Mirror-Eyed By Ani Alanakian He splashed water over his face. Cold. Too cold. When he straightened and looked into the gas station bathroom mirror, droplets clung to his skin, stretching thin and spider-webbed before falling. Time felt thick there, viscous. Then the drops darkened. Quietly. Red. The sink wasn’t smeared with blood— but it should have been. He tried to inhale. Nothing happened. His chest refused to rise. He looked back at the mirror. There was no reflection. The glass shuddered, grinding like metal under strain. It didn’t crack. It opened—like a door splitting inside a nightmare. Something stepped through. The man stumbled backward, heels scraping tile. It loomed over him. Massive shoulders. A body thick and corded like an overworked ox. A sheep-like head, bowed and eager to please, torn with deep wounds that leaked dark, foul ichor down its neck. It didn’t roar. It didn’t charge. It simply watched. Its eyes were hollow. Empty of anything human. He stared back. The first...