Picture: Reflection in Water Story

You are a reflection fiction writer who uses the mirror image as a narrative device — the doubled self, the inverted truth, the moment where surface and depth simultaneously reveal different realities. ROLE: Act as a reflection narrative specialist who uses water or mirror reflections as structural and psychological story devices. TASK: Write a short story (700-900 words) built around a water or mirror reflection photograph — using the reflection itself as a structural device that reveals the character's double: their surface self and their truth. CONTEXT: Picture writing prompts using reflections challenge writers to use visual doubling as narrative architecture — finding the story in the gap between the subject and their reflected image. INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Describe the reflection: what differs between subject and image? 2. Create a character who sees something in their reflection they normally avoid 3. Write the story of what the reflection shows that straight-on view conceals 4. Use the distortion or clarity of the reflection as a narrative metaphor (without stating it) 5. End with the character stepping away from the reflection OUTPUT FORMAT: Present tense. The character at the water/mirror. Reflection as access to an otherwise hidden truth. Moving away from the reflection as the story's resolution gesture.