The air outside the motel was too still, the kind of silence that presses against your ears like cotton soaked in dread. The neon sign above the door blinked NO VACANCY, but Rhea knew better.
She hadn’t come all this way for a room.
She came for the door.
Her leather jacket clung damply to her arms from the thick fog that curled around the alley. A scarf, once white, now ash-colored from travel and time, hung limp around her neck. Her scalp was bare—not by choice, but by necessity. Each strand of hair she once had had been traded, one by one, to get her this far.
Behind the blue door stood a shadow. Unmoving. Watching.
Rhea didn’t flinch when it shifted slightly.
They said the door only appeared once you'd seen the other side—once your reflection stopped matching your soul. She had reached that point months ago, when her face started flickering in mirrors: blinking after she blinked, mouthing words she hadn’t spoken. That was when she began losing her hair, one patch at a time, as if someone else was peeling her identity away from afar.
At first, she ran. Then she researched. Then she remembered.
Her grandmother had spoken of this—The Mirror Vacancy. A door between selves. Between possibilities. Between the one who chose... and the one who was left behind.
Rhea took a breath and turned her back to the door, facing the night. She could feel the presence behind her, its gaze like cold fingers at the base of her neck. If she opened the door, she would trade places. The version of her trapped in the mirror—the one who had made all the wrong choices—would be let loose.
She knew that.
But she also knew what the cost of waiting was. The hair was only the beginning. Next would come her voice. Her memories. Her will.
The door creaked.
The shadow behind the frosted glass moved forward.
And Rhea whispered, “Not tonight.”
With a final glance at the neon glow above her, she stepped away from the door, not toward it. The shadow watched, but didn’t follow. For now.
But she could feel it.
There would be other nights.
And one day soon, the sign above that door might change.
From NO VACANCY… to ROOM FOR ONE MORE.