My New Perfect Girlfriend Rose

The Visit

Henry had always been a bit different. As a child, he was quiet, more interested in books and toys than in other children. He grew up alone, but he never seemed to mind. His mother, Grace, worried that her son wasn’t making any friends, but Henry always reassured her that he was fine just the way he was.

One day, after returning from work, I received an unusual phone call from Henry. “Mom, you need to come over. I want to introduce you to someone.” Henry’s tone was different than usual—more excited, which made me feel a sense of relief. Maybe he had finally found a girlfriend? There was a reason to think so—my son had unexpectedly gone camping alone a few months ago. It was probably the only time in a long while that he decided to interact with other people. If he didn’t meet someone special there, he might not get another chance.

I arrived at his small apartment in the city center that same evening. The door opened almost immediately, as if Henry had been waiting just behind it. He was smiling broadly, which only confirmed my suspicions. “She’s here,” he said, leading me to the living room.

A girl was sitting on the couch. At first glance, she was beautiful, but something about her gave me an odd feeling. I noticed that she hardly moved. Her skin was unnaturally smooth, and Rose’s intensely black eyes were lifeless, like glass, reflecting light in a way that didn’t match real, human eyes. A chill ran down my spine as I looked at her hands, which were unnaturally stiff, as if they were made of something hard, not soft, human tissue. When the girl smiled, I felt my stomach clench with unease.

“Hello, I’m Rose,” said Henry’s new girlfriend. Her voice was soft, almost mechanical, as if someone was trying to mimic a human sound. I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite grasp what it was.

“I’m glad to finally meet you,” I replied, trying to hide my anxiety. For the rest of the evening, Rose sat motionless, smiling and responding in monosyllables. Henry seemed delighted, not noticing the strangeness that I felt growing stronger with each passing minute.

At one point, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Henry, can we talk in private?” I asked, pointing to the hallway. My son followed me, reluctantly leaving the girl.

“Son, who is she?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. “Something’s not right with her.”

Henry looked at me in surprise. “Mom, I told you I found the perfect girlfriend. Rose is exactly what I’ve been looking for all my life.”

I felt my heart race. “But she’s not… human,” I whispered, my words echoing in the empty hallway.

Henry smiled, but there was no joy in it. “She’s exactly as she should be,” he said coldly. “Maybe it’s you who has the problem, Mom. Maybe you can’t accept perfection.”

A cold fear gripped me. My son was talking about this… thing as if it were a real person, but I could see the truth. Rose was like something else, something soulless, designed to merely resemble a human being.

I returned to the living room, my hands trembling as I reached for my purse. Rose was still sitting there, motionless, with the same artificial smile on her face. As I moved toward the door, the girl turned her head in my direction. “It was nice to meet you,” she said, and I could have sworn that at that moment her eyes gleamed with something inhuman, something cold and emotionless.

As I left the apartment, I felt a cold sweat running down my back. I knew that I would never look at my son the same way again. Something had changed in him, something that I could never undo. What I didn’t know was that this “something” was now waiting in his apartment, quietly watching, quietly calculating. Rose wasn’t human. She was something more, something that surpassed the boundaries of human understanding. And Henry was a willing participant in this.

I left Henry’s apartment, trying to calm my racing heart. The cool evening air brushed against my face, but it brought no relief. With every step that took me farther from my son’s apartment, I felt the tension in my body growing. But before I could reach my car, something made me turn around one last time.

With difficulty, I turned my head and saw Henry standing in the doorway, with that same artificial smile that now seemed more like a mask than an expression. But it wasn’t him who caught my attention. Just behind him, like a shadow, Rose emerged. I hadn’t noticed it before, but Rose was taller than Henry, and her gaunt, unnaturally long legs seemed barely able to hold her up. It seemed as if any movement could cause her to fall. I froze, seeing Rose silently move closer to Henry.

Cold sweat ran down my back, and my heart froze in my chest as I looked into my son’s eyes. I felt a wave of terror wash over my body. His eyes were empty, dead, exactly like the ones I had seen in Rose just moments before. Dark, expressionless, they looked at me but also somehow through me.

I swallowed hard, trying not to stare too long at that terrifying figure. I felt that if I looked again, I would see something that I could never erase from my memory. In my head, I begged myself to believe that it was just an illusion, that my mind was playing tricks on me. Maybe it was the light, maybe fatigue, maybe stress. I had to believe it was just a momentary hallucination.

I gripped the steering wheel of my car, hoping that what I saw was just a product of my imagination. But the echo of that image still quivered in my mind. When I looked at my son one last time, those empty eyes, so much like Rose’s, seemed to follow my every move.

The Omen

That night, I couldn’t sleep for a long time. The image of Rose wouldn’t leave my mind. Her unnaturally smooth skin, dead eyes, and that artificial, mechanical smile reminded me of something I had never experienced before. I felt as if I was looking at something that shouldn’t exist.

When I finally fell asleep, the night overwhelmed me with a nightmare. I found myself in Henry’s apartment. Everything seemed normal, but only at first glance. The walls seemed closer, the space felt oppressive and claustrophobic. It felt as if the apartment was breathing, as if it had a life of its own, but that wasn’t the worst part.

In the living room, on the couch, sat Rose. But this time, something had changed. Her face, usually calm and artificially smiling, was now deformed, as if someone had forcibly tried to shape plastic into a human expression. Rose’s eyes were no longer shining glass orbs; now they were black abysses, bottomless pits that swallowed every bit of light.

I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. I felt as if something was forcing me to watch. Rose slowly turned her head toward me, her movements were stiff. Each motion was accompanied by a disturbing sound of scraping and grinding.

Rose began to slowly rise, her inhuman, jerky movements were like the animation of a mannequin. She moved closer to me, her lips stretched into a grotesque smile. I couldn’t move, my legs felt like lead. Rose brought her lips close to my face. Her hand, composed of unnaturally long, thin fingers, slowly lifted and touched my face. The touch was ice cold, like a store mannequin’s hand touching my skin.

Suddenly, Rose began to speak, but her voice no longer resembled the soft, mechanical tone I knew. It was distorted, as if it was coming from the depths of some abyss, interrupted by static and grinding, like an old recording played on a broken phonograph. “Not much longer now…” Rose whispered, her lips still locked in that grotesque smile.

This nightmare held me in its grip, as I felt the dark shadow of Rose penetrating the deepest corners of my mind, planting a seed of dread that lingered even after I woke up.

The Truth

From the day I visited my son and met Rose for the first time, something inside me began to change. At first, I couldn’t stop thinking about that strange girl who stirred such deep unease in me. Rose was too perfect, too ideal to be human. I decided to learn more about this mysterious figure.

I realized that I hadn’t asked Henry where he met Rose, but the only place where he had any contact with people was the camping trip he took a few months ago.

When I arrived at the campsite, the silence and stillness of the forest felt overwhelming. I wandered around the area until I finally noticed something that immediately caught my attention.

On one of the bulletin boards, slightly hidden in the shadow of the trees, was a black-and-white photo of a young girl. My heart stopped when I recognized the face—I knew those eyes; after all, I couldn’t forget their nightmarish look for a long time, but the ones in the photo were more imperfect, more ordinary. The girl’s body was also not perfect—it was average, completely normal. Below the photo was the word “missing” along with a date indicating that Rose had disappeared a few months earlier during the same camping trip.

I stepped closer, staring at the photo. The girl in the picture was radiant, full of life, completely different from the one I had last seen in Henry’s apartment. My heart began to race as I read the rest of the text: “Rose Thorne, 23 years old, went missing during a camping trip with friends. Last seen in the vicinity of this location. If you have any information, please contact the police.”

At that moment, I realized the terrifying truth—Henry was one of the last people to see Rose alive. Suddenly, questions began to flood my mind, questions that wouldn’t let me rest. Why had Henry never told me about this? Did Rose disappear, or did something worse happen to her? And most importantly, what exactly is going on with the Rose that Henry brought home?

Determined, I decided to report my discovery to the police. I felt I had to do it—something about my son was starting to scare me, and Rose wasn’t an ordinary girl. I got into the car, still thinking about what I should tell the police, how I should explain everything. But as I drove toward the nearest station, I suddenly felt something beginning to cloud my thoughts.

A disturbingly realistic image of Rose appeared in my mind, reminding me of that strange smile, the inhuman appearance, and those empty eyes. I felt as if Rose was right beside me, whispering in my ear, altering the course of my thoughts. Suddenly, what I was supposed to do seemed less important. My thoughts became fuzzy, and the direction I was heading no longer mattered.

Instead of going to the police, I unconsciously turned onto the road leading back home. My mind was becoming increasingly blurred, and the memory of the photo on the bulletin board began to fade. Soon, I completely forgot why I had gone to the campsite in the first place. The only thing that remained in my mind was the image of Henry and Rose standing in the doorway, with empty eyes, staring at me as if through eternity.

Perfection

In the meantime, something strange started happening to me. The people around me began to seem… different. Their faces, which were once full of life, now appeared stiff, devoid of expression. Every person I encountered started to look like a cheap imitation of a human, something imperfect and unnatural.

Was I supposed to remember something, make a call?

I noticed that my own reactions were also beginning to change. I no longer felt the anxiety or nervousness that used to accompany me daily. Instead, I felt strangely calm, almost indifferent to everything around me. My movements became slower, more deliberate, as if time had suddenly slowed down.

When I met with friends, their smiles looked forced, and their eyes—empty, lifeless. Even my own reflection in the mirror seemed unnatural, as if I was looking at my image through a store window. Sometimes I had the feeling that it was I who was being watched, as if someone, or something, was carefully observing my every move from the other side of the mirror.

Was I supposed to do something… did I have an object… a photo?

I also started to notice that I no longer found pleasure in everyday activities. The colors in the world around me seemed faded, food less tasty, conversations with people empty and meaningless. The world I knew no longer satisfied me. Everything that once seemed normal now appeared flawed, incomplete.

How can this mundane life satisfy me now that I have seen what perfection is?

People’s faces were full of flaws—wrinkles, scars, expressions of sadness and fatigue. All of this now repulsed me. Thoughts of Rose’s perfection clung to my mind. I stopped when I passed an old woman walking towards me, and without thinking, I whispered, “You shouldn’t be here.” The old woman looked at me with terror, and I just sighed. I knew this was only the beginning.

I was supposed to remember to… visit my son.

A few weeks later, I visited Henry again. Rose was sitting in the same spot as before, in the same pose, as if it were the same day as my previous visit. But this time, when I saw “Rose,” I felt something I couldn’t comprehend before—admiration. The girl who once filled me with unease now seemed to embody everything that was best. Her perfect skin, flawless features, fluid, almost mechanical movements—all of this was proof to me that “Rose” was perfect.

During the conversation with Henry, I suddenly said something that shocked me to the core, although my voice was calm and composed. “Henry, you were right. Rose really is perfect. Now I see it.”

Henry smiled, but his smile was empty, devoid of warmth. “I’m glad you understand, Mom. I knew you would see it eventually.”

I looked at “Rose,” then at my son. I felt an echo of some emotion—it could have been terror, but now it didn’t matter, it was just a faint glimpse of what I once felt. My mind had changed, taken over by a new way of perceiving the world—cold, calm, recognizing only perfection.

I left Henry’s apartment, knowing that I would never see the world the same way again. Everything that once mattered to me now seemed meaningless. I had only one thought in my mind—Rose was perfect. And anything that isn’t perfect no longer has any value to me.

 A New Beginning

When I returned home, I sat down in front of the mirror in my bedroom. I stared at my reflection, trying to see something that once was my own reflection. Instead, all I saw were imperfections. “Rose,” I whispered, reaching out toward the mirror, as if trying to break through the glass. “I… I need to change.” After a moment, I lifted the scissors to my hair, beginning the process of “perfecting” myself.

When I was done, I didn’t even wipe the scissors. I paused for a moment, feeling my heart beating steadily, without any emotion. In the mirror, now splattered with red, I saw something in place of my reflection—a face smooth, expressionless, almost perfect. I ran my hand over my skin, feeling the cold and stiffness under my fingers. “Is this me… or Rose?” I thought, and my lips formed the same artificial smile.

When I stepped outside, I looked up at the sky, which, despite the early hour, was now black and starless. I took a deep breath, feeling an unfamiliar emptiness in my chest. “Rose is perfect,” I repeated in my mind, and my gaze turned toward the nearby park, where children were playing on the swings. For a moment, I wondered how they could be improved, perfected. I began walking in that direction, with a quiet, emotionless smile on my lips.