The first thing I noticed were the eyes—glowing orange-red, like backlit amber. They didn’t blink. Just stared, wide and unblinking. Something about their shape was off, warped… almost reptilian. They made my skin crawl.

  Then the teeth—fangs, I thought at first. Sharp. Predatory. Gleaming like polished bone. But something was off. The longer I stared, the more the truth twisted into view. They weren’t fangs—just canines. Elongated, unnaturally so, sharpened to precise, cruel points. Too smooth. Too white.

  The others were different. Duller. Slightly yellowed. Ordinary, almost forgettable. But those canines… they didn’t match. They stood out like something foreign forced into place—silent, gleaming threats among the rest.

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  They didn’t look like they were made for eating. They looked like they were made for killing.

  Claws came next. I hadn’t noticed them at first, but now I couldn’t stop seeing them—long, curved, built for rending, twitching slightly as if eager to be used. They looked... hungry.

  But it wasn’t until I saw the ears that something in me truly recoiled. Pointed, orangish-red things that twitched with a kind of consciousness—as if they could hear my thoughts. Or maybe just my heartbeat, which was far too loud now.

  And then the tail. Long, fluffy, deceptively soft-looking. Orange, fading to a blood-red tip that pulsed subtly in the low light.

  I stared at the thing in the mirror. It stared back.

  And I realized—

  I hadn’t moved.

  I looked away.