The third girl didn't blink.
Her smile was too perfect. Too still.
Behind the glass, she mimicked Amelia and Alexis's movements—but seconds before they made them.
Alexis whispered, "She's predicting us."
"No," said Amelia, stepping closer. "She's remembering."
The journal at their feet flipped open by itself. Pages turned in a breeze that didn't exist. On the seventeenth page, ink began to appear—fresh ink, still drying.
> "Day 17: I dream of mirrors. I wake up where I never went to sleep. They call me the Shadowborn. I think I was the first."
Alexis touched the page. Her hand trembled.
"She's not just a reflection."
The girl behind the mirror nodded slowly, her smile fading.
She raised her hand—and wrote on the inside of the mirror in black, blooming script:
> "303 is a womb. You were its daughters."
And then she vanished.
The mirror cracked down the middle.
From behind the mirror, roots began to push through.
Amelia backed away. Alexis stared, frozen.
The roots pulsed—alive. Hungry.