I measure time in seconds now.
Every time I walk past a window, every time my face catches in a car’s side mirror, I start counting.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Then I wait to see whether the reflection moves when I do.
I’ve been doing that for close to two years.
Since the mountains.
Since Grant.
And yeah, I know how it sounds.
But I’m not insane.
I wish to God I had made it all up.
Because if I had, I’d still be able to sleep.
I’d still be able to look into a mirror without feeling like my heart is trying to smash its way out of my chest.
I’d still be able to stand beside a lake without the sick feeling that something beneath the ice is stretching up toward me.
I spent twelve years guiding late-season elk hunts at 10,000 feet in the northern alpine basins.
My job was keeping wealthy flatlanders alive when their egos collided with the wilderness.
I trusted logic, preparation, and absolute obedience to the rules of the mountains.
Grant was my last client that season.
He paid double my normal rate in cash upfront.
New gear, spotless pack, custom rifle.
He matched my pace step for step without breaking a sweat.
At the time, I thought he was simply fit.
We reached a massive glacial basin with a huge, perfectly still black lake at its center.
The silence there felt unnatural.
We pitched camp on a flat shelf of rock above the shoreline.
That night, inside the tent, I fastened a small acrylic shaving mirror to the center pole.
While handing Grant coffee the next morning, I glanced at it.
His reflection didn’t move.
For five full seconds the image in the mirror stood completely still while the real Grant lifted his mug and drank.
Then the reflection caught up, copying the motion exactly.
I blamed altitude, exhaustion, warped plastic.
I forced myself to forget it.
The next morning we hiked down to the lake.
Grant picked up a stone and threw it.
The real splash sent ripples outward.
But in the reflection on the water near the shore, his image bent down five seconds later, picked up a phantom stone, and created a second set of ripples with no physical source.
I started counting every time.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
The delay was consistent.
That afternoon, while glassing from a high plateau, I used my thermal monocular.
The projection of Grant gave off zero body heat.
Only the frozen background temperature.
I realized then that the man walking ahead of me wasn’t real.
He was a visual decoy.
The real entity — massive, dense, and horrifying — existed five seconds behind its own projection, dragging its physical mass through space-time.
The reflections were its only anchor to our reality.
When I tried to end the hunt and head back, the entity dropped the disguise.
The projection blurred and melted.
Its voice detached from its image, whispering directly into my ear while the visual lagged thirty yards behind.
It herded me into a narrow slot canyon with sheer granite walls and a frozen stream at the bottom.
I was trapped.
The projection glided toward me, arms stretching inhumanly.
But through the black ice beneath my boots, I saw the truth: a colossal, armored shadow crawling along the underside of the ice exactly five seconds behind the decoy.
I had one chance.
I raised my climbing axe and drove it with everything I had into the weakest point of the ice — right where the massive reflection was crossing a thin thermal current.
The ice exploded.
The reflective surface shattered.
The anchor broke.
The projection vanished instantly.
The invisible mass plunged through the broken hole into the raging current beneath.
I heard it grinding and thrashing as the water dragged it helplessly toward the deep lake.
Then silence.
The nightmare was over.
But the price was everything.
I abandoned camp and walked out over three days with almost no gear.
No satellite phone.
No sleeping bag.
Just terror and survival instinct.
I lied to search and rescue.
I told them Grant slipped on weak ice and was pulled under.
They never found a body.
The case was closed as a tragic accident.
I never guided again.
I moved to the flat Midwest, took a quiet job fixing heavy machinery.
I live without mirrors.
Every window in my house is covered.
I drink from opaque cups.
I avoid still water after rain.
Because sometimes, even now, when I accidentally catch my reflection in a chrome bumper or tinted glass, I freeze.
I count.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
And I pray the man staring back moves exactly when I do.
Some reflections never stop following you.
And some clients were never human to begin with.
