The Crack in the Glass - Poem

The Crack in the Glass

It started with a hairline fracture—barely noticeable.

Elena spotted it on a cold Wednesday morning while sipping her second cup of coffee. She stood in the kitchen, bathed in the dim light of a gray sky pressing against her windows. Her eyes drifted lazily across the glass and caught it: a thin white line at the bottom right corner of the largest pane.

She leaned in, curious. The crack was almost elegant, like a single brushstroke on glass. It hadn’t been there yesterday. Maybe the storm last night did it—a branch perhaps, or the frame shifting with the temperature drop. She told herself it was nothing, a trivial inconvenience, something to fix later.

She didn’t fix it.

By Thursday, the crack had grown. It now arched toward the center of the window, curling ever so slightly like a smile that didn’t reach the eyes. Elena stood in front of it longer than she meant to. Her coffee grew cold in her hands. The world outside the window looked… distorted, somehow. As if the crack were bending the light in unnatural ways.

She stepped back and blinked. It was fine. Just glass. Just a flaw.

That night, she dreamed of tapping. Light, rhythmic tapping—like fingernails on glass. When she woke, her first instinct was to check the window. Nothing had changed, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been there, watching.

Friday was worse. The crack split into two distinct branches—one veering upward, the other crawling along the sill like a root seeking soil. There was something strangely symmetrical about it now. Not random. Not chaotic. Intentional.

Her phone buzzed with messages. Work. Friends. Her sister. Elena ignored them all. The crack was growing. It was different now. It was alive.

She pressed her palm to the glass.

The cold bit deep—far colder than it should’ve been. It felt like plunging her hand into a still, black lake. Her fingertips burned with numbness, and she recoiled with a gasp. Her skin was pale where it touched the glass, her reflection smeared and flickering behind the spiderwebbing fracture.

Then… she heard it.

A whisper. Faint, impossible. Just under the hum of the refrigerator.

“Keep watching.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

She turned the radio on full blast and left the kitchen. But that night, as she tried to sleep, her dreams returned to the window. Except now, there were eyes—dozens of them, peering from behind the glass, blinking in a slow rhythm that matched her heartbeat.

On Saturday, Elena dragged a chair to the window and sat.

She didn’t bother with breakfast.

The crack had split again—this time sprouting smaller, thinner lines like capillaries. At the very center of the branching web was a single, perfect black dot. She hadn’t seen it before. It was matte, absorbing light instead of reflecting it. Like a dead pixel in a screen.

She leaned closer.

The dot pulsed.

She froze.

Had it moved?

The glass was no longer transparent. It rippled ever so slightly—barely perceptible, but real. As if the surface was breathing. Elena reached out again, this time slowly, reverently, placing her fingers against the crack. She expected the cold again.

But this time, the glass was warm.

And beneath that warmth was… something.

A thrum. A heartbeat.

She yanked her hand away.

The crack twitched.

Elena didn’t scream. She sat back down. Eyes wide. Breathing shallow. Her mind raced, but her body wouldn’t move. She was pinned to the moment, to the window. To the dot.

By Sunday, her phone had died. She didn’t charge it. Her power was still on, but nothing in the house felt alive anymore—except the thing in the glass.

The black dot had widened into a small hole. Not shattered—perfectly round, as if melted into the pane. Through it came a sound: wind. Or whispers. Or both. It was impossible to say.

When she leaned in, she could swear she heard voices.

“Elena.”
“Open.”
“Let us out.”
“Let us in.”

She stared until her vision blurred. Her skin was clammy. Her lips dry. The room around her faded. The chair creaked beneath her shifting weight. Her thoughts no longer felt like her own. Her memories twisted into static. The crack was speaking now—not in words, but in feeling.

She understood it.

It needed her.

It was almost here.

On Tuesday, the glass bulged outward. Not broken—stretched. Like cellophane over something pushing from behind. Her reflection no longer moved like her. It smiled without prompting. It waved when she didn’t.

The crack was the only truth now.

She let it in.

Wednesday morning, the mailman knocked twice and left a package. The neighbors noted that Elena’s car hadn’t moved. Her lights were always off, but a strange glow sometimes flickered in the kitchen window after midnight.

On Thursday, the police were called.

The house was quiet.

Everything was in place. No signs of struggle. No signs of life. Her phone was on the counter. Her tea was cold. And the window—shattered, yet not scattered. As if it had peeled away from the frame in one silent movement.

There was a chair, still facing the window.

There was a message, carved deep into the wood of the sill:

“Keep watching.”

And on the ground below the shattered window, on the outside…
A single black dot.
Widening.