Mira didn't think. She ran.
Her bare feet slapped against the floor as she stumbled backward, heart tearing against her ribs. The thing in the reflection didn't move fast—it didn't need to. It just *watched*, its faceless shape bending wrong, like it was being seen through warped glass.
The radio screamed.
Not static—*feedback*. High, violent, shaking the walls. The windows rattled. The lights surged and died all at once, plunging the apartment into darkness lit only by the radio's glow.
"Mira—stop!" Elias shouted.
She skidded to a halt near the bedroom door, breath ragged. "You said run!"
"I meant—"
The sound cut off as the radio crackled violently. "—listen to me!"
The glow from the tuning glass flared brighter, pulsing hard enough to cast shadows. The thing in the reflection twitched, its outline blurring, like it was being pulled through interference.
Mira pressed her back to the wall, hands shaking. "What is that?"
Static surged, then Elias's voice came through clearer than ever—louder, closer. No calm now. No softness.
"It's a listener," he said. "They hear what they're not meant to."
The shape leaned forward. The glass rippled.
Mira felt it then—pressure in her head, like hands pressing against her thoughts. Memories flickered that weren't hers. Hallways she'd never walked. Names she didn't know. A whisper threaded through them all, trying to tune her in.
"Don't listen," Elias snapped. "Cover your ears."
She did, collapsing to her knees. The pressure intensified anyway.
The radio dial spun on its own.
"No—no, stop!" Elias's voice broke through the noise, raw and strained. "You don't get her."
The static *thickened*.
The air vibrated, humming so deep Mira felt it in her bones. The radio's glow expanded, bleeding into the room like liquid light. The reflection warped, the listener's shape distorting as if dragged through water.
"Elias!" Mira cried. "It's—hurting."
"I know," he said, voice tight. "I'm trying."
The hum rose into a roar.
The radio dial slammed hard to the left, then snapped back. Sparks burst from the speaker grill. The listener recoiled, its outline shredding into noise.
"You're crossing too far," a new sound hissed—not Elias. Not static. Something layered beneath it. Ancient. Cold.
Elias didn't answer it.
Instead, his voice surged, louder than the interference, filling the room like a wall of sound.
"She's not yours."
The radio screamed again—but this time, it felt *controlled*. Directed. The static wrapped around Mira like a blanket, dulling the pressure in her head, muting the whispers.
The listener shrieked.
Its reflection fractured—splitting into a dozen broken versions of itself—then collapsed inward, sucked into the tuning glass like smoke down a drain.
The light flared blinding white.
Then—silence.
Mira