The subway was unusually empty that night, with just the hum of the train wheels and the occasional flicker of dim lights passing overhead. Leena huddled in her seat, her hand tightly clutching her phone as she counted down the stops. Her shift had ended later than usual, and she was eager to get home to her small apartment on the edge of town. Only three more stops.
She glanced at her reflection in the scratched glass of the subway window. Her own tired face stared back at her, eyes shadowed with fatigue, hair dishevelled from a long day. She leaned closer, resting her head against the cold glass, but something about her reflection caught her attention. There was a strange shimmer to it as though her reflection moved a fraction of a second slower than her.
Leena sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Must be exhaustion,” she thought, but the more she stared, the more certain she was that her reflection was … off. So she reached up and ran a hand through her hair; her reflection did follow, only there was a delay: it was a fraction of a second too slow, just like a lagging video. Her pulse quickened, but she told herself to relax. It was late, and she was exhausted, and she might just be hallucinating.
After some time, the train stopped, and the doors opened with a mechanical hiss. A man stepped into her car. He was dressed in an old, dusty coat, and his face was hidden beneath a worn fedora. He took a seat directly across from her. He looked up at her briefly, his dark eyes glinting with an unreadable expression, then turned his gaze out the window. Leena exhaled, trying to ignore him, but unease prickled at her skin.
The train lurched forward, and Leena glanced back at her reflection. This time, it wasn’t moving at all. Her reflection’s eyes stared directly into hers, neither moving nor blinking. Her mouth was twisted in the faintest of smiles.
Leena froze.
She lifted her hand to her face, touched her cheek, and watched as her reflection’s hand remained by its side. It stared back with such an intensity that chilled her bones. She glanced around, hoping to catch someone else’s eye to see if she was imagining things, but the only other person in the car was the man across from her, who was watching her with that same blank expression.
Leena took a shaky breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her reflection returned to normal, moving in perfect sync with her. She was relieved.
“Get a grip, Leena. You’re tired.”
But unfortunately for her, the relief didn’t last long. From the corner of her eye, she saw her reflection again, only it wasn’t looking back at her anymore. It was staring out the window as though watching something she couldn’t see.
As the train rattled through the tunnels, Leena couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. She clutched her bag and shifted uncomfortably, keeping her eyes fixed forward, not daring to look at the glass again. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake away the feeling; she could feel it, her own face in the window turned away from her. She glanced up at the route map, “just one more stop.”
The train pulled into her station, and Leena bolted out of her seat so fast she nearly stumbled. She didn’t even look back to check if the man in the fedora was watching her; all she wanted was to get off the train, run away from it, and be in the open air. As she stepped out onto the platform, she felt an inexplicable urge to look back at the window, but she resisted, quickening her pace toward the exit.
The platform was silent. She could hear her footsteps echo as she hurried up the stairs. And just before she reached the top, she felt the prickling sensation of being watched.
“Not again!” she sighed.
Unable to resist the urge any longer, she finally stopped and turned to look back at the train that was about to leave. And she saw it: her own reflection was still sitting in the seat and staring at her with that creepy, twisted smile. She stumbled backwards, heart pounding, and the train doors closed, sealing her reflection inside as it stared at her with an unchanging expression. The train pulled away, her reflection still watching until it vanished into the dark tunnel.
Leena’s legs felt weak, but she forced herself to climb the last steps to the street. She kept glancing over her shoulder, feeling as though her reflection could reappear at any moment, following her home in the darkness. Somehow, she made it to her apartment. She bolted the door and sank into her bed, pulling the covers over her head like a child.
It was quite a few hours after she finally drifted into a sleep – a restless one filled with dreams of shadowed faces and twisted smiles. When she woke the next morning, although she wasn’t as fresh as she should’ve been, she convinced herself it had all been a nightmare, nothing more.
Days passed without any incident, and Leena began to relax, getting busy in her routine and letting the memory of that strange subway ride fade away. She dismissed it as an overactive imagination. However, one evening, while washing her face in the bathroom, she looked up and saw it again. There was a difference this time: it didn’t look away or lag behind. It stared directly at her with that same faint, mocking smile.
Her heart was hammering, wanting to leave its place while she was stuck in time. With effort, she reached up, touched her cheek, and her reflection followed. But something was not ok. She leaned closer to the mirror and stared into her own eyes, and that’s when she noticed — her reflection’s eyes were slightly darker, almost hollow, as though they were absorbing the light rather than reflecting it.
Then something even stranger happened.
Her reflection’s lips parted, and she heard a soft, echoing whisper seeping from the mirror itself, “You don’t belong here.”
Leena took a step back and watched as her reflection remained in the mirror with that gaze fixed on her.
She didn’t know what she wanted to do at that moment, but she stepped forward, gathering her courage, and the reflection vanished. In its place was a single handprint on the glass, pressed from the inside. Its fingers were stretched as though reaching for her.
She bolted from the bathroom with a thundering heart, refusing to look back. That night, she took down every mirror in her apartment: she either threw them away or stuffed them into her closet, covered with clothes. But as she lay in bed, she couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, her reflection was waiting for her and keeping a watch on her.
Every now and then, whenever she passed by a reflective surface — whether a shop window, a car mirror, or even her phone screen — she would catch a glimpse of those hollow eyes on a face like hers, staring back at her. And every time, her reflection’s eyes seemed just a little darker.
