POV: Every Time You Sleep… Reality Shifts
The coffee mug in Eliza’s hand felt wrong. Not just different — wrong. The deep crimson glaze, the faint chip on the rim — it had been hers for years. But now, the color seemed off, too saturated, too perfect. She blinked. The mug was green.
Her breath caught in her throat. She blinked again, harder. Red.
The air in the apartment thickened, pressing against her chest. The heater’s low hum stuttered, the light outside shifted, and for a fraction of a second, the world itself seemed to flicker. Her hands trembled as she set the mug down, trying to convince herself it was just exhaustion. Just a trick of the light. But when she turned toward her bookshelf, the photograph of her and Harper from college had changed.
Harper had always been laughing in that picture, her face half-turned toward Eliza, the late afternoon sun making her short black hair glow. But now, Harper stood alone. Her expression was sharper, thinner, her dark eyes vacant. And where the stack of books had been beside Eliza, there was now only an empty space.
A smear of red blurred the corner of the frame.
Eliza’s stomach churned. She reached out with trembling fingers, tracing the glass as if touching it could restore what was lost. The surface was warm. Too warm.
Her reflection in the black monitor caught her attention. She turned slowly. Her own face stared back, hollow-eyed and pale, but there was something… off. The angles of her face were subtly wrong, her eyes a fraction too wide, her lips parted as if mid-whisper.
And then her reflection blinked.
She hadn’t.
A sharp knock at the door shattered the silence. She flinched, spinning toward the sound. Her pulse pounded. No one ever came to her apartment. Not unannounced.
“Eliza.”
Her breath caught. The voice was familiar. Cold.
She stepped toward the door, her skin prickling. The air smelled different now — thick with something floral, something sickly sweet.
Lavender.
“Eliza.” The knock came again, more insistent.
Her fingers hovered over the handle. The peephole was black, an abyss of nothingness. She didn’t dare look through it.
She swallowed hard. “Who is it?”
Silence.
Her phone buzzed violently on the desk. The screen glowed: Mom.
Her mother’s voice was sharp. “Eliza. You need to come home.”
Her stomach twisted. “Why?”
A pause. The static on the line thickened. Then: “Your father’s things. We need to sort through them.”
The air in her apartment tightened. She turned back toward the black monitor. Her reflection was still watching.
And this time, it was smiling.
The house loomed against the storm-gray sky, its wooden frame warped by time and salt air. The moment Eliza stepped out of the car, the scent of lavender hit her like a wave. Stronger than before. Lingering.
Her mother met her at the door, thinner than she remembered, her sharp eyes scanning Eliza as if looking for something.
“You’re late.”
No greeting. No warmth.
Eliza stepped inside, the familiar scent of damp wood wrapping around her. The house was too still, like it was listening. The walls, once pale blue, seemed darker, the corners of the room stretching unnaturally.
She hesitated before climbing the stairs to her childhood room. The wooden steps groaned under her weight. Each creak felt deliberate, purposeful.
Her door was closed. It hadn’t been before.
She pushed it open.
Inside, the room was just as she left it. But the mirror on the far wall was shattered, its jagged edges catching the dim light. Her reflection stared back in fragmented pieces.
Then, in the largest shard, she saw something else.
A figure.
Standing behind her.
“Eliza.”
She spun, but the room was empty. The whisper curled through the air, slipping between the cracks of the walls, seeping into her bones.
A memory surfaced — fingers slipping from her grasp, a scream lost to the wind, the crash of waves against jagged rock. A presence, always just beyond the edge of her vision.
The mirror pulsed. The reflection of the room warped, stretching, shifting.
And then, her reflection stepped forward.
Not the real her. Not quite.
“Eliza,” it whispered again, voice curling into a sickening smile. “You’re remembering.”
The world flickered.
And everything changed.
This short story was taken from Horror Books — immerse yourself in terrifying tales that will keep you up at night. Download the app now: https://horrorstories.app/
