Sarah had always loved the way Mark smiled. It was the first thing that drew her to him eight years ago, at that crowded college party where everyone else seemed like shadows moving to the thump of bass. His smile cut through the noise, genuine and warm, lighting up his hazel eyes. They married a year later, bought a cozy two-story house on the outskirts of town, and two years after that, their daughter Lily was born. Life was predictable, comfortable, the kind of normalcy Sarah craved after a childhood shuffled between foster homes.
But lately, something was off with Mark. It started small, the way these things always do. He’d come home from work at the accounting firm, tired as usual, but instead of kissing her hello, he’d linger in the doorway, staring at her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. ‘You look beautiful today,’ he’d say, his voice a touch too smooth, too perfect. Sarah would laugh it off, blame the long hours he was pulling. But then she noticed he barely ate anymore. At dinner, he’d push food around his plate, claiming he wasn’t hungry, while Lily chattered about school.
One evening, as she cleared the table, Sarah caught Mark in the hallway mirror. Or rather, she didn’t. The reflection showed an empty space where he should have been, the brass hook of his coat rack stark against the wallpaper. Her heart stuttered. ‘Mark?’ she called, turning. He was there, flesh and blood, hanging up his coat. ‘Did you see that?’ she asked, pointing to the mirror. He glanced over, frowned slightly. ‘See what? It’s just a dirty mirror, babe. I’ll clean it later.’ His smile again, that perfect curve. But now it felt rehearsed, like a mask slipping into place.
She told herself it was stress. Her job as a librarian was monotonous, Lily’s school plays and soccer practices filled their calendar, and Mark’s firm was demanding more overtime. Mirrors play tricks, especially old ones with silver backing flaking away. But the incidents multiplied. In the bathroom mirror while brushing teeth together, his face never appeared beside hers. She’d blink, look away, look back—nothing. Once, in the car rearview, while driving home from grocery shopping, Lily asleep in the back, Sarah saw only her own eyes staring back, Mark’s hands on the wheel invisible.
Sleep evaded her. Nights became a vigil, lying rigid beside him, listening to his even breathing that sounded too mechanical, too devoid of snores. She began avoiding reflective surfaces: polishing the silverware in the sink without glancing at the faucet’s shine, draping a towel over the dresser mirror. Mark noticed, of course. ‘What’s wrong, Sarah? You’ve been jumpy.’ His concern seemed sincere, but his touch—once comforting—now sent chills racing up her arms. His skin was cooler, unnaturally so, like marble left in the shade.
Lily started complaining too. ‘Daddy’s eyes look funny at night,’ she whispered one bedtime, clutching her stuffed bear. ‘Like they’re glowing.’ Sarah shushed her, heart pounding. Glowing eyes? Ridiculous. But that night, as Mark slept, Sarah slipped from bed and crept to Lily’s room. From the doorway, in the dim nightlight glow, she watched him through the crack in their bedroom door. He sat up suddenly, head turning towards Lily’s room—no, towards her hiding spot. His eyes… they did catch the light strangely, reflecting it back unnaturally bright.
Panic clawed at her. She needed proof, something concrete. The next day, while Mark was at work and Lily at school, Sarah tore through the attic. Old boxes of his childhood mementos: baseball trophies, yearbooks, faded photos. In a shoebox labeled ‘Family,’ she found snapshots from his youth. Mark grinning with friends at a lake, arm around a girl who wasn’t her. Normal. Then, a wedding photo from his parents—not theirs, his mother’s second marriage after his father died. Mark was there, sixteen, smiling awkwardly.
Deeper in, yellowed letters tied with twine. His mother’s handwriting, dated twenty years ago: ‘Marky, stay away from the old pond behind the house. Things live there that aren’t like us. They wear our faces, but their hearts are cold. If you ever see your reflection wrong, run.’ Sarah’s breath hitched. The pond—Mark’s family home had one, abandoned now, overgrown on the property line they shared with woods. Another letter: ‘It took your father. Looked just like him for years. But I knew. The mirrors lied.’
Her hands trembled. Mark’s father had drowned in that pond, official story. Suicide, they said. But this… Sarah pocketed the letters, descended, and drove to the library. Microfiche archives: obituary confirmed drowning. No autopsy details public. Local legends? She dug into folklore books. Doppelgangers, changelings, water spirits that steal identities. Skinwalkers that mimic the living perfectly, feeding on memories until the original fades.
By evening, conviction hardened. Mark wasn’t Mark. Something wore his skin, had for years perhaps, since before they met. How had it gotten Lily? No—the real Mark must have died young, replaced. Their marriage a lie, Lily… oh God, Lily. Terror surged. She had to protect her daughter, escape.
That night, dinner was tense. Mark picked at his chicken, eyes flicking to Sarah. Lily babbled obliviously. After bedtime stories, Sarah waited until Mark dozed on the couch, TV droning. Heart hammering, she crept to the garage, found rope, duct tape, a hammer. Basement door creaked open. She lured him down with a pretense of laundry issue. ‘Mark, help me with this box.’
He followed, unsuspecting. She swung the hammer—missed, but shoved him hard. He stumbled down the last steps. She slammed the door, locked it, dragged the heavy workbench across. His fists pounded immediately, voice muffled: ‘Sarah! What the hell? Let me out!’
She sank against the door, sobbing. Lily safe upstairs. Phone in hand, dialing police. But as she waited, a soft giggle echoed from above. Lily’s room. Sarah froze. ‘Lily?’ No answer, just that giggle, low and wet, not childish.
Upstairs, Lily’s door ajar. Sarah pushed in, hammer raised. Lily sat on bed, smiling—that same perfect smile. ‘Mommy, why’d you lock Daddy in the basement? He’s sad.’ Her eyes glowed faintly in the dark.
Sarah backed away. ‘Lily, honey, come here.’ But Lily’s head tilted unnaturally. ‘You think Daddy’s the monster? Silly Mommy.’
The basement pounding stopped. Footsteps thumped overhead—heavy, not from Lily’s room. The attic? No, the hallway. Mark’s voice, calm: ‘Sarah.’ She whirled. He stood in the kitchen doorway, unscathed, smiling.
Impossible. She raced back to basement door—workbench untouched, door unlocked. How?
Mark—no, it—approached slowly. ‘You’ve been acting strange, avoiding mirrors. Let me show you.’ He held up her hand mirror from purse, angled it.
Sarah snatched it, stared. Her face stared back, but… no. The reflection blinked slower, eyes black pits, skin rippling like water disturbed. It smiled, teeth too sharp.
She dropped the mirror, shattering. Mark—no, the real Mark?—touched her arm gently. ‘I found the letters too, years ago. It took you at the pond, that day we picnicked with Lily. You drowned, Sarah. I thought you were gone, but you came back… wrong. I’ve been waiting, hoping you’d fight it.’
Lily—no—giggled again. ‘But Mommy’s fun now.’
Sarah’s skin itched, cooled. Memories flooded: slipping into water, cold embrace, wearing her skin from inside. The real Sarah screamed silently within, trapped as the thing puppeteered her body, learning love, mimicking life. Mark’s dread-filled eyes met hers—its eyes. ‘I love you, Sarah. But this ends tonight.’
He raised the hammer she’d dropped. The thing in her laughed through her lips. But deep inside, the real her whispered: Thank you.
The blow landed. Darkness, finally real. Mark wept over the shattered form, Lily—real Lily—clinging to his leg, safe at last. The pond would claim another shell tomorrow.