The Last Broadcast

The scream came through the radio before the words did—wet, gurgling, half-human.

Eli jerked the dial, nearly driving his old truck into the ditch. Static swallowed the noise, then a voice rasped:

“Do not look at the mirrors. Do not—”

Then silence.

The headlights cut across the empty road, trees bowing in the wind like they knew something he didn’t. Eli’s hands were slick on the wheel. He’d been driving for hours, the radio his only company. Now he wished he’d left it off.

He stole a glance at the rearview. Nothing but the dark blur of road behind him. Still, he yanked it down until it faced the floorboards. His pulse thudded.

Another burst of static. Then that same voice, clearer this time, like the man was sitting in the passenger seat.

“They come through the glass. Don’t let them catch your reflection.”

Eli almost laughed—almost. But then he saw it: the faint outline of a face, grinning in the passenger-side mirror. Not his. Not anyone’s.

His throat closed. He slapped the mirror inward. The face stretched, features rippling across the glass like oil. Its smile widened until teeth cracked through the surface, warping the mirror as though it were soft clay.

“Keep your eyes forward,” the radio voice croaked. “Or it’s already too late.”

Eli floored the gas. The truck shuddered, trees flashing by in frantic blurs. The mirror-face pressed closer, trying to push itself through, skin bubbling against the boundary of the glass.

He ripped the radio out of the dash, wires snapping. But even without it, the voice remained, whispering inside the cab:

“You can’t run. They’re already here.”

The windshield darkened, reflections blooming like mildew on the inside of the glass. His own face stared back, but wrong—eyes too black, mouth stretched to his ears. It licked the inside of the glass with a split tongue.

Eli screamed and drove his fist against the windshield. Pain flared, blood streaking the glass, but the reflection only smiled wider.

The road ended without warning. His headlights lit up a wall of trees. He swerved, tires shrieking, but it was too late—metal screamed as the truck slammed sideways into the ditch.

Silence.

Shaking, ribs burning, Eli clawed at the seatbelt and stumbled out. The night was heavy, air thick as syrup. The truck sat crumpled, steaming. Every window dripped with black, mirror-slick liquid, as if the reflections had melted free.

Something moved inside.

Not him.

It climbed out of the truck—same shape, same height, but its skin was glass. Its face was his face, fractured and grinning through a thousand cracks. Every step it took chimed like breaking mirrors.

Eli stumbled back, slipped in mud. The glass-thing cocked its head, shards grinding. Behind it, more figures peeled themselves from the truck windows, the mirrors, even the wet gleam of the chrome bumper.

Dozens of Elis. All smiling.

The voice whispered in his ear, close enough that hot breath brushed his skin:
“Every reflection wants to be real.”

The glass-Eli knelt, putting its face inches from his. In the reflection of its eyes, Eli saw himself not on the ground, but hanging, skin inside-out, writhing in silence.

He didn’t have time to scream before it leaned forward and bit.