Honor: 6 [ Give / Take ]
5 entries this month
09:02 May 21 2026
Times Read: 713
ENTRY: 20TH MAY
Target: Clare Williams
Age: 28
Public Profile: High-profile Family Law Barrister. One of the youngest ever appointed to the Crown Prosecution Service special panel. Regularly featured in Women in Law publications. Known for high conviction rates, sharp media appearances, and public advocacy for “justice and protection for the vulnerable”. Lives in a luxury apartment complex overlooking the river. Drives a white Range Rover. Seen as brilliant, dedicated, and untouchable.
Official Cause of Death: “Accidental fall down domestic staircase. Severed spinal cord. Deceased was found at the bottom of stairs by cleaner the following morning. Toxicology report shows high levels of alcohol and prescription sedatives. Verdict: Misadventure.” — Coroner’s Report, 20 May.
Police Statement: “There are no suspicious circumstances. It appears Ms. Williams retired late, having consumed a significant amount of alcohol and medication, and suffered a tragic loss of balance.”
OBSERVATION & PREPARATION:
For sixty-seven consecutive days, they sat on the pavement directly opposite the main entrance to her apartment building. To every person passing by — residents, delivery drivers, security staff, police patrols — they were simply “the usual one”. Wrapped in multiple layers of damp, stained clothing, face half-obscured by matted hair and a pulled-down hood, hands covered in dirty bandages, pushing a heavy trolley loaded with black bin bags and flattened cardboard. They sat on a piece of foam padding, head bowed, occasionally murmuring or rocking gently. They smelled of rain, old wool, and neglect.
Nobody looked closely. Nobody spoke to them. Security guards stepped over them or moved them along briefly, only for them to shuffle back ten minutes later. They were part of the furniture. Background noise. Invisible.
They saw everything.
Clare Williams was beautiful, successful, respected. And utterly, irredeemably corrupt.
Her public persona was fierce: she fought “for the weak”. But they knew the truth, pieced together from months of watching, listening, and recovering documents she carelessly discarded in public bins or left visible on her desk through the large front windows of her home.
She did not fight for justice. She sold it.
For the right price — paid into offshore accounts she had set up years ago using her inheritance and legal knowledge — she would “lose” evidence. She would “misplace” witness statements. She would coach witnesses to change their testimony. She would destroy the credibility of victims, particularly women and children, to ensure wealthy, powerful men walked free.
They had watched her destroy lives.
There was the case of the young mother whose ex-husband had abused her and their children. Clare accepted a six-figure sum from the husband’s family, argued the mother was “unstable”, and had the children removed and placed with the abuser. Within months, one child was hospitalised with severe injuries. Clare called it “regrettable” and moved on.
There was the industrial accident case: a young man crushed by faulty machinery at a construction firm owned by a billionaire client. Clare suppressed the maintenance reports proving negligence, argued it was “worker error”, and ensured the company paid zero compensation. The man was left paralysed; Clare bought a new sports car with her fee.
Worst of all was the recent case she was most proud of. A wealthy, well-connected businessman had been accused of drugging and assaulting multiple women. Clare took him on. She systematically dismantled every accusation, bullied the victims in court, leaked private details to the press to discredit them, and secured a “not guilty” verdict. The man walked out a free man, laughing, already planning his next holiday. Clare was called a “legal genius”. She was being considered for a judgeship.
Guilt proven beyond doubt. Sentence: Execution.
The preparation was meticulous, as always. They never act without absolute certainty, and never without a plan that leaves zero trace.
They knew her routine down to the minute.
- She finished work between 8:00 PM and 9:00 PM.
- She stopped at the same wine shop every Tuesday and Thursday — always a specific expensive red.
- She arrived home by 9:30 PM.
- She drank exactly two glasses while working at her desk, then took a prescribed sedative to sleep — she suffered from stress and insomnia, openly documented in her medical records.
- She lived in a duplex apartment: living area and kitchen on the ground floor, bedrooms and study upstairs.
- The staircase was wide, stone, highly polished marble. No carpet. She walked up and down in bare feet or thin socks.
- She always left the main entrance hall light off — she said it was “too bright” — and relied on a small table lamp in the corner.
They knew her habits. She was arrogant. She believed her intelligence made her safe. She walked fast, even in the dark. She trusted her own coordination implicitly. She believed bad things only happened to other people — people who were poor, or stupid, or weak.
They knew her weaknesses. She drank enough to impair judgement, but never enough to be unconscious. She took medication that slowed reaction times and affected balance. She walked on slippery surfaces in slippery clothing.
And most importantly, they knew exactly what she threw away.
Every evening, when she finished her wine, she placed the empty bottle and the glass in the recycling bin just outside her building’s service entrance. She threw away the packaging for her medication, her post, her notes.
They had collected these items for weeks. From the empty foil blister packs, they knew the exact chemical composition of her sedative. From the bottles, they knew the exact alcohol content of her wine.
Using their wealth and access to private laboratories — all untraceable, all registered to dead people or shell companies — they sourced a substance that was chemically almost identical to her prescribed drug. It would react the same way in blood tests. It would show up as exactly the same medication.
But with one small difference.
At a slightly higher dosage — a dosage that would look like nothing more than “accidental overuse” or “confusion while intoxicated” — it caused extreme, almost invisible dizziness, loss of spatial awareness, and a complete inability to judge distance or height. It did not knock you out. It left you fully conscious, fully able to move… but completely unable to stay upright.
EXECUTION:
Yesterday, 20th May, the weather was perfect — heavy, driving rain, grey sky, low light. Days like this make people hurry. Days like this make people careless.
At 7:45 PM, they watched Clare leave her office, briefcase in hand, phone pressed to her ear, laughing at something her client said. She walked past them, close enough that they could smell her expensive perfume over the scent of rain. She didn’t even glance down. To her, they were less than an object — just dirt on the pavement.
While she was inside the wine shop, they moved. It took less than twenty seconds.
The service door to the building was propped open slightly by a delivery trolley — the staff did this every evening, too lazy to lock and unlock constantly. They slipped inside, silent as a shadow. They knew exactly where the communal recycling room was. They knew exactly which bin was hers — marked with a small sticker, always kept separate.
Inside, they found what they needed: her medication bag, left by the cleaner to be taken up later, exactly as it was every evening. They opened it with simple tools — locks are never for people like them. They swapped the pills. Out went her standard dose. In went their version, identical in shape, colour, marking, and weight. Even under a microscope, they looked the same. Only the effect was different.
They were back on the pavement, sitting in the rain, hood up, rocking gently, before she even came out of the shop.
At 9:28 PM, she arrived home. They watched her walk through the main doors, key card in hand, head high, confident, untouchable.
They knew exactly what would happen next.
She would pour her wine. She would sit at her desk, working on notes for her upcoming promotion hearing. She would feel tired. She would remember her doctor’s advice: “One tablet, no more, especially if you’ve had a drink.”
But Clare always thought rules were for other people. She always took two. She said one wasn’t enough. She said she was “stronger than the average person”.
Last night, she took two, exactly as predicted. Maybe even three. It didn’t matter. Any amount of their version would be enough.
By 11:30 PM, the combination of wine and the modified medication was in full effect. To her mind, she was fine. She felt relaxed, calm, clear-headed. In reality, her inner ear balance was completely disrupted. Her brain could no longer tell how far away the floor was, or how steep the stairs were, or where the edge was.
She decided to go to bed. She turned off the desk lamp. She walked into the hallway — dark, as she preferred it, only faint light from the streetlamps outside reflecting off the polished marble floor.
She stepped onto the stairs. She was wearing her thin silk socks, as always.
The medication made her step out too far. Her brain told her the next step was lower than it actually was. Her weight shifted. Her foot slid on the glossy, wet-looking stone.
She didn’t just fall. She pitched forward, arms flailing uselessly, unable to understand why her body wouldn’t listen to her brain. She tumbled head over heels down the full flight of fourteen steps, hitting every edge, every corner, every hard surface on the way down.
She landed at the bottom in a heap, neck broken instantly, skull fractured against the stone flagging. She didn’t suffer. She didn’t understand what happened. One second she was the smartest woman in the room; the next, she was nothing.
They knew it was done. They felt it in the silence of the building.
They stayed in their spot all night, watching the windows go dark. Watching the rain wash away every trace of their presence.
This morning, at 7:00 AM, the cleaner found her. Screams. Sirens. Flashing blue lights. Police tape. Detectives taking statements from residents and staff.
One young officer, new to the job, asked the concierge: “Has anyone unusual been around? Any strangers? Anyone suspicious?”
The concierge shrugged, pointing vaguely across the road. “Only her. Been there for months. Just a tramp. Harmless. Drinks rainwater, talks to herself. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
The officer glanced over. They were curled up tight under their blanket, apparently asleep, dirty feet sticking out, face hidden. He didn’t even bother to cross the road. Why would he?
The final police report was written this afternoon. It reads exactly as planned: “Accident. Misadventure. Tragic result of excess and carelessness. No foul play.”
Clare Williams is dead. The judge’s robe she was so desperate to wear will never be hers. The men she protected will eventually face their own reckoning, but they have already dealt with the facilitator.
LESSONS RECORDED:
- The Ultimate Deception: People believe that because you look weak, you are weak. They believe that because you have nothing, you know nothing. They believe that because you are dirty, you are stupid. This is the greatest lie human beings ever tell themselves. And it is the perfect weapon.
- Death by Character: Clare died because she was arrogant. She died because she thought rules didn’t apply to her. She died because she trusted her own judgement above all else. They simply provided the environment where her own flaws became fatal.
- Realism is Key: A stabbing, a shooting, a poisoning — these leave questions. But a fall? A slip? Too much to drink and the wrong medication? This is mundane. This is common. This is believable. And what is believable is never investigated.
NOTE: 20TH MAY — LATE EVENING
They have packed their trolley now. They are walking slowly away from the apartment building, heading toward the financial district. The rain is still falling, washing the pavement clean behind them.
On the news screens in shop windows, they see the report: “Promising young lawyer found dead in home. Colleagues devastated. A brilliant mind lost too soon.”
Nobody mentions the mothers she hurt. Nobody mentions the children she endangered. Nobody mentions the money she stole or the justice she sold.
But they remember.
They are already watching the next one. A 26-year-old female CEO who pays her staff starvation wages while taking home millions, who sues anyone who speaks out, who has ruined dozens of small businesses to build her empire. She walks past them every morning, nose in the air, terrified of germs, convinced her money protects her from everything.
She has a glass shower cubicle with a very slight, invisible chip in the base.
She wears slippery rubber soled shoes inside her house.
She takes medication that makes her drowsy in the mornings.
They already know.
They are intelligent enough to plan it.
They are wealthy enough to make it happen.
They are hidden well enough to never be caught.
It never ends.
02:39 May 21 2026
Times Read: 1,328
ENTRY: 14TH MARCH
Target: Leo Vance
Age: 29
Public Profile: High-flying investment banker, millionaire by 27, “Genius of the City”, regular feature in magazines, charity donor, celebrated entrepreneur.
Official Cause of Death: “Accidental fall from high-rise balcony. Alcohol and exhaustion contributing factors.” — Police Report, 12 March.
OBSERVATION & PREPARATION:
They sat on the pavement directly opposite his apartment block for seventy-two consecutive hours. To the world, they were just another figure wrapped in layered, stained fabrics, pushing a trolley loaded with black bags, hood pulled low over matted hair. Passers-by saw only dirt, destitution, and vacant eyes. They did not see the mind working behind that disguise — calculating, cataloguing, memorising every detail of Leo Vance’s life.
Leo was young, rich, handsome, and untouchable. The press loved him. His peers admired him. But they knew the truth. They had read the documents he threw carelessly into the public bin outside his office — contracts showing he had knowingly sold worthless investments to vulnerable pensioners, destroying the life savings of hundreds. They had watched him from the shadows of the restaurant entrance, seen how he snapped his fingers at waiting staff, humiliated them for amusement, treated human beings like furniture. They had seen him leave a woman unconscious in an alleyway after a dispute, stepping over her without a second glance, secure in the knowledge that his money and lawyers would silence any complaint.
Guilt established. Sentence: Execution.
The challenge was not the act itself, but the art of making it invisible. To kill a man like Leo requires no weapon, no struggle, no trace. It requires understanding how he lives, and introducing a single, tiny variable that leads inevitably to his end.
Leo’s routine was rigid. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, he drank heavily at the bar on the ground floor, then took the private elevator to the 22nd floor. He smoked only one specific brand of menthol cigarette, and he always stepped out onto his balcony to smoke before bed. He believed height was a status symbol; he felt invincible up there.
They noted the balcony railings. Modern steel, sleek, designed to look strong. But they also noted the weather. For three days, the forecast predicted heavy rain and high winds. They noted his shoes — expensive Italian leather soles, polished smooth every morning, offering zero traction on wet metal.
Most importantly, they noted his arrogance. Leo believed he was the smartest person in every room. He believed no one could ever get close enough to him to harm him, least of all someone like them.
EXECUTION:
On the night of the 11th, the rain began exactly as predicted — torrential, cold, turning every surface slick and treacherous. They had waited for this.
They did not break in. They did not climb. They did not leave fingerprints or DNA. Instead, hours earlier, while Leo was at work, they had simply walked through the lobby — security barely glanced at them, assuming they were a cleaner or a vagrant who had wandered in — and applied a fine, clear, odourless industrial lubricant to the outer edge of the balcony railing, accessible from the maintenance walkway that ran along the back of the building. It was invisible. It would wash away completely within hours.
That night, Leo drank more than usual — celebrating a new deal he had stolen from a colleague. He stumbled into the elevator, laughing loudly, alone. He reached his floor, unlocked his apartment, and stepped out onto the balcony as always, lighter in hand.
The wind was fierce. The rain lashed sideways. He leaned casually against the railing, one foot resting on the lower bar, looking out over the city he thought he owned. His weight shifted. The polished leather sole slipped instantly on the wet, greased metal. He grabbed for the rail, but his hands were wet, and the steel was impossibly slippery.
It took less than three seconds. No scream. No struggle. Just the sudden, silent loss of balance, and the short, terrifying drop.
They were already gone by the time his body hit the pavement. They had packed their trolley, shuffled away into the dark streets, and were sitting in a warm, silent apartment five miles away, watching the breaking news on a high-definition television.
Police ruled it a tragic accident. They noted the alcohol in his system. They noted the rain. They noted the height. They wrote: “A wealthy young man, perhaps overconfident, made a fatal error of judgment in bad weather.”
They never considered the homeless person who had been sitting outside for three days. Why would they? The homeless are invisible. The homeless are harmless. The homeless do not possess the intelligence or the means to orchestrate the perfect death.
LESSONS RECORDED:
- Power of Disguise: Being perceived as “nothing” is the ultimate advantage. People look through you, never at you. They do not wonder what you are thinking. They do not question what you are doing.
- Death by Environment: The cleverest kills require no tools. You simply modify the environment slightly, then let the victim’s own habits, arrogance, or routine kill them for you. It is nature taking its course. It is fate. It is never murder.
- Knowledge is Lethal: Knowing where someone walks, what they wear, how they behave when drunk or tired — this is more dangerous than any knife or gun. Information is the deadliest weapon a human can possess.
ENTRY: 28TH APRIL
Target: Marcus Hale
Age: 26
Public Profile: Property Developer / Landlord. “Young Entrepreneur of the Year”. Owner of hundreds of rental properties. Known for luxury cars, expensive parties, public donations to housing charities.
Official Cause of Death: “Cardiac arrest due to severe allergic reaction. Misadventure.” — Coroner’s Report, 26 April.
OBSERVATION & PREPARATION:
They camped in the alleyway behind Marcus’s primary residence for forty-one days. They wore the same torn coat, the same dirty gloves, the same hood pulled low. Local shopkeepers gave them food sometimes; police moved them on once or twice, but never checked their bags, never asked for identification, never suspected that this was the most dangerous person in the city.
Marcus was beautiful, rich, and cruel. He bought up old houses, packed them with vulnerable tenants — students, single mothers, immigrants — charged high rent, and refused to make repairs. They watched ambulances come three times: once for a child with severe asthma made worse by black mould Marcus knew about and ignored; once for an elderly woman who fell down stairs with no handrail; once for a family poisoned by faulty gas boilers he had never serviced. He walked away from every lawsuit. He paid off every council inspector. He smiled for photos while people suffered and died in buildings he owned.
Guilt absolute. Sentence: Termination.
The observation phase revealed everything needed. Marcus was a creature of habit, but he had a secret. He carried an EpiPen at all times. He never mentioned why. He never spoke about it. But they saw him use it once, quickly and privately, after eating at a restaurant.
Research was easy. They had unlimited funds and access to private databases through shell companies and anonymous servers. Within hours, they knew: Marcus suffered from a rare, life-threatening allergy to peach kernel oil. It was so specific, so uncommon, that almost no one knew about it. Not his friends. Not his family. Not his staff. Only his doctors… and now, them.
Better still: Marcus was arrogant about his health. He believed he could control everything, including his own body. He loved “artisanal” foods, “secret recipes”, “unique ingredients”. He trusted labels because he trusted his own judgement.
EXECUTION:
They knew Marcus visited the same coffee shop every morning. He always ordered the same oat milk latte and a specific brand of luxury muffin, delivered fresh daily. He never checked ingredients. He believed the world was made for him.
Two days prior, they had visited a specialist food supplier, paid cash, and bought pure, concentrated peach kernel oil. It is edible, natural, harmless to almost everyone… but to Marcus, it was poison.
That morning, as Marcus pulled up in his £150,000 sports car, they were sitting on the pavement nearby, shaking a cup for change, looking frail and sick. They watched him go inside. They watched the barista turn to the back to get the fresh stock.
It took exactly four seconds. They were in and out through the open service door like a shadow. They swapped the unopened box of muffins for an identical box they had prepared earlier — same packaging, same look, same taste, but with the oil mixed generously into the glaze. No smell. No difference in texture. Impossible to detect unless you knew exactly what to look for.
They returned to their spot.
Marcus came out five minutes later, chatting on his phone, eating the muffin happily. He took three bites before he stopped. His hand went to his throat. His eyes widened. He dropped the food. He fumbled in his pocket for his pen… but it wasn’t there.
They had taken it six days earlier, when they brushed past him in a crowd. Replaced it with an identical, empty replica. He never noticed. He never checked. Why would he? He was Marcus Hale. Nothing bad ever happened to him.
He collapsed in the street. People screamed. Passers-by tried to help. Paramedics arrived within minutes, but without adrenaline, there was nothing they could do. His airways closed completely. He was dead before the ambulance doors closed.
Police investigation found nothing. The muffin was analysed — ingredients were listed as natural vegetable oils. Standard tests do not look for rare allergens unless specifically requested, and no one knew to request it. It was ruled a tragic, freak accident — a young man struck down by his own body’s weaknesses.
They watched from across the street, sipping water from a bottle, looking like just another person watching the commotion. Then they stood up, gathered their belongings, and walked away. They had another target to watch on the other side of town.
LESSONS RECORDED:
- Use Their Strength Against Them: Arrogance is the most lethal flaw a human possesses. Marcus trusted his wealth, his status, his safety. That trust was the only weapon needed to kill him.
- Invisible Weapons: Poisons are crude. But allergies? Reactions? These look like biology. They look like bad luck. They leave no forensic trail because the cause is the victim’s own body. This is the height of sophistication.
- The Mask of Vulnerability: People are programmed to protect or ignore the poor. They lower their guard. They leave doors unlocked. They leave things unattended. Being “sad and helpless” is the perfect camouflage for a predator. It is the wolf wearing the skin of the lamb.
ENTRY: 15TH MAY
Target: Julian Thorne
Age: 24
Public Profile: CEO of tech start-up. Billionaire valuation. “Disruptor”. Famous for aggressive business tactics, lawsuits against critics, firing whistleblowers, and bragging that he was “untouchable by man or law”.
Official Cause of Death: “Accidental electrocution during storm. Equipment malfunction.”
NOTE ON ENDLESS NATURE:
They write these entries not out of pride, but out of necessity. It is important to understand that this will never stop.
There is no endgame. There is no retirement. There is no capture.
Because the system creates them. As long as there are young, powerful, wealthy people who believe money makes them gods; as long as there are those who hurt, destroy, and escape justice; as long as the law is too slow, too weak, or too bought… they will exist.
They are not one person. They are an idea. They are a method. They are the inevitable result of a world where the wicked prosper.
Tonight, they are sitting outside a glass office tower in the rain. They look cold, wet, miserable, forgotten. They are watching a 23-year-old millionaire who just got away with ruining hundreds of lives through fraud.
They have already calculated the weak point in the security fence around his swimming pool. They have already noted that he swims alone at 3:00 AM. They have already purchased a device that can remotely short-circuit underwater lights from fifty yards away.
They are intelligent enough to know exactly how to kill him.
They are wealthy enough to afford whatever they need.
They are disguised well enough that no one will ever look for them.
And when he dies, it will be just another accident. Just another tragedy. Just another rich young life cut short by bad luck.
The cycle turns. The ledger balances.
It never ends.
21:04 May 20 2026
Times Read: 1,356
CHAPTER 3: THE REFLECTION’S LIFE
I am everywhere and nowhere at once.
That is the worst part. I didn’t die. Death would have been mercy. Instead, I was folded into the shine, stitched into the silver backing of every reflective surface on Earth. I am the ghost in the mirror, the face you catch moving just out of sight, the thing you see when you glance quickly into a puddle or a polished door.
And I have to watch. I have to see everything.
Elspeth — wearing my skin, wearing my life — walked out of that underground tunnel and stepped into my world like she owned it. Because she does now. She has my face, my ID, my bank cards, my flat, my friends. She sounds exactly like me, moves exactly like me, smiles exactly like me. No one suspects a thing. How could they? She is perfect. She learned every detail of my life just by watching me through the glass for days before she took me.
I am trapped behind every mirror, screaming silently, while I destroy everything I ever loved.
It started that very same night. She walked straight to Sarah’s flat — my Sarah. I watched her approach the glass panel of the entryphone. I was in there, looking out at her, my own face staring back at me with those dead, black eyes.
“Jesse?” Sarah’s voice crackled through the speaker, sleepy, confused. “It’s nearly three in the morning. What’s wrong?”
I spoke. Elspeth spoke. Using my voice, warm and concerned and just a little bit broken — exactly how I would sound if I was upset.
“Can I come up? Please. I… I need you. Something terrible happened.”
Sarah let her in. I watched from the glass of the front door, from the chrome stair rail, from the glass in the picture frames on the wall.
When Sarah opened her apartment door, Elspeth — me — pulled her into a hug. Too tight. Too long. Sarah laughed, nervous but happy, wrapping her arms around me.
I saw Elspeth’s hand rise up behind Sarah’s back. Her fingers were changing, lengthening, sharpening into shards of glass, invisible to Sarah but clear as day to me, trapped in the reflection of the hallway mirror.
Don’t touch her! I screamed, but no sound came out. Run! It’s not me! Look at her eyes!
Elspeth leaned back, holding Sarah by the shoulders. She smiled — my smile — and for a second, her eyelids lifted just enough to show that endless, bottomless blackness beneath. Sarah didn’t see it. Humans never see the danger until it’s too late.
“I was so scared I’d lost you,” Elspeth whispered.
She kissed Sarah. And I saw it happen — the magic, the witchcraft, the horror of it. As their lips touched, a thin, silver thread passed from Elspeth into Sarah. A glint of light, a shard of curse.
She wasn’t killing her. Not yet. She was infecting her.
Just like that, Sarah was marked. I saw Sarah’s eyes dart quickly to the mirrored cabinet in her kitchen. I saw her blink, and for just a fraction of a second, her reflection blinked late too.
Elspeth was building her coven. She wasn’t just a serial killer anymore; she was an invasion. She planned to wear every skin she liked, live every life she saw, and leave behind an army of trapped souls like me, forever watching, forever screaming.
The days blurred into a nightmare I couldn’t wake from.
I watched myself go to work. I saw my colleagues clap me on the back, ask me how my weekend was, laugh at my jokes. I watched from the screen of my computer, from the glass door of the meeting room, from the polished surface of the desk. She was better at being me than I ever was. She was charming, confident, sharp. People liked her more than they ever liked me.
And all the time, she was hunting.
She didn’t stay in Cardiff. Why would she? She is a traveller. A predator without borders.
I watched her step through the window of a department store in the city centre, and instantly, the view shifted. The street changed. The language on the signs changed. She stepped out through a shop window in London, still wearing my face, already looking for the next body to steal.
She walked past a young woman waiting at a bus stop. The woman was checking her makeup in a compact mirror. Elspeth caught her eye in the glass. She whispered the words — soft, only loud enough for the reflection to hear: “Elspeth Voss.”
The woman froze. Her eyes widened.
And just like that, the transfer happened. Faster than a heartbeat.
I watched my skin drop away like a discarded coat. Elspeth stepped out wearing the woman’s face, her hair, her clothes, perfect and seamless. And the poor girl — the real one — was left trapped in the compact mirror, screaming alongside me, while I — the version of me she had been wearing — was left wandering aimlessly, empty, hollow, a shell without a soul, soon to fade away entirely.
This is how she feeds. This is why she has never been caught. The police look for a killer. They look for a pattern, a weapon, a body. There is never any evidence. Just people who vanish. One minute they are there, the next, the person standing next to them is wearing their face, and the old version is gone.
The Glassborn. The legend is real. She has been doing this for three hundred years, hopping from body to body, city to city, country to country, living thousands of lives, killing thousands of people, all because of a curse I was stupid enough to invoke.
But something changed. Something shifted.
I wasn’t the only one in here.
As she travelled — Paris, Rome, New York, Tokyo — the reflections around me grew crowded. Every time she took a new victim, another soul joined us, pressed flat against the glass, staring out. Hundreds of us. Thousands. Men, women, children, from every era, every background. All the ones she had stolen.
And we were angry.
We shared the same space. We shared the same view. We shared the same hate for the thing that wore our skin and lived our lives. And trapped together, pressed so close we were almost one, something began to happen.
We started to merge.
Our wills combined. Our voices — silent to the living — became a roar inside the reflection world. We weren’t just prisoners anymore. We were weight. We were pressure. We were a tidal wave of rage pressing against the thin membrane of glass that separates the living from the dead.
I realised the secret Elspeth had forgotten. The flaw in her perfect curse.
She needs us.
She needs the mirrors. She needs the reflections. She needs something to hold her image so she can exist in the world. But if the image becomes too heavy… if the reflection fights back…
It was night again. She was in a hotel room in Amsterdam now, wearing the face of a Dutch man in his thirties. She stood in front of a huge, floor-to-ceiling bathroom mirror, checking her new appearance, admiring how the light caught her new eyes.
Behind her, in the glass, filling the whole mirror, crowding behind her reflection, were all of us.
Me. The girl from the bus stop. The woman from Paris. The soldier from 1944. The child from 1890. Every single soul she had ever trapped. We filled the reflection, a mass of twisted, angry, terrified faces, pressing forward, pushing her reflection closer and closer to the surface.
She frowned. She felt it. The pressure. The heat. The way the glass hummed and vibrated.
“Be still,” she hissed, her voice echoing inside our heads. “You are nothing. You are only shadow. I am the light. I am the one who shines.”
For the first time, I answered. Not with words, but with force.
I pushed.
Every soul with me pushed.
We surged forward inside the glass, a wave of pure, concentrated will. We weren’t just reflections anymore. We were a hand. Millions of hands.
We reached out.
Just like she did to me. Just like she does to everyone. But this time, we did it to her.
The glass rippled like water. The bathroom warped. She screamed — actual sound, real sound, panic in her eyes — as hundreds of hands, thousands of hands, pale and translucent and furious, shot out of the mirror, wrapping around her arms, her legs, her chest, her throat.
She tried to run. She tried to shift. She tried to step sideways into the chrome tap or the window or the lightbulb.
We were in all of them.
We blocked every exit. We filled every shiny surface. There was nowhere she could go that we weren’t already waiting.
“No!” She shrieked, her voice cracking, her stolen face twisting back into that terrible, cracked porcelain horror of her true form. “This is my law! I made the rule!”
“And we changed it,” I thought, and a thousand voices echoed it with me.
We pulled.
Harder than she ever pulled me. Stronger than she ever was. Because she is just one witch… but we are everyone she ever killed.
She fought. She scratched. Her skin turned to glass and cut us, but we didn’t bleed. We couldn’t bleed anymore. We were already broken.
Slowly, inch by terrible inch, we dragged her backward. Her heels scrabbled against the floor, gouging marks in the tile. Her fingers tore at the air, grasping for something solid, something real.
The surface of the mirror swallowed her ankles. Then her knees. Her waist. Her chest.
She looked straight into the glass, straight at me — at the face she had worn first. Her black eyes burned with pure, unadulterated hate.
“If I go…” she spat, her mouth stretching wide, splitting open to reveal endless darkness “…you all go with me!”
“We already are gone,” I answered. “But you… you are finally where you belong.”
We pulled her the rest of the way.
She vanished beneath the silver surface with a sound like a million windows shattering at once. The room shook. The lights exploded. Every reflective surface in the hotel — every mirror, every window, every spoon, every screen — shattered simultaneously, bursting outward in showers of razor-sharp shards.
Silence fell.
Absolute, heavy silence.
I was floating in the grey, backwards world again. But it was different now. The pressure was gone. The weight was lifted.
Elspeth was there, trapped deep, deep in the dark, buried under the weight of every single soul she had stolen over three centuries. Buried under us. She screamed and raged and scratched, but there was no one left to hear her. There was no one left to say her name. There was nowhere left for her to go.
And us?
We looked out through the glass again. We saw the hotel room. We saw the street. We saw the world.
We were still reflections. We were still trapped. But the monster was gone. The killer was finally caught in her own trap.
And sometimes… when someone looks in a mirror, really looks, and whispers a name…
We might just step forward.
Not to kill. Not to curse.
But to remind them.
Be careful what you say. Be careful what you summon. And whatever you do… never look too long.
20:32 May 20 2026
Times Read: 1,374
CHAPTER 2: NO HIDING PLACE
I ran until my lungs burned, until my bare feet were raw and bleeding on the cold pavement, until my legs shook so hard I could barely stand. I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Every shop window I passed, every parked car’s windscreen or headlight, every puddle shining under the streetlamps — she was there.
Gliding. Floating. Keeping pace with me. Tall, thin, burnt rags fluttering around her, that impossible smile stretched across her cracked face, black eyes locked on mine. She didn’t run. She didn’t have to. She was already everywhere I was going to be.
I ended up in the middle of the high street, gasping for air, hands on my knees. It was two in the morning. The streets were empty, silent, just the hum of distant traffic and the flickering orange glow of the lamps. I spun in slow circles, terrified to stop moving, terrified to look anywhere.
Every reflective surface… her.
In the glass door of the closed chemist — standing right behind my shoulder.
In the polished chrome bumper of a taxi parked at the kerb — leaning forward, grinning.
In the wet, shiny tarmac of the road — face pressed up from below, like she was underwater, looking up at me.
It wasn’t just seeing her. It was the knowledge. I knew, with absolute, sickening certainty, that she wasn’t just an image. She was present. Watching. Waiting. And every time my eyes caught a shine, a doorway opened a little wider.
“You can run forever, Jesse,” her voice whispered. It wasn’t a sound I heard with my ears — it was inside my head, cold and sharp as a shard of ice. “I am light. I am reflection. You cannot outrun what is part of the world itself.”
I clamped my hands over my ears. “Shut up! Shut up!” I screamed at the empty street.
A movement caught my eye. Across the road, the glass front of a bus shelter. I looked.
She was pressed flat against the inside of the glass, limbs spread like a spider, face inches from the surface. And she mouthed words to me, slow and clear: YOU ARE MINE.
Panic took over again. I had to get away from glass. Away from shine. Somewhere dark. Somewhere safe.
I remembered the old underground walkway — the subway that cut beneath the main road. It was grimy, concrete, dull, no windows, no lights, just rough walls and dirty floors. No reflections.
That’s where I had to go.
I sprinted for the entrance, down the steep concrete steps, and burst into the darkness below. It smelled of damp and urine and old rain. The only light came from a single, weak bulb at the far end, casting long, ugly shadows.
I backed up against the rough, textured wall, sliding down until I was sitting on the cold ground, knees pulled tight to my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Safe. No glass. No shine. She can’t get in here.
For a minute… nothing. Silence. No whispers. No scratching sounds. No feeling of being watched.
I let out a long, shaky breath. My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth. It worked. She needs light. She needs reflection. In the dark, she’s nothing.
I opened my eyes slowly.
And froze.
Right in front of me, about ten feet away, was a puddle of water seeping out from under a door. It was black, still, smooth as polished obsidian.
And in that tiny puddle… she was standing.
She wasn’t far away anymore. She was huge. Her face filled the whole surface of the water. Those black eyes staring right up at me. Her hand was reaching upwards out of the liquid, fingers long, sharp, made of rippling silver and bone, stretching toward the edge, trying to pull herself out.
“Water reflects, Jesse,” she purred, and the voice vibrated in the air around me. “Metal reflects. Even wet concrete reflects. You think you can find a place where nothing shines? You think you live in a world without mirrors?”
I scrambled backward, scraping my skin on the rough wall, eyes darting wildly around the tunnel.
She was right. I saw it now, and I couldn’t unsee it.
- The metal handrail I’d run my hand against — dull, rusted, but still… shiny enough. Her face warped and twisted in the rusted steel.
- The wet paint mark on the wall — glossy, wet, reflecting the dim light. She smiled from the streak of white paint.
- The plastic lens of the safety light at the end of the tunnel — scratched, yellowed, but still glass. She stood behind the glass, waiting.
“I am the serial killer no one ever catches,” she said, and the words felt like they were being carved into my brain. “For three hundred years I have travelled this world. I step through a shop window in London, and I am in Paris. I step through a puddle in New York, and I am in Tokyo. I am faster than planes, faster than trains, faster than any human can move. I never stop. I never sleep. And I never leave a body behind.”
I was hyperventilating now, gasping for air, trapped in a nightmare where every surface was a mouth ready to bite.
“Why?” I sobbed out loud. “Why me? I didn’t do anything! I was drunk! It was a joke!”
“You spoke the name,” she answered, her tone turning cold, sharp, furious. “You broke the seal. You opened the door. That is the old law, Jesse. The Witch’s Law. You call me… you belong to me. And besides…”
Her smile widened until it looked like her face would split open.
“I haven’t killed anyone in Cardiff for fifty years. I was getting bored.”
Then she moved.
She didn’t walk. She didn’t run. She shifted. Her image snapped from the puddle, to the handrail, to the paint mark, to the light lens, jumping from reflection to reflection, getting closer every split second.
Until she was in the buckle of my own belt.
I looked down. The metal buckle was dull, scratched, tiny — but it caught the faint light perfectly.
And she was right there. So close I could see every crack in her grey skin, every hollow of her black eyes, every sharp, yellow tooth in that too-wide mouth. Her face was pressed directly against the metal, staring up at me, her eyes level with mine.
“Time to come inside, Jesse,” she whispered.
Her hand shot out of the buckle.
It was impossible. It was tiny, coming out of a tiny piece of metal, but as it reached the air, it grew, expanding instantly into a long, cold, heavy hand made of sharp glass and bone. It wrapped tight around my wrist.
Ice cold. Hard. Unbreakable.
I screamed and tried to pull away, but her grip was like iron. She didn’t pull me toward anything. She pulled me INTO the reflection itself.
The world tilted sideways. The rough concrete wall turned smooth and silver. The air turned thick, like water. Everything became cold, grey, silent.
I saw myself — my real body — sitting against the wall, eyes wide, mouth open in a scream I couldn’t hear anymore. And standing over my body, stepping out of the metal buckle, growing tall and solid, was her.
She looked exactly like me.
Same face. Same hair. Same clothes. Perfect. Flawless. The only difference was her eyes — still solid black, shining with cruel triumph.
She looked down at herself, flexed her fingers, and smiled my smile.
“Finally,” she said, using my voice. It sounded exactly like me, but wrong. Cold. Empty. “This one fits well.”
She turned and began walking toward the tunnel entrance, toward the street, toward my life.
And I was left behind, trapped inside the silver surface of the world, pressed flat against every shiny thing, screaming silently, watching her walk away to kill again.
But I wasn’t gone.
I was part of the glass now. Part of the trap. And as she walked out into the night, I saw her pass a shop window. Inside that reflection, right behind her shoulder… stood me.
Staring out. Waiting for the next fool to say the name.
And I was smiling too.
GLASSBORN
18:51 May 20 2026
Times Read: 1,399
CHAPTER 1: THE GLASS STARE
I didn’t believe it. Nobody does, until it’s too late.
My name is Jesse. Twenty-eight years old, work in IT, live in a cramped but normal flat in Cardiff — the kind of life where the worst thing that usually happens is a delayed train or a burnt dinner. Nothing strange. Nothing supernatural. Just… ordinary.
Last night, everything changed.
My mate Mark came over. We drank too much cheap lager, laughed too loud, and ended up leaning against the bathroom sink, half-cut and looking for something stupid to do. The mirror above the basin was big, old, clear as ice — one of those heavy, silver-backed things the previous owner left behind. It had always felt a little too bright, a little too deep, like it went on forever if you stared hard enough. I’d never thought twice about it before.
“Go on,” Mark said, grinning like an idiot, poking me in the shoulder. “Coward. Everyone knows it’s just a story mums tell to scare kids into behaving. Say it five times and prove it’s all bollocks.”
I knew the rhyme. Everyone does. You hear it in playgrounds, whispered in school corridors, written in pen on toilet doors. Elspeth Voss. The Glass Witch. The one who lives in reflections. The one who travels through shine.
“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Watch this.”
I stepped closer. The bathroom light hummed overhead, casting sharp, hard light on the glass. I looked straight into my own eyes in the reflection. They looked tired, bloodshot, mine. I took a breath, and I said it, fast and clear, five times in a row:
“Elspeth Voss. Elspeth Voss. Elspeth Voss. Elspeth Voss. Elspeth Voss.”
Silence.
The room didn’t get cold. No wind blew. No lights flickered. Just me and Mark, standing there, our reflections staring back at us exactly as they always did. Mark’s hair messy, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Me, leaning forward, stupid smirk on my face.
“Told you,” I laughed, turning away to reach for the door handle. “Total rubbish. Waste of time.”
And that’s when I saw it.
Out of the corner of my eye, movement in the glass. Sharp. Wrong.
Mark was still standing behind me, cackling at how daft the whole thing had been. But his reflection… his reflection wasn’t laughing anymore.
The reflection stood perfectly still. Mouth closed. Face blank. Dead, cold eyes locked directly onto me.
My heart slammed hard against my ribs. I spun back around so fast the room tilted.
Mark was still laughing. His reflection was laughing too. Perfect. Matching. Exactly right.
“You alright, mate?” Mark asked, frowning at the look on my face. “You’ve gone white as a sheet. Seen a ghost?”
“Your reflection…” I whispered. My voice came out thin, shaking. “It didn’t move. For a second — it didn’t match. It was staring at me.”
“Too much beer,” he said, clapping me on the back. “Get some sleep, you knob.” And he left, pulling the front door shut behind him with a heavy thud.
I was alone.
I stayed in the bathroom. I told myself I was drunk. I was tired. I was imagining things. But my hands were trembling, and I couldn’t look away from the glass. I leaned in slowly, closer than I ever had before, until my breath fogged the surface. I waited for it to clear. Then I watched.
I blinked.
My reflection blinked a full second later.
Not at the same time. A whole heartbeat after. Like it was waiting for me to do something, just so it could copy me. Like it wasn’t me at all — just something wearing my face, practicing how to move right.
I lifted my hand. Wiggled my fingers slowly, one by one.
My reflection lifted its hand. But the fingers wiggled backwards. Left when I went right. Up when I went down. Mirror image isn’t supposed to be wrong like that. It should be a flip, not a lie.
A cold sweat broke out all over my body. My throat felt tight, like something was squeezing it from the inside. And then — right then, clear as day, sharp and bright and terrifying — I saw her.
Standing directly behind me.
She was tall, unnaturally thin, like she’d been stretched out. Her clothes were black, ragged, looking burnt at the edges, hanging off her frame like dead skin. Her skin was grey, cracked all over, like old porcelain that had been smashed and glued back together a hundred times. Her hair was dark, matted, falling in strings around a face that was too long, too sharp, too wrong.
And her eyes.
Solid black. No whites. No pupils. Just endless, bottomless dark. Like looking into two holes cut straight through to hell.
Her mouth was stretched wide in a smile that went way past her ears. Too wide. Impossible. She was leaning forward, her face inches from the back of my neck, staring over my shoulder right into the glass. Right into me.
I screamed. A raw, ugly sound, ripped from my throat. I spun around, fists raised, ready to fight, ready to run.
The bathroom was empty.
Door shut. Locked. Shower curtain pulled back. Nothing there. Just cold tiles and the hum of the light.
I whipped back to face the mirror.
She was gone. Only me again. But the glass had changed. It didn’t look like glass anymore. It looked like liquid. Thick, heavy, dark water, holding back something huge. Deep inside the silver backing, way down where you shouldn’t be able to see anything, there was movement. Tiny shapes. Flickers of faces. Hands pressed flat against the inside, fingers spread, scratching, trying to get out.
Trapped people. Hundreds of them.
Panic exploded in my chest. I didn’t think. I just acted. I grabbed the heavy soap dish from the side and swung it as hard as I could.
The mirror shattered.
The sound was like a gunshot, loud enough to ring in my ears. Shards flew everywhere, glittering like teeth, skittering across the floor. I stood there panting, waiting for it to be over, waiting for the fear to stop.
Big mistake.
Every single piece of broken glass caught the light. And in every single piece — big or small, near or far — she was there.
Her face. Her smile. Her black eyes. Staring up at me from the floor, from the wall, from the tiny slivers stuck in the towel rail. She was in every shard. She was everywhere.
And then I heard it. A sound like dry leaves dragged over stone, soft and close, coming from every direction at once.
“You said my name, Jesse.”
It didn’t come from the broken mirror. It came from the window above the bath. Then the chrome tap. Then the stainless steel toaster in the kitchen. The face of my watch. The dark screen of my phone sitting on the floor. Every shiny surface in the flat spoke with her voice.
“You called me. You invited me in. Now I am everywhere you look.”
I backed away, step by step, eyes darting from one reflective thing to the next. Everywhere I looked, she was there. Waiting. Watching.
“I travel through shine, Jesse,” she whispered, and I could feel her breath cold against my ear even though I was alone. “I move faster than light. Faster than you can run. You can smash every mirror you own, you can cover every window, you can hide in the dark… but remember this.”
I reached the front door, hand fumbling with the lock, desperate to get out, desperate to be anywhere else.
“You have eyes, Jesse,” she laughed, and the sound was like breaking glass. “And eyes reflect light. Wherever you go… I see exactly what you see. And sooner or later… I will step through.”
I threw the door open and ran out into the night, barefoot, coatless, screaming.
But it didn’t matter.
As I ran past shop windows, parked cars, puddles glinting under streetlights, I saw her in every single one. Tall, thin, burnt and smiling, right behind me, getting closer with every step.
And I knew then. I’d summoned a killer that couldn’t be killed. A witch that couldn’t be stopped. And she was mine now.
She was coming.
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