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Mirror — Part One (Announcement)

Mirror - The horror 

This is the first post in a new series called Mirror. It's a series of standalone horror and thriller stories. Each one is its own thing. No connections between them except the name. Read it, and tell me what you think.

The mirror was already there when she moved in.

It hung above the bathroom sink — a small, oval thing with a tarnished brass frame. Old. Older than the apartment. Older than the building. The landlord hadn't mentioned it. The lease hadn't mentioned it. It was just there, the way the pipes were there, the way the window was there. Part of the room.

She almost took it down. The first night, she stood in front of it, toothbrush in hand, and thought: I should take this down.

She didn't.

She didn't know why. It wasn't a nice mirror. It was cloudy in places, and the reflection it gave her was somehow dimmer than the bathroom light — as if the glass were older than glass should be, as if it had seen too much and was tired of showing it.

But she left it.

She told herself she'd take it down tomorrow.

She didn't.

The first time she saw it, she thought she was tired.

It was 3 a.m. She'd gotten up for water. She was walking back to bed, and she passed the bathroom, and the mirror was there, and her reflection was there.

And her reflection blinked a half-second late.

She stopped. She looked at it. It looked back.

She blinked again. Her reflection blinked — the same half-second late.

I'm tired, she thought. I'm seeing things. Go back to bed.

She went back to bed.

But she didn't sleep.

The next morning, the mirror was gone.

Not the mirror itself. The mirror was still there. But the reflection — the her in the mirror — was different.

It was her face. Her hair. Her eyes. But something was wrong. The expression was wrong. The her in the mirror was smiling. Just slightly. Just enough.

She wasn't smiling.

She stood in front of the mirror for a long time. The her in the mirror kept smiling.

She reached up and touched her own face. Her fingers touched her lips. Her lips were flat. She wasn't smiling.

The her in the mirror touched its lips too. And it was smiling. She could see it. She could see the curve of its mouth, the slight upturn at the corners, the thing that wasn't her.

She turned away. She walked out of the bathroom. She closed the door.

She could hear it through the door.

The sound of someone smiling.

Mirror is a new series. Part Two coming next week.

— Om

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