Mirror of Stars

Mirror of Stars is a quiet, unsettling short story of self-awareness by Reign Hawker.Three teens. One mirror. Everything changes.In a small Midwestern drama class, Zenda Amon-Hathor, Clair St. Ives, and Reign Hawker stand apart for one simple reason: they don't feel the way others do.They observe. They analyze. They execute. Emotion is something that belongs to everyone else.Until the day the mirror flickers.Mr. Drake's funhouse mirror has always been a harmless classroom prop-uncovered at the end of each lesson to provoke laughter at distorted reflections. But on Monday, only three students stop. Only three fall silent. Only three notice something that should not be there.By Tuesday, their dreams begin to change. Their precision softens. Their speech warms, almost imperceptibly, into something unfamiliar.None of them can explain it. None of them can ignore it.By Wednesday, the mirror is no longer a joke.Drawn back to it, the three begin to recognize a pattern only they can perceive-a pulse of light that grows stronger with each passing day. Their classmates move past without noticing. Mr. Drake watches them with quiet attention.And the mirror, once ordinary, seems to be watching back.When the curtain falls on Friday's class performance, nothing in that room is the same as it was on Monday.Mirror of Stars is an atmospheric young adult story about identity, connection, and the subtle moment when the self begins to loosen its grip.For readers who appreciate the quiet unease of We Have Always Lived in the Castle and the slow-burn tension of The Twilight Zone.

Pages: 61, Paperback, Independently published