The Reflected Ones

Smoke weaves through the air, rich with the scents of marigolds and melting wax. Shadows stretch and twist, their forms bending in ways that feel off. And the line between reflection and reality? It’s starting to disappear.

Welcome to The Reflected Ones, where Día de los Muertos in Boyle Heights becomes a doorway to something far more sinister. Tradition gives way to unease, and the warm glow of candles is dimmed by the chilling darkness creeping in from the edges.

In Chapters 1 and 2, we follow Daniel, Marisol, and Javier as they navigate a night of vibrant altars, swirling copal smoke, and cryptic messages that spark an unshakable sense of foreboding. But it’s not just messages that unsettle them—it’s the reflections. Glimpses in mirrors that hold too much knowledge. Shadows in the glass that linger too long.

Chapter 1 - Oaxaca Awaits

Smoke curled from clay copal burners, weaving through the air with the scent of marigolds and melting wax. Día de los Muertos breathed life into Boyle Heights. But beneath the sweetness, a sharp tang lingered—acrid, metallic. Wrong.

Daniel's fingers traced a marigold petal. Brittle. Ready to crumble. He drew back, rubbing the dusty orange residue between his thumb and forefinger.

The loft above Doña Rosa's panadería buzzed with laughter and the mournful cry of a guitar. Each note stretched, a prayer whispered to the night. Lanterns cast writhing shadows. Painted skulls on the walls twisted, their grins elongating. Escaping their outlines.

He glanced at the altar. Sugar skulls grinned. Papel picado fluttered in a phantom breeze. And the photos—oh, the photos. Hollow eyes stared back. Knowing. Judging. Daniel's gaze lingered on a faded snapshot of his abuela. The frame trembled in his hand; he set it down quickly.

"Dan." Marisol's voice cut through his unease. "You good?"

He turned. Marisol and Javier huddled by the balcony, mezcal glasses clutched close. Like shields. The amber liquid sloshed, mirroring the tremor in their hands.

Marisol's face was a masterpiece of white and black swirls. But her eyes—God, her eyes. They darted around the room, never settling, as if searching for an escape route.

"It's beautiful," she said. Her fingers tightened around the glass, knuckles white against the intricate paint.

"But not enough," Daniel finished. His gaze swept over the room—plastic flowers, mass-produced sugar skulls, LED candles flickering with artificial light. His stomach churned. The cloying scent of synthetic marigolds clung to the back of his throat.

Javier's trademark grin had vanished. He stared out over East Cesar Chavez Avenue, where neon signs bled their garish light onto the sidewalks. "We're so close, yet..."

Silence fell. Heavy. Suffocating. The guitar's final note hung in the air, stretched thin, and snapped.

A phone buzzed. Then another. And another. The synchronized vibrations sent ripples through their drinks.

Daniel fumbled for his, the screen's cold light harsh against his face. He read aloud, voice cracking: "To find what you seek, you must face your reflection. Oaxaca awaits."

Marisol's eyes widened. Her glass slipped, mezcal splashing onto the floor. Javier's hand trembled so violently he had to set his phone down on the railing.

An image loaded, pixel by agonizing pixel. A cobblestone street. Amber lanterns. Marigolds lining a path to an ancient archway. But the shadows—God, the shadows. They moved.

Daniel's breath caught. In the corner, three silhouettes. Unmistakable. Him. Marisol. Javier. The outlines pulsed, as if beckoning them closer.

"What the fu—" Javier's words died as another message flashed across their screens.

"The journey begins at dusk. You have until the final sunrise of Día de los Muertos."

The loft shrank. Darkness pressed in. Laughter turned to whispers, then silence. The walls seemed to lean inward, listening.

Daniel swallowed. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, dry as old parchment. "This is what we wanted. Right?"

No answer. Just the soft clink of ice in trembling glasses.

He looked to the altar again. Sugar skull eyes bore into him. Following. Beckoning. A chill wind whispered through the loft. Impossible. The windows were closed.

Marigold petals drifted to the floor, crumbling to dust before they landed.

Daniel's phone glowed. Cold. Unyielding. The image pulsed, shadows reaching out from the screen.

"Oaxaca awaits."

His finger hovered over the image. A heartbeat. Two. Then, almost of its own accord, it tapped the screen.

The world held its breath.

And somewhere, beyond the veil, something answered.

Arrival in Oaxaca

The bus doors hissed open. Heat slapped their faces. Copal smoke writhed through the air—sweet, thick, ancient. Something darker lurked beneath that sweetness. Something that reeked of wet earth and decay, like a freshly opened grave.

Marisol's fingers trembled as she gripped the metal railing. The shadows here weren't right. They stretched too far, too purposefully, clawing up stone walls like living things. They watched. They waited.

A procession snaked through the narrow streets. Drums thundered against centuries-old stone. The sound warped and twisted, bouncing off walls that seemed to pulse with each beat. Skeletons danced, their bones clicking a rhythm that shouldn't have been possible. Their movements were too fluid, too knowing.

Javier's laugh cracked like brittle glass. "Not exactly Boyle Heights." His fingers drummed against his thigh, matching the tempo of the distant drums. Sweat beaded on his upper lip.

Daniel hung back. Let the city come to him in pieces. Fragment by fragment. A candle guttering in a niche. Shadow-fingers stretching across cracked cobblestones. The sticky air coating his skin like old honey.

He touched a marigold. Its petals crumbled. Dead things. Beautiful things. Like memories dissolving between his fingers.

The dream of belonging here had haunted him for years. Now, standing in Oaxaca's beating heart, that dream felt like smoke—the more he grasped, the faster it dissipated.

The market's chaos pulled them deeper. Streets squeezed tighter, darkness pooling in corners where the sun couldn't reach. Voices barked in rapid-fire Spanish. Corn smoke battled with chocolate, with chiles, with that undercurrent of ancient soil that grew stronger with each step.

Marisol's nails dug into Daniel's arm. They passed a shrine dripping with wax and marigolds. "This is what I wanted." Her voice cracked. The unspoken question hung between them: wasn't it?

"Just a festival." Javier's words came too fast, too bright. "We're here to party, remember?"

The city had other plans. Streets twisted like living things, herding them forward. Leading them somewhere. The cobblestones seemed to shift beneath their feet, subtle but sure, like a current pulling them under.

"There." Marisol pointed.

A stall crouched in shadow, half-strangled by drooping marigold chains. Masks hung from every surface. Some grinned. Some screamed. All watched with eyes that knew too much.

The vendor emerged like smoke solidifying. An ancient woman, wrapped in black rebozos that trailed behind her like funeral shrouds. Her eyes cut through flesh, through bone, through lies.

"You've come for the masks." Her voice scraped like bones across stone.

Marisol's throat worked. "Yes, we—"

"You are searching." The woman's words carried weight. Age. Power. Her obsidian eyes dissected them one by one. "Not for what is lost, but for what was never meant to be found."

Her gaze locked onto Daniel. The air grew thick. Heavy. Like breathing underwater. She gestured at the masks, their surfaces crawling with symbols that seemed to writhe and shift.

"These will guide your path." Her voice dropped lower, older. Wind through empty temples. "But heed this—" The very stones seemed to lean in to listen. "There are reflections that belong to the underworld. Not all who gaze into them return unchanged."

Ice slithered down Daniel's spine. A skeletal mask called to him. Its empty sockets knew him. Knew everything. His hand shook as he reached for it. The surface shocked him with unnatural cold. It pulsed against his palm like a dead heart trying to beat.

"Cryptic much?" Javier's laugh bounced off the walls, hollow and wrong. "We're just here for the party."

The woman didn't blink. "The masks reveal what you hide. They are not costumes. They are mirrors."

The market sounds died. The world contracted to this moment, this place. Shadows pooled at their feet like spilled ink. They chose their masks in silence, movements slow and dreamy, like underwater ballet.

The woman's hands moved in ancient patterns as she wrapped their purchases. Her breath frosted Daniel's cheek. "Remember," she whispered, "beware the reflection that does not look away."

They stumbled back into the market's maze. The masks dragged at them like stones tied to drowning men. Streets kinked and twisted, the city folding in on itself like a closing fist.

A bronze mirror caught Daniel's eye. His reflection stared back. Wrong. Different. Dark.

It smiled.

His heart stopped. Blinked. Normal reflection. Pale face. Tired eyes.

The woman's warning echoed: Beware the reflection that does not look away.

The city exhaled around them. Shadows rippled like curtains in a breeze. Oaxaca opened its ancient arms, drawing them deeper into its waiting darkness.

Blood beat in his ears. Drums pounded in the distance. The two rhythms merged, became one, became something older than time.

The masks in their hands grew heavier with each step. The city watched. And waited. And smiled.

Chapter 2 - The Masquerade

The town square devoured light. Lanterns swayed overhead, their flames guttering against darkness that seemed to reach back. Faces emerged from shadow—some flesh, some bone, some neither. A marimba wailed. Guitars screamed. Drums spoke in tongues older than stone.

Marigolds rotted sweetly in the air. Copal smoke slithered down throats, coating lungs with ancient residue. The night pressed close, heavy as a burial shroud.

Daniel's skeletal mask clung like a second skin. No longer plastic. No longer dead. It pulsed against his cheeks, drinking his sweat, feeding on his heat. The crowd crushed in—bodies writhing, grinding, a mass of flesh and bone and something else. Something hungry.

Each breath echoed inside his mask. Not his breath. Someone else's. Something else's.

The cobblestones hummed beneath their feet. A deep vibration crawled up through bone and muscle, settling somewhere behind their hearts. Wrong rhythm. Wrong beat. Like a second pulse trying to override their own.

Marisol spun. Her mask caught moonlight, threw it back distorted. An old man grabbed her waist—hands fever-hot through her dress. His calavera mask grinned too wide, too knowing. She looked into his eyes and found caves. Endless. Empty. Hungry. 

She blinked.

He vanished.

The bitter taste of grave dirt filled her mouth.

Javier's laugh cracked across the square. His mask slipped with each turn, revealing slivers of sweating skin. Mezcal burned down his throat. Smoke and agave and something darker. Something that tasted like old bones.

Movement caught his eye. A figure stood at the edge of light. His stance. His mask. His eyes—but wrong. Cold. Dead. Patient.

"Did you—" His voice died. The words tasted like ash.

Daniel had stopped moving. A woman danced through the crowd. Her dress rippled like black water. Her mask—his mask—reflected nothing. She moved like him. Breathed like him. Was him. Every gesture mirrored with mechanical precision. 

Sweat froze on his spine. She turned. Empty sockets drank in his fear.

Marisol couldn't look away. A couple danced nearby. The woman wore her mask. The man wore Javier's. Their steps dragged behind the music like broken puppets learning to walk. The woman spun—Marisol's signature move, but wrong. Mocking. Her double knew the steps but not the soul.

"Javier." Her voice shattered. "Daniel..."

The square contracted. Music stretched like taffy, notes bleeding into discord. Their reflections multiplied. Everywhere, themselves—but wrong. Moving too slow. Learning. Adapting. Growing stronger.

Javier's double stood three steps away. It raised its hand. Half-second delay. Echo of an echo. Javier's heart stumbled. "Not real," he whispered.

The double's head tilted. Smiled. Javier hadn't smiled.

Daniel crashed into Marisol. Flesh on flesh. Real. Solid. But something else lurked beneath their skin now. Passengers. Parasites.

"They're us." Marisol's voice came from far away. "But hollow."

Daniel's double stepped forward. Its movements liquid metal, beautiful and wrong. Machine learning meat. It stared through him, into him, past him. Daniel's scream died in his throat, stillborn.

The music howled. The crowd spun faster. Light bled into shadow. Their doubles danced closer, no longer bound by reflection's laws. Marisol's reached for her—fingers grasping, beckoning, threatening. Javier's melted through the crowd like ink through water, reforming closer, always closer.

"Move." Daniel clawed at their arms. The crowd pulsed around them—a living thing, trying to hold them. Their masks burned. The air thickened, heavy as clay, filling their lungs with wet earth.

They stumbled free. Chest heaving. Skin slick. Daniel ripped his mask off. Cold air hit like a slap, but brought no clarity. The doubles remained. They stood among the dancers, their forms glitching like broken film. Then, slowly, deliberately, they turned away. Melted back into chaos. But didn't leave.

"What—" Marisol choked. Words failed.

"Not us." Daniel couldn't look away from where his double had vanished. "Not anymore."

Javier hurled his mask down. It didn't break. Just stared up, empty and knowing. "Should've been celebration." His voice cracked. "Should've been normal."

The masquerade raged on. Laughter and music twisted into something obscene. Their doubles had vanished, but their presence lingered like smoke under doors, like shadows under beds.

"Out." Daniel's voice rasped. "Now."

They fled. The music faded but didn't die. It followed, a poison in their blood. The city warped around them. Streets kinked at impossible angles. Alleys gaped like open mouths, shadows pooling thick as tar. Buildings leaned in, watching.

Their doubles danced on. They felt it. In their bones. In their breath. In the spaces between heartbeats. The night had teeth now. And it was hungry.

Marisol stopped suddenly. Her hand flew to her throat. "Listen."

Beneath the distant drums, beneath their ragged breathing, another sound crawled up from somewhere deep. A humming. A chant. Words in a language older than Spanish, older than stone.

"They're singing," she whispered. "Our... them. They're singing."

The song wormed into their ears. Familiar melody, wrong words. Like hearing your mother's voice speak in tongues. The air grew thicker, heavier, as if the song were something physical, something with weight and hunger.

Javier pressed against a wall, stone cold against his palm. "We need to—" He froze. Under his hand, the wall pulsed. Once. Twice. Like a heart beating in ancient stone.

Daniel watched shadows pool at their feet. They moved against the wind, against logic, gathering like spilled ink. And in their depths, something shifted. Masks emerged from darkness—their masks, but transformed. Bone had become real bone. Paint had become blood. They floated just beneath the surface, waiting to be claimed.

The song grew louder. The shadows grew deeper. Their doubles' voices called from every direction, harmonizing in that ancient tongue. Beckoning. Promising. Threatening.

The night wasn't finished with them. It had only begun to feed.

Above, the moon hung bloated and wrong, its light the color of old bruises. The city watched with stone eyes and waited with infinite patience. In the distance, the masquerade played on, but its music had changed—become older, wilder, a rhythm that matched the beating of something that wasn't quite a heart.

Their doubles danced on, learning to be human, learning to be them. And somewhere in the shadows, the old woman's words echoed: "Beware the reflection that does not look away."

But it was too late for warnings now. The reflections had already begun to smile.

The Villa

The villa loomed. A stone sentinel perched above Oaxaca's sprawl. Below, the city pulsed—not with light, but with something older. Something hungry. It watched them with ten thousand eyes of glass and stone.

The door slammed. Wood groaned. Their footsteps echoed wrong against terracotta tiles—too hollow, too sharp. Sweat froze on their skin despite the warmth. Hand-painted pottery lined the walls. Perfect. Still. Arranged by hands they couldn't see. 

The walls pressed closer. Listening.

Marisol ripped off her mask. It clattered against wood like brittle bones. "What—" Her voice shattered the silence. Too loud. The villa swallowed the sound, digested it, spat it back distorted.

Daniel's temples throbbed. The villa's bones creaked around them. Wind hissed against windows—not wind. Whispers. Warnings. Something scratched at glass with fingers made of shadow.

"A nightmare." Javier's voice cracked. His mask leered up from his trembling hands. Eyes hollow. Mouth twisted. Mocking. He hurled it down. The mask didn't break. Just watched. Waited.

Daniel's gaze caught the hallway mirror. Movement flashed—a shadow that shouldn't exist. His heart stumbled. Blinked hard. Their reflections stared back—pale, drawn, wrong. The mirror felt like an open wound now. A door that shouldn't be opened.

Marisol's phone glowed to life. Notifications flooded the screen. Photos. Videos. Memories they'd never lived.

Her breath hitched. "Oh god."

Images flashed. Her body spinning through the square—movements fluid, inhuman. Daniel and Javier by firelight, faces carved with joy they'd never felt. Their doubles, living their lives. Better. Brighter. Wrong.

"They're replacing us." Javier's words fell like stones.

Daniel tore his eyes from the mirror. Sweat trickled ice-cold down his spine. "Still here," he whispered. "Watching."

More photos emerged. Impossible angles. Eyes in darkness. Places human cameras couldn't reach. Their faces frozen in moments of false joy, painted with expressions that didn't belong to them.

Then—Marisol's photo. Her double stared through the lens, eyes bottomless pits. Same empty gaze that watched her now from every reflective surface. A ghost wearing her skin.

Phones buzzed like angry wasps. More evidence of lives they hadn't lived. Daniel dancing with a woman whose face rippled like water. His smile too wide. Too bright. A stranger's joy painted on his features.

Javier's hands shook as he watched himself in a video. His reflection raised a hand. Waved. Smiled with too many teeth. The real Javier stood frozen. Heart hammering against ribs.

"I didn't—" His voice died. Words useless against the evidence.

Marisol fled to her room. Candlelight flickered—weak, uncertain. A piece of parchment waited on her nightstand. Her name in her handwriting. But she hadn't written this.

The calavera poem burned into her eyes:

"Aquí yace Marisol, entre sueños olvidados,

Buscaba su reflejo en el agua estancada,

Su risa perdida en las sombras calladas,

Mientras su doble baila con sus miedos prestados.

Los espejos ahora guardan sus secretos más oscuros,

Cada reflejo un eco de lo que pudo ser,

En el limbo entre lo real y lo impuro,

Donde las máscaras aprenden a crecer."

"Here lies Marisol, among forgotten dreams,

She sought her reflection in stagnant waters,

Her laughter lost in silent shadows,

While her double dances with borrowed fears.

The mirrors now keep her darkest secrets,

Each reflection an echo of what could have been,

In limbo between real and impure,

Where masks learn to grow."

Words carved from her hidden depths. Truths she'd never admitted. The candle's flame writhed, casting demons on the walls. Air thickened like wet clay in her lungs.

The villa warped around Daniel. Reality bled at the edges. Music leaked through walls that shouldn't exist. Masked figures pressed close, their bodies made of smoke and shadow. His double watched from the darkness, head tilted at an impossible angle. The skeletal mask had fused to its face now—bone and flesh become one.

Time snapped. The villa reformed. Clock hands spun wild circles, counting seconds that belonged to someone else. Sweat soaked his palms. Heart percussion against ribs.

"Daniel?"

Javier's voice trembled. He stood transfixed before the mirror. His reflection wore confidence like a stolen coat. Smile too wide. Eyes too bright. Something else wearing his face.

Daniel's feet moved without permission. Drawn to the glass. His reflection stared back. Normal. Then—a lag. A glitch in time. Its eyes met his. Knowing. Hungry.

Javier's double moved first. Fingers traced its face with mechanical precision. Real Javier frozen. Breath shallow. Skin waxy. The reflection's smile split wider. Wider. Face stretching beyond human limits.

Daniel watched his own reflection turn. Its lips formed words. Silent. But he heard them somewhere deeper than ears. Cold fingers wrapped around his heart.

"No." His legs buckled. "Can't be."

The villa groaned. Weight of ancient wood bearing down. Something massive shifting overhead. Unseen but felt. Like a giant rolling in its sleep.

Marisol's candle sputtered. Died.

Darkness flooded in. Thick. Alive. The silence pressed against their ears like cotton wool. Their breaths too loud in the vacuum. Shadows moved against the dark—darker shapes in blackness. Many-limbed. Patient.

Reality thinned. The boundary between reflection and truth dissolved like sugar in rain. The villa's walls rippled—stone becoming fluid, becoming something else. Time stretched like taffy, moments bleeding into hours into seconds.

A door creaked upstairs. Footsteps that shouldn't exist crossed floors they'd never walked. The mirrors watched with hungry eyes. Their doubles lived and breathed and danced just beyond the glass, growing stronger with each borrowed moment.

The house drew a long, shuddering breath. Stone lungs expanding. Wood joints cracking. They felt it in their bones—the weight of ancient things stirring. Tonight was just the beginning. The masks had opened a door that couldn't be closed.

Their reflections smiled in the dark. And waited.

The true night was only beginning to unfold.

Still around? Still reading? Oh, that´s beautiful!

Curious to see where this story goes next? The Reflected Ones is just one piece of Six Haunting Fates, our debut e-book filled with dark twists and unforgettable tales. Ready to uncover the rest? It’s available now on Amazon.