Maya didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to. In the dark screen of her phone, she could see the closet mirror now held two reflections: hers, frozen in bed—and another, standing just behind her, wearing a yellow sundress.

Maya clicked play.

Maya sat back. Something prickled at the back of her neck. She rewatched the last thirty seconds. The jump cut wasn’t a mistake—it was a door. She could feel it.

The film was short—seventeen minutes. It showed a middle-aged woman named Eleanor (the cast list existed only in Maya’s imagination) who lived alone in a modest apartment. Each morning, she would stand before a large oval mirror, and the mirror would show her not her own reflection, but the people who had once lived in that room. A young couple dancing to silent music. A boy practicing violin, his bowing clumsy but earnest. A very old man weeping into his hands.

“Don’t turn around. I’m already behind you.”