For five years, Damien’s hair had been his identity.
It trailed past his shoulders in thick waves, glinting copper under sunlight. He tied it in knots when he worked, let it hang free when he played guitar at night. Friends joked he looked like a rock star or a wandering poet. Strangers stopped him on the street, asking what products he used. His hair wasn’t just part of him—it was him.
But lately, he couldn’t stand it.
It felt heavy, suffocating, like he was dragging years behind him. He’d catch his reflection and feel like he was looking at someone else—someone who had lived too long inside the same story.
So one Friday morning, he made the decision.
He was going to cut it all off.
He booked an appointment at Elara’s Studio, a small barbershop at the edge of town, tucked between a record store and a pawn shop. It was new, minimalist, and oddly silent when he walked in. The air smelled faintly of metal and eucalyptus.
The woman who greeted him wasn’t what he expected.
Tall. Pale. Platinum hair that shimmered like light through water. Her eyes—icy gray, almost silver.
“You must be Damien,” she said softly, as if she’d been expecting him.
He smiled nervously. “Yeah. I, uh, want to go short. Real short.”
She tilted her head. “Are you sure? That’s five years of growth. You’ll never get that time back.”
He hesitated. “I’m ready.”
She nodded once. “Then let’s begin.”
When the scissors first closed around his hair, a chill ran through him. The sound was crisp, final. She moved with careful precision, cutting in slow sections, almost ritualistically. Strands fell like autumn leaves to the floor, gathering around his boots in copper piles.
“How long have you been thinking about this?” she asked.
“Months,” he said. “It just feels… right.”
She hummed, low and melodic. “Sometimes, when people cut their hair, they’re trying to let something go. But sometimes, they invite something in.”
He chuckled awkwardly. “You make it sound like witchcraft.”
Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Perhaps it is.”
When she was done, Damien barely recognized the man in the mirror.
His face looked sharper, older, liberated. He ran his hand through the short strands, shocked at the lightness. “Wow,” he breathed. “It’s like I’m someone else.”
Elara’s reflection stood behind him, smiling faintly. “You are.”
He turned to thank her—but she was gone. The chair beside him was empty.
The shop was empty.
Even the sound of scissors was gone.
He frowned. “Hello?”
No answer.
He stepped outside—but the street was silent, too. The record shop and pawn store were shuttered, their windows black. The air felt thick, muffled.
And then—he noticed something strange in the window’s reflection.
Behind him, the barbershop’s mirror wasn’t reflecting the street. It was showing him. Still seated. Still long-haired. Still motionless.
His stomach dropped. He turned.
The chair was empty.
The mirror still showed him sitting there.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Weird prank.”
But the reflection blinked—and he hadn’t.
Then, slowly, his reflection smiled.
That night, Damien lay awake, the sound of scissors echoing in his head. He told himself it was exhaustion, nerves, imagination. But when he checked his phone for the photo he took of his new look, it was corrupted. The image flickered, distorted. In each frame, his hair seemed… longer.
By morning, it was.
Just slightly—half an inch, maybe. Enough to notice.
He laughed it off. “Must be the light.”
But the next morning, it was longer still. By the third day, it brushed his collar again.
He tried trimming it himself. The moment he set down the scissors, it began to move—curling, lengthening, writhing like something alive.
He panicked. He grabbed the mirror and hurled it across the room. It shattered.
In the shards, his reflection still stared back—long hair trailing across the glass like vines.
Desperate, he returned to Elara’s Studio.
The shop wasn’t there.
In its place stood an empty lot. A realtor’s sign read FOR LEASE – Vacant since 1992.
His pulse hammered. That wasn’t possible. He’d been there days ago. He could still smell the eucalyptus.
Then, a voice behind him:
“You shouldn’t have tried to change who you are.”
He turned.
Elara stood in the middle of the lot, silver eyes gleaming.
“Where did you go?” he demanded.
“I never left,” she said. “You just stepped into the wrong reflection.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You wanted to become someone new,” she said softly. “You thought cutting your hair would free you. But that hair wasn’t just yours—it carried your years, your memories, your self. You severed the wrong thing.”
“What did you do to me?”
Elara smiled. “I helped you shed your past. The question is—who’s wearing it now?”
He looked down.
A shadow rippled along the pavement, stretching, coiling. From the darkness rose a figure—himself, with long hair flowing and eyes that weren’t his own.
It stepped forward, smiling. “You look… lighter,” it said.
Damien stumbled back. “What—what is this?”
“The other you,” Elara said simply. “The one you cut away. He’s been waiting to live again.”
The doppelgänger reached out, its hands shimmering like liquid glass. “You didn’t want the past, Damien. I’ll take it from here.”
Damien turned to run, but the world folded around him—the streets bending, warping into endless mirrors. Every reflection showed him with longer hair, older eyes, the same smile.
He screamed, but his voice echoed wrong—splitting into dozens of versions.
Three weeks later, a new stylist opened a small shop at the edge of town. The sign read: “Elara’s Studio – Transformations That Change You.”
A man worked the front desk—charming, quiet, with a mane of thick copper hair that brushed his shoulders.
When customers complimented it, he only smiled faintly and said,
“It took five years to grow.”