In the small, forgotten town of Hollow Pines, where the trees bent inward as if guarding secrets, there lived a woman named Clara. She was a solitary soul, a night-shift nurse who preferred the quiet hum of the hospital corridors to the chatter of daylight. Her life was predictable—until the whispers began.
It started with a patient, an old man with clouded eyes and trembling hands, muttering about a figure he’d seen in the woods. “He only moves when you don’t look,” he rasped, his voice like dry leaves scraping pavement. “The Man Who Walks in Reverse. If you see him standing still, you’re safe. But turn away, and he’s closer. Always closer.” Clara dismissed it as delirium. She’d heard stranger ramblings from fevered minds. But that night, as she walked home through the fog-draped streets, she felt it—a prickle on her neck, the sense of being watched.
The next evening, she saw him.
It was just past midnight, the moon a thin sliver above the pines. She was cutting through the old cemetery—a shortcut she’d taken a hundred times—when she glimpsed a figure in the distance. He stood motionless between two crooked headstones, his back to her. Tall, unnaturally thin, his coat hung off him like damp rags. His head was tilted slightly, as if listening. Clara froze, her breath catching. She told herself it was a trick of the shadows, a scarecrow someone had propped up as a prank. But then she blinked, and when her eyes refocused, he was still there—exactly as before.
She turned and hurried home, her boots crunching on gravel, refusing to look back. The air felt heavier, the silence thicker. When she locked her door and peered through the window, the street was empty. She laughed it off, blaming exhaustion, but sleep eluded her. The old man’s words gnawed at her: He only moves when you don’t look.
Days passed, and Clara tried to forget. She avoided the cemetery, sticking to well-lit roads. But the figure returned. She’d see him from her kitchen window, standing at the edge of her yard, motionless under the streetlamp. Or she’d catch him in the hospital parking lot, a dark silhouette against the sodium glow. Always still. Always facing away. She began to test it, staring at him for minutes, daring him to move. He never did—not while she watched.
Then came the night she couldn’t resist. It was a storm-lashed evening, rain drumming on her roof. She saw him again, closer this time, just beyond her porch. Curiosity—or madness—overtook her. She grabbed a flashlight, stepped outside, and fixed her gaze on him. The beam trembled as it lit his tattered coat, his matted hair. He didn’t budge. Heart pounding, she took a step forward. Then another. He remained a statue, unyielding.
“What do you want?” she whispered, her voice swallowed by the wind.
No answer. She edged closer, now only ten feet away. The air smelled of rot and wet earth. She could see the back of his neck—pale, wrinkled, streaked with dirt. Her hands shook, but she couldn’t stop. She had to know. With a deep breath, she turned off the flashlight and spun around, counting to three in her head.
One. Two. Three.
She whirled back, snapping the light on.
He was gone.
A scream lodged in her throat. She swept the beam across the yard—nothing. The rain stung her face as she stumbled back to the house, slamming the door. She checked every lock, every window. The storm raged on, but the silence inside was worse. She sank into a chair, clutching the flashlight like a lifeline.
That’s when she heard it. A faint creak. From upstairs.
Clara lived alone. She hadn’t been upstairs all day. Her pulse roared in her ears as she crept toward the staircase, flashlight trembling. The creak came again—slow, deliberate, like a foot testing a floorboard. She ascended, each step a battle against instinct screaming at her to run. At the top, the hallway stretched dark and empty. She aimed the light at her bedroom door. It was ajar.
She hadn’t left it that way.
Pushing it open, she scanned the room. Her bed was untouched, her dresser undisturbed. Relief flickered—until she glanced at the mirror above it. Reflected in the glass was the figure. Standing behind her. Still as death.
Clara spun around. The room was empty. She whipped back to the mirror—he was there, unchanged, his back to her. A sob escaped her. She stared into the reflection, too terrified to move. His head tilted slightly, as if sensing her gaze. Then, in the mirror, his shoulders twitched.
She couldn’t look away. She wouldn’t. The old man’s warning rang in her skull: He only moves when you don’t look. Her eyes burned, tears blurring the edges, but she held fast. Minutes crawled by. Her legs ached, her breath grew shallow. And then, in the reflection, his head began to turn.
Slowly, impossibly, it rotated—not like a human’s, but like a doll’s, mechanical and wrong. She saw the side of his face—gray, sunken, a hollow cheek. She wanted to scream, to run, but her body betrayed her, rooted by dread. His head kept turning, revealing more: an eyeless socket, a lipless mouth stretched into a silent grin. When it faced her fully, the mirror showed no eyes—just black pits staring back.
Clara blinked.
The mirror was empty.
A cold breath grazed her neck.
She didn’t turn around.