What if the strangest stories were the ones that almost happened?

In Masks in the Mirror, everyday moments drift quietly into the unknown. A childhood dare on a fog-covered country road. A neighbor who watches just a little too closely. A figure glimpsed at the edge of the light that isn't there when you look again. These ten stories begin in familiar places — small towns, wooded trails, forgotten roads — and end somewhere you didn't expect to go.

Drawing from real locations and lived experience, Zurvan King blurs the line between memory and imagination, between what happened and what might have. The places in these pages exist. Some of the people do too. And a few of the things that happen in the dark — well, that's harder to say.

Part memoir, part mystery, part something else entirely, Masks in the Mirror is a debut collection for readers who like their horror quiet, their atmosphere thick, and their endings just unsettling enough to follow them to bed.

Stories include: • Boots — Encounters with a neighbor who watches • Gravel Pit Road — A stranger who wants something in return • McShane Drive — A farmhouse where the sounds in the night linger • Hello, My Friend — A man returns to say goodbye to the only friend still waiting • A Fish Tale — A fishing trip that takes an unexpected turn • The Haunchies: Legend of Mystic Lane — A Halloween dare, a fog-covered lake road, and marks on the car no one could explain • Sugar River — Where something familiar turns quietly sinister • Cookie Run — A late-night errand that may have cost more than expected • Ten Little Daggers — A ritual, a demon, and a name spoken in the dark • Lost in the Light — Where the light shines, something waits at the end.

Read carefully. Not everything that's lost wants to be found.