Buldumêch Drank Their Love

The first thing Clara noticed was the silence.

Not the absence of sound—no, the house still creaked, the wind still hissed through the cracked bedroom window, and Daniel’s breath still came in slow, sleeping rasps beside her. It was the *other* silence. The one that had settled between them like a third presence in their bed. The silence of a word left unsaid, a touch ungiven, a kiss withheld.

She turned her head on the pillow, studying Daniel’s face in the dim glow of the streetlight outside. His stubble had grown in, dark and uneven, and there was a faint line between his brows even in sleep. She used to trace that line with her thumb, smoothing it away with a joke or a kiss. Now, she just watched it deepen.

Then she saw it.

The mirror across the room—the one they’d bought at a flea market the summer they moved in together, its frame carved with roses—showed Daniel’s reflection sitting upright.

But Daniel hadn’t moved.

Clara’s breath caught. The reflection turned its head toward her, slower than any human could, until its face was fully visible.

Its smile was too wide.

She jerked upright, gasping, and the reflection mimicked her—but wrong, *wrong*, its movements liquid and delayed, like something learning to be human. Daniel stirred beside her.

“Clara?” His voice was thick with sleep. “You okay?”

She couldn’t look away from the mirror. The reflection was his again, normal, lying down.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Just… a dream.”

But the next morning, she caught Daniel staring at his own reflection in the coffee maker’s steel surface, his brow furrowed.

---

The cracks started small.

A missing wedding photo from the hallway. The scent of rot in the bedroom, though they couldn’t find the source. And the reflections—always the reflections. Clara would catch Daniel’s image watching her when he wasn’t. Daniel would flinch when her reflection mouthed words she hadn’t spoken.

Then came the whispers.

*You never loved him.* Slithering into Clara’s ear as she washed dishes.

*She’s lying to you.* Hissed against Daniel’s neck in bed.

They stopped touching. Stopped speaking. The house filled with the weight of unsaid things, heavy as a corpse between them.

One night, Clara woke to Daniel standing in front of the mirror, his fingers pressed to the glass.

“Daniel?” Her voice was hoarse.

His reflection turned toward her. Smiled.

Daniel didn’t.

“Do you remember our vows?” he asked, so quiet she barely heard.

*Of course I do,* she wanted to say. But the words curdled in her throat.

The reflection’s mouth moved. *Liar.*

---

The priest was young, too young, his hands shaking as he clutched the bible.

“Demons don’t haunt houses,” he said. “They haunt *people*.”

Clara’s knuckles were white around her mug of tea. “Then how do we get rid of it?”

The priest hesitated. “What does it want?”

Daniel laughed—a sharp, broken sound. “What do demons ever want? To ruin things.”

That night, Clara dreamt of a name: *Buldumêch.* It slithered under her skin, whispering its hunger. Not for flesh. Not for souls.

For *love*.

She woke to Daniel screaming.

The mirror was bleeding. Thick, black streaks oozed from its edges, dripping onto the dresser. Their reflections were gone. In their place, a single word, written in the grime:

*MINE.*

---

The last photo of them together was taken at their wedding. Clara dug it out from the back of a drawer, her hands trembling.

Two faces, beaming. Two hands, clasped.

Except—

She hadn’t noticed before. Had *never* noticed.

In the photo, their wedding rings were empty.

---

Daniel found her in the bathroom, her fingers clawing at the mirror.

“It’s in us,” she sobbed. “It’s been in us *the whole time*.”

He grabbed her wrists, pulling her away. For the first time in months, they touched—and both recoiled.

His skin was cold.

So was hers.

The mirror showed the truth: two hollow things, their love scraped out like marrow from bone.

Buldumêch’s voice coiled between them, satisfied.

*Now you see.*

---

The priest returned at dawn.

The house was silent. The mirror was whole.

And the bed?

The bed held two bodies, curled together like lovers.

But their wedding rings were gone.

And their mouths were full of teeth.