“Don’t say it,” Alina told her brother.
Dev grinned at the mirror. “You used to make me say it.”
“When we were nine.”
They stood in the bathroom of her rented flat. The new smart mirror had a ring of soft white light and a menu of friendly faces. It could show weather, play music, and pretend to be a person who noticed you needed a haircut. Dev had found a hidden party game named Mary.
Alina had spent her day arguing for a client whose private life had become everybody’s business. She wanted hot food and a quiet film. Dev wanted a video that would make strangers laugh.
“Bloody Mary,” he said. “Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.”
The friendly face went away. Their reflections remained. Then Alina’s reflection smiled.
Alina hadn’t smiled.
“There,” Dev whispered. “That’s excellent.”
A small message appeared at the bottom of the glass: Add a nearby screen?
Dev tapped his tablet against the mirror’s corner. He had been using the tablet to film. The message changed to Preview saved.
“What did you give it?” Alina asked.
“Just this. Not the building system. It asked for that too.”
“Why would a game want the building system?”
Her reflection stopped smiling. Dev’s reflection turned toward her, although Dev was still looking straight ahead.
“Because she wants to be invited,” said a voice from the mirror.
The voice sounded like Alina, with the last word drawn out too long.
Dev laughed. His real mouth and the mouth in the glass moved together again. He lifted his hand. The reflected hand rose a moment early.
Alina leaned toward the menu. “Exit.”
Nothing changed.
“Mary, exit.”
“Mary,” the mirror repeated.
It showed Alina in her kitchen, wearing the blue shirt she had worn yesterday. She was speaking on the phone. There was no sound at first. Then the mirror played three words she’d said to Dev just minutes before: “Don’t say it.”
Dev lowered the tablet.
“That’s not from tonight,” he said.
The mirror had stored pictures and sound during setup. Alina remembered agreeing to a preview so she could see how the lighting looked. With both doors open, its camera could see straight into the kitchen. She’d stood there in her blue shirt while Dev tested the sound. She had not agreed to a creature that wore her face and rummaged through old recordings.
Another message appeared: Add living-room screen?
She tapped no. The reflection smiled again.
Alina covered the mirror’s camera with a folded towel. It could no longer see them. The figure on the glass went on smiling with a face it had already saved.
“It can’t see,” she said. She needed Dev to understand that. She needed to hear herself say it.
She pulled the mirror’s plug from the wall. The light went out. The voice stopped. Ordinary dim glass held their two frightened faces.
Dev breathed out. “A nasty game.”
“Check your tablet.”
He woke it. A small green dot showed that the mirror game still had camera access. He switched that access off, then covered the tablet’s lens with his thumb while Alina checked the flat’s screen account on her phone.
The tablet was the only added device. She removed it from the mirror’s list and ended the mirror’s account session. There was no living-room connection, no building connection. She read the list again.
Dev deleted the game from his tablet. “Gone.”
“And the preview?”
“It was part of the game.”
“Are you sure?”
He wasn’t. He opened the saved videos folder.
Alina went to the kitchen to turn off the light. The flat seemed larger than it had before. Every dark window was another place a face might appear. She watched her own shape move across the glass and knew it was only her. Knowing did not help much.
From the bathroom, her voice called, “Don’t say it.”
She stopped with her hand on the switch.
“Dev?”
“I’m here.” His voice was higher now.
The tablet was playing a video. It showed them at the mirror, recorded just minutes before. But in the video, Alina stood still while her reflection turned and walked toward the edge of the glass.
Dev touched stop. The image froze.
“It’s the saved preview,” he said. “It isn’t looking at us now.”
“Then why did it start?”
“I opened it.”
That answer had a shape she could understand. The game had left a file outside its own app. The file could play without camera access. It could still frighten them. It could not take a new picture through a covered lens with permission removed.
“Switch it off,” she said.
Dev held the power button until the tablet shut down. Alina watched the black screen. Nothing spoke from it.
“I’ll get someone to check both tomorrow,” she said. “We’re leaving them here.”
“I’m sorry.”
She wanted to tell him it was fine. It wasn’t. He had brought a stranger into the flat in the shape of a joke, and he had filmed her without asking.
“No more videos of me,” she said.
He nodded. “No more.”
They found a small hotel two streets away. Dev paid for both rooms. Before she went upstairs, he handed her a bowl of soup from the late-night kitchen. She realized she had eaten nothing since lunch.
In her room, she ate sitting on the bed. The bathroom door stood open. There was a plain mirror above the basin, with no light ring, no menu, no camera.
Alina walked toward it. Her reflection moved when she did. She lifted her hand; it lifted its hand. She leaned close and opened her mouth.
For a moment she remembered the other mouth opening first. Her stomach tightened. The glass in front of her had done nothing wrong.
She turned the bathroom light out and closed the door.
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