The Accursed Mirror

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own. The wrong face, the wrong hair, the wrong clothes. “Who is this?” my frightened mind screamed. As I reached out to touch the mirror, to examine it, to test its terrifying horror, it cracked. Before my trembling fingers could reach the strange face reflected, the mirror cracked and broke into an intricate puzzle of shards, struggling to hold the shape of a mirror.

I lurched back from the sight and the jarring and horrible sound of the glass shattering but holding its shape. And still, even through the kaleidoscopic sight of its broken pieces, that face stared back at me. Each shard held a piece, an angle, a vile picture of this stranger's face pretending to be my own. The face moved when I moved, blinked as I blinked and something in the eyes held a terrifying unfamiliarity.

As the dread built in my heart and mind I did the only thing that made sense to my horrified mind and I spoke to the image in the mirror: “Who are you? How are you doing this?” More cracks appear in the mirror, more tiny fractured reflections of this stranger’s face. My mind raced, my grip on sanity became loose, the fight for flight instinct was taking over but what am I fighting? And, will fleeing make things better or worse?

Of course, if I was going to flee, I would need to stop looking at the mirror and some force, some unseen element, was holding my gaze in a grip-like vice. I physically cannot tear my eyes away from this force, as if line of sight were a physical presence to be held. The more I struggled to pull my eyes from the mirror, the more this cold, hard, metallic vice pressed against my mind and rooted me in place before this mirror.

What was I supposed to see? Why is this force holding me here? These questions raced through my mind desperately seeking answers. These questions began to burn in my mind creating a full body anxiety unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. My muscles tensed, my breathing began to race, and pain began to course through my eyeballs as I fought to free my stare from this fractured abomination with the wrong man’s face staring back at me.

Then, I feel it, a heat beginning to rise. Though I am unable to tear my eyes away from this fractured, torturous mirror, I begin to see flames rising on the wall behind the stranger in the mirror. I can smell smoke and the taste of ash burns in my nose and the back of my mouth. And still my eyes won’t leave the mirror. The face staring back at me, that twisted vision that should be my own slowly, terrifyingly, begins to smile.

That face, that unrecognizable strange face begins to mock me. Those eyes that aren’t mine are dancing, that mouth spreads in a repulsive rictus grin. It’s clear now, whoever this stranger in the mirror is, he intends to kill me. He intends on using this cursed mirror to root me in place as his fire burns me alive. But why? What had I done to deserve this fate? Why am I doomed to die in such torment?

The revelation hit me like a massive explosion, in my mind. The man who sold me the mirror, that decrepit yet charming man. He’d warned me that if I bought this beautifully gothic designed mirror, I would need to have it blessed before I could hang it. I assumed he was giving me an elaborate sales pitch. I’d grown used to these small-time peddlers and I was especially entertained by those who went the extra mile in selling me some aged antique in a new and interesting way.

When the old man said that the mirror carried a curse that dated back to biblical times, he’d done so in this flamboyant, highly theatrical manner. How could I have possibly known that he was serious? How could I ever have known that this wasn’t some old man’s desperate, last ditch attempt to make a piece of decorative furniture into something more extravagant and worthy of a $700.00 dollar price tag?

As the fire reached my flesh, I was now quite aware that the old man wasn’t lying. Some demonic force had seemingly waited centuries for someone to place this mirror on their wall. This demon had bided its time in transport from ancient times, across oceans, countrysides, and in basements, under blankets and tarps, waiting for the day when someone would place it in their home, upon a wall where it would be capable of enacting its dark destiny.

It’s impossible, it’s implausible. The mind reels at such a bizarre notion. But, as the flames burned away my flesh and I struggled for my final breaths, implausibility became the least of my worries. Quite plausibly, I was dying a horrifying, fiery death. And as I was racked with pain, I was still unable to look away from the stranger in the mirror. Like me, his flesh was on fire but that smile, those dancing eyes, they remained, one last mocking of my soon to be ended life.