These weren’t songs. They were moments —decisions, doubts, triumphs—trapped in the mirror’s silver backing by someone who’d learned to record not sound, but possibility.
Back in her apartment, she put it in her laptop. The files weren’t MP3s. They were high-resolution audio of songs that didn’t exist: a gospel-tinged version of “No One” with a bridge about forgiveness, a haunting piano elegy called “Echo in Silver,” and a thirteen-minute suite titled “The Girl Who Fell Through.”
The mirror became liquid. She fell through.
One dollar per song. The rest is silence. alicia keys songs in a mirror rar
Jenna laughed. He didn’t.
And sometimes, when she passes a mirror too quickly, she swears she sees Otis smiling back, holding up five fingers.
Her reflection from the real world reappeared on the glossy black surface of the grand piano, waving frantically. Come back , it mouthed. The door is closing . These weren’t songs
She handed over five dollars. He left. The door clicked shut.
She woke up on the floor of the dance studio, gasping. The mirror was gone. Only a faint square of clean wall remained. In her hand: a single CD-R with “Alicia Keys — Songs in a Mirror (side A)” scrawled in marker.
She ran toward the nearest reflective surface—a window onto a soundproof booth—and dove through. The files weren’t MP3s
Jenna realized the piano bench held a stack of CDs labeled “Unreleased — Mirror Masters.” She grabbed one.
Then she noticed the other people—frozen figures in the shadows. Not audience members. Other versions of Alicia Keys . One in a sequined leotard from a 2004 tour. Another in a hoodie, scribbling lyrics on a napkin that never filled. A third, older, crying into a phone that rang without end.
Not from speakers. From inside her own skull. A piano riff, warm and familiar—“Fallin’”—but reversed. The melody pulled backward, words turning into ghost vowels. She tried to step away, but her reflection wouldn’t move with her. The other Jenna smiled, tilted her head, and mouthed something silent.
