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,239 increments until the surface apout a fraction, and then smoothed 754 00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:33,880 with a careful motion. I used a small shower from 755 00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:35,960 the lobby, the same shape that had cut my palm alier, 756 00:35:36,039 --> 00:35:38,039 and slid it along the seam inside the frame until 757 00:35:38,039 --> 00:35:40,440 the pad released with a sound like ice cracking. I 758 00:35:40,559 --> 00:35:43,119 did not break it into jagger teeth. I lay there 759 00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,639 so it would not fall free. I slid my hand 760 00:35:45,679 --> 00:35:47,280 through and felt the coal of the other side meet 761 00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:50,119 the warmth of my skin. When the exchange completed, the 762 00:35:50,159 --> 00:35:51,920 person in the apartment on my side of the glass 763 00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:54,679 inhaled and sat up at a start. Mars greamed my 764 00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:57,400 name hard, and then stopped to breathe. The reflection on 765 00:35:57,440 --> 00:35:59,079 the other side looked at me for a second, like 766 00:35:59,159 --> 00:36:01,159 someone who had just folded from sleep and could not 767 00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,360 place the room. It had my scar my hoodie, my ring, 768 00:36:04,519 --> 00:36:07,199 but its eyes held a distance, a small, sturdy separation 769 00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:09,920 that suggested a different occupant. Then it blinked and the 770 00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:12,920 lids closed in a small, deliberate motion. I had no 771 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,920 illusions about what that meant. I felt the whollway corridor 772 00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:17,840 a light pick up, the texture of some one else's breath. 773 00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,280 I found my hands moving in automatic checks, palm for pulse, 774 00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,519 for for brokenness, routine gestures that kept panic from swallowing me. 775 00:36:24,679 --> 00:36:26,480 I wrote a short note on the redacted page with 776 00:36:26,519 --> 00:36:29,440 a ballpoint I found in a machine. Keep your eyes open, 777 00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,559 do not let it sleep. I folded and said it 778 00:36:32,639 --> 00:36:35,719 on the night's tent. My handwriting trembled, but it was mine. 779 00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:38,480 When the door opened the next morning, Morrow was the 780 00:36:38,519 --> 00:36:40,920 first one through, with the manager at her shoulder. The 781 00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:43,159 apartment looked as if someone had pushed furniture in a 782 00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:46,360 small control panic. The lamp was knocked over, but Nott 783 00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:50,079 smashed the duvious mood where something had lain heavy. A 784 00:36:50,159 --> 00:36:52,199 shod of mirror lay in the nights and reflecting the 785 00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:54,440 sleeping face of the person who had taken my place. 786 00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:59,039 Some one called emergency services. Mara handed the redacted note 787 00:36:59,079 --> 00:37:01,440 to the manager and said he left us. He to 788 00:37:01,559 --> 00:37:03,559 keep your eyes open. She might name into the hallway, 789 00:37:03,639 --> 00:37:05,639 and then she said the lost concrete line of the chapter. 790 00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,599 He has gone into the mirror. He isn't he in 791 00:37:08,639 --> 00:37:10,800 the apartment. Her voice was a command in a report. 792 00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:13,639 They found the person in my apartment, breathing and pale, 793 00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:16,199 and wrapped in what looked like my clothes. He did 794 00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,000 not wake when the manager touched his shoulder. The showd 795 00:37:19,039 --> 00:37:20,840 on the knights and held a small sleeping face that 796 00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,519 looked very much like mine. The note on the knights 797 00:37:23,559 --> 00:37:26,199 and had my handwriting and a line redacted in heavy strokes. 798 00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:28,840 Some one took a photo. Some one else read their 799 00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:32,320 redaction aloud and swore. A neighbor dialed the emergency operator 800 00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:35,719 and explained the scene. The operator's voice, crisp and professional, 801 00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,559 asked the basic questions that make disorder into a file. Name, 802 00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,599 last known actions visible injuris. Mara answered and repeated my 803 00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:44,679 name and described the way at its depth through the mirror. 804 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,159 I will not pretend the sequence left everything resolved. I 805 00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,400 am on the other side of that glass now, writing 806 00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:52,400 with a hand that remembers the feel of the knightston. 807 00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,199 I left the folded page because I wanted others to 808 00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:57,559 know there is a rule that can be followed. I 809 00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:01,000 left a warning because the alternative is worse, the reflections 810 00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,039 sleeping first and crossing without a trace. In the lobby, 811 00:38:04,119 --> 00:38:07,079 people argued about what to do next. The manager taped 812 00:38:07,119 --> 00:38:10,239 the merre frame and ordered a record made. Neighbors spread 813 00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:13,800 the redactive memo coppas like a ragged artifact. Mars stood 814 00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:15,760 by the doorway and refused to leave until she had 815 00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,320 the managers word that he had locked the event. The 816 00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:20,760 last thing that happened while the building processed. The scene 817 00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:23,480 was concrete and final. Mara looked at the shard in 818 00:38:23,519 --> 00:38:25,679 the nights, and then at the sleeping face, then at 819 00:38:25,679 --> 00:38:28,679 the folded paper with my handwriting. She folded her hands 820 00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:32,159 and spoke three sentences each besides and brief Ethan did 821 00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:34,880 something we don't tee understand. He chose to keep it 822 00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:38,199 from the rest of us. He left an er dantee 823 00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:41,199 let us sleep first. Then she turned and left apartment 824 00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,360 with the manager and the paperwork. Her footsteps closed in 825 00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:46,360 the corridor, and the sound of her keys clicking was 826 00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:48,719 the last metric of normal action I felt from my side. 827 00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:52,599 The apartment door shut, the shard reflected the sleeping person, 828 00:38:52,639 --> 00:38:55,119 and the lamp small light. The note lay next to it. 829 00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,239 Knife h. Carty had rolled my choice in. The consequences 830 00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:00,280 were now lodged in other people's hands and a pull 831 00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,079 of official memos. I cannot say for certain whether the 832 00:39:03,159 --> 00:39:05,880 rule I followed ends the problem entirely. I can only 833 00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:07,920 say I followed the instruction I found in the dark. 834 00:39:08,599 --> 00:39:10,840 Keep your eyes open, do not let the reflection sleep, 835 00:39:11,559 --> 00:39:13,719 my hand blood, my palm scored with a cut, and 836 00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:15,760 my hand dragging lies on a page that someone will 837 00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:18,519 read and decide how much to trust. When the hallway 838 00:39:18,559 --> 00:39:21,039 went quiet, it became a different kind of silence, one 839 00:39:21,159 --> 00:39:23,400 filled with phone calls and procedural voices. In the low 840 00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,599 murmur of people making lists. The reflection on the nights 841 00:39:26,639 --> 00:39:28,880 and turned its face slightly and breathed, and even regular 842 00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,239 pulls outside a building across the street showed no signs 843 00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:33,760 of the man who had been pacing the window of 844 00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:37,000 the night before. The Nammo's wait in a manager's filing cabinet, 845 00:39:37,519 --> 00:39:40,320 maraw will tell the story to anyone who asks. The 846 00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,000 shard will remain on the night's ded reflecting a sleeping face. 847 00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:45,639 The page will stay folded with the redaction like a 848 00:39:45,679 --> 00:39:48,840 blacked doubt instruction. My body is somewhere the other side 849 00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:51,119 of the glass. The record of what happened to is 850 00:39:51,159 --> 00:39:53,239 on paper and in the manager's login. In the quiet 851 00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:56,000 that followed the decision, the door closes on the apartment, 852 00:39:56,079 --> 00:39:58,880 The shard reflects a sleeping face, and the folded note 853 00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,199 in my handwriting is the only clear warning left behind. 854 00:40:02,679 --> 00:40:05,119 And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and 855 00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:06,360 I will see you in the next one.