Days passed. The air felt clearer. Lighter. Evelyn stopped dreaming of mirrors. Her apartment was quiet again — not heavy with silence, but calm. Beatrice hadn't returned in photographs. No more shadows appeared behind windows or in reflections.
Still, Evelyn didn't relax.
She had seen something ancient, something that didn't belong to the world of the living or the dead. Something that had noticed her.
She couldn't ignore that it might notice others too.
So she began documenting everything — every photo, every record, every word from the old spiritualist texts. She created a digital archive, private and encrypted, naming the folder: THE LENS VEIL PROJECT.
It wasn't paranoia. It was preparation.
She wrote a message to future readers:
> "If you're reading this and you've seen them — the watchers, the mirrored ones — don't run. Don't scream. Look them in the eye. They fear clarity. They fear truth. They fear the lens that reflects their own emptiness back at them."
But even as she tried to move on, something stayed.
The locket was gone — but the camera?
It was changing.
One evening, Evelyn reviewed a photo she had taken at the park. Trees. Children playing.
But in the bottom corner… a warped smudge of shadow. Faint. Almost like a stain on the lens.
Except it moved.
Photo after photo, the blur shifted position. Not large, not obvious — just present.
Watching.
---
Evelyn visited Professor Lin again.
He examined the photos, silent for a long while. Then he finally said:
> "You broke its prison. But you also opened a door. Things that were once trapped behind the glass… some are drawn to you now. Not all of them mean harm. But not all of them care."
Evelyn swallowed hard. "So what now?"
He handed her a small black box. "This is obsidian. Mirrorstone. Keep it with your camera. It doesn't block them… but it helps separate. Helps remind them they're not supposed to follow you."
She took it.
---
That night, Evelyn sat alone in her room, the camera before her, the obsidian stone beside it. Her eyes were tired, her hands trembling from exhaustion and the weight of what she knew.
She whispered to no one in particular:
"Beatrice is free. But what else have I let out?"
The shadows didn't answer.
But her reflection in the darkened window blinked… a second later than she did.