She keeps looking at me; that strange woman in the mirror. Her intense gaze seems to pierce my soul. She only ever vanishes when I turn away. Which means she must be me.
How can a person come to the point where she can't recognize her own reflection? People can change with time but to change so drastically?
I dare to take another look. My heart skips a beat. My eyes are darkening. From hazel to pitch black. My pupils become lost in the darkness. I am terrifying to behold.
Then, to my shock, my mouth begins to shrink. It's as if my face is swallowing it up. Within seconds my mouth is completely gone. What is this atrocity?
I want to scream but of course, there is no mouth to do so. I want to tear at my hair but it too starts to recede into my head. I become bald.
The person I see, if you can call it that, is no longer that strange woman. It is a monster. It is not human.
I pound my fists against the glass! Give me back my former self! I can make that stranger a friend again! This monster, I can do nothing with!
The mirror begins to crack. Piece by piece it shatters onto the ground. The monster's image is no more. What will become of me? Only God knows.
About the Creator
Chelsea Challinor
Hello!
My name is Chelsea and I have been blessed with a neat life story. I grew up as a missionary kid in Thailand, moved to Canada when entering high school and then married an American man in 2019. I now reside in a small town in Idaho.
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Tears of the Cicada
The priest’s footsteps echo down the hall a shy louder than the cicadas outside. I relish in their annoying screeching. It takes me back to when I was a kid scraping my knee, falling off my bike, or getting slapped by Bridgette Stanley for trying to look up her skirt. Yea those were much simpler pains than what’s coming next. “Excuse me Thomas, I’m Fr. Atwood and I’m here for your final confession if you wish my son.” A frail old balding white priest says to me with his hands clasped together. He’s wearing a wholesome smile and the usual all black priest get-up with a tight clerical collar. “Nawh, Fr. Atwood what’s the point of it all? The lord knows what I done, and he knows I’m sorry. Telling you ain’t gonna do nothing but waste both our time. And I ain't got much of that left.” The holy man just smiles, nods and waves goodbye. “I’ll be praying for you, my son.” He says as he turns to walk away. His shuffling feet go silent and leave me to the song of the cicadas and yelling inmates yelling their goodbyes.
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Not I
"The psychological symptoms of this mental illness include: paran-..." Her fingers paused on the keys... The lab around her felt muffled as an odd sensation crept up Kate's neck and across her face. Blinking and flexing her fingers she looked down at her long, slender hands. Something was off... She looked around, blinking and squinting hard. It was just her eyes feeling fatigued after too much screen time. Looking at her hands again, the feeling was still there. They seemed wrong somehow. Like she couldn't remember how they were supposed to look. Or, they just didn't look like they should? Obviously attached to her body, they were her hands. She knew that much logically, but it didn't feel like her body agreed. Mumbling something to herself about how much she hated Mr. Nessing and this stupid assignment, she rubbed her eyes and looked again at her fingers, trembling slightly with the hereditary tremor she'd had since birth. They were her's again, and her time inside over the last several months had not done her tan any favors. "God I need some sun..." She chuckled to herself.
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Comments (1)
Enjoyed this psychological horror piece! It really made me think!