The late afternoon light slanted through the wide glass windows of Velvet Strand Salon, scattering gold across polished floors and mirrors. It was one of those rare quiet days, when the buzz of hair dryers had faded and the faint hum of soft jazz filled the air.
That was when Evelyn walked in.
Her hair was a tangled storm—matted, dull, and uneven, as though it had been months since she’d cared for it. Her expression carried the same weariness. She looked like someone who had forgotten how to rest.
“Hi there,” came a warm voice. Rosa, the salon’s lead stylist, looked up from the counter. She’d seen every kind of client: the bored, the brokenhearted, the hopeful. But there was something different about Evelyn. Something quiet, but heavy.
“I… I just need a change,” Evelyn said softly. “Nothing too dramatic. Just something new. Something lighter.”
Rosa smiled. “You came to the right place. Let’s see what we can do.”
Rosa’s hands moved with the grace of habit—detangling, trimming, shaping. Snip after snip, dull strands fell like whispers to the floor.
“So,” Rosa asked, trying to lighten the silence, “what made you decide to come in today?”
Evelyn hesitated. “It’s been… a strange week,” she said. “I’ve been feeling like I don’t recognize myself anymore. I thought maybe… if I looked different, I’d feel different.”
Rosa smiled knowingly. “That’s the magic of a good haircut.”
As she worked, she noticed something unusual. Beneath the surface tangles, Evelyn’s hair was thick, healthy—almost too perfect. And when the light caught it just right, it shimmered faintly, almost like metal.
Probably the conditioner, Rosa thought. She kept snipping.
But then, when she ran her comb near the scalp, the fine-tooth edge caught on something. Something hard.
“Hold still,” Rosa murmured, leaning closer. Her heart skipped. Beneath a thin section of hair, near the back of Evelyn’s head, was a small metal implant, no bigger than a coin, partially hidden by skin.
Rosa froze.
Evelyn noticed. “Something wrong?”
Rosa forced a smile. “No, no—it’s fine. Just a tangle.”
She continued cutting, her mind racing. A medical implant, maybe? But it didn’t look surgical. The edges were smooth, flush with the skin, almost… deliberate.
When Rosa finally finished, Evelyn looked transformed. Her hair now framed her face in soft waves, gleaming and alive. She looked years younger—her posture straightened, her eyes clearer.
Rosa smiled. “You look incredible.”
Evelyn stared into the mirror, and for a moment, her reflection seemed to flicker. The light above her head dimmed, then flared again. Rosa blinked.
“What was that?” Evelyn asked.
Rosa frowned. “Probably just the bulb.”
But when she looked back at the mirror, her stomach tightened. Evelyn’s reflection was smiling—only Evelyn wasn’t.
That night, Rosa couldn’t shake the image. She’d locked up the salon, double-checked the mirrors, but the unease clung to her.
At home, she poured herself a glass of wine and opened her phone. Something about Evelyn’s face—it tugged at a memory. She searched her name online.
After a few minutes, she found it: a missing person’s report dated six months ago. Evelyn Hart, 32. Last seen leaving her home after a power outage. No further leads.
Rosa set the phone down slowly. The photo matched perfectly.
The next morning, Rosa arrived early, her nerves humming. The salon was still dark except for the faint glow of dawn through the windows. She was about to turn on the lights when she saw it—something in the mirror.
A faint outline of a woman standing behind her.
Rosa spun around. No one was there.
Her reflection, however, remained frozen a moment too long before catching up.
She took a shaky breath. “You need sleep, Rosa.”
The bell above the door chimed.
Evelyn.
Same coat, same calm expression—but her hair looked untouched, tangled again, as if the entire transformation had never happened.
“Morning,” she said softly. “I hope I’m not too early.”
Rosa stared. “You were here yesterday.”
Evelyn tilted her head. “No, I wasn’t. I just found this place online last night.”
The mirror behind her flickered again—just for a second—and Rosa saw something that made her blood run cold. Evelyn’s reflection wasn’t matching her movements. It was smiling, slowly, even as the real Evelyn looked neutral.
“What’s wrong?” Evelyn asked.
“Nothing,” Rosa lied, voice trembling. “Just… déjà vu.”
As Rosa began brushing through Evelyn’s hair again, she noticed the implant once more. Same exact spot. Only this time, it wasn’t smooth—it was pulsing faintly, like a heartbeat.
She set down her scissors. “Evelyn, can I ask—have you had any medical procedures lately?”
Evelyn blinked. “No. Why?”
Rosa took a step back. “There’s… something in your scalp. I think you should see a doctor.”
Evelyn’s tone changed. “You shouldn’t have said that.”
The air around them shifted—subtle, electric. The mirrors along the wall began to hum, their surfaces rippling like disturbed water. Rosa stumbled backward as her reflection moved on its own, pressing a hand against the glass.
Then Evelyn’s reflection smiled—wide, predatory—and stepped forward, out of the mirror.
Rosa screamed as the real Evelyn went still, her body slack like a puppet with cut strings. The reflection version straightened, eyes glowing faintly silver.
The implant, Rosa realized, wasn’t an implant. It was a transmitter.
The reflection turned its gaze on her. “You shouldn’t have tried to fix me,” it said, voice layered and metallic. “I was perfect the way I was.”
Rosa ran, shattering the silence of the salon as she burst through the door into the street. Behind her, she could hear the faint sound of glass cracking—mirror after mirror fracturing one by one.
When she finally dared to look back through the window, she saw Evelyn—or whatever she had become—standing calmly in the salon.
In every mirror, dozens of versions of her stared back.
And each one was smiling.
Days later, the police found the salon empty. No signs of a struggle. Only one thing stood out: every mirror had been covered with a fine film of metallic dust, like vaporized glass.
Of Rosa, there was no trace.
But at night, passersby sometimes swore they saw a woman inside Velvet Strand Salon—standing perfectly still in front of a cracked mirror, scissors glinting in her hand, waiting for the next client to walk in.