Reflection

Fear is the easiest emotion to evoke. When writing, you need to create a strong connection between characters and readers them to feel happiness and joy. Sadness can be associated to personal experiences but how do you do it with people that can relate to specific situation. But fear, even the most fantastic situations can make a person tremble. Is it the survival instincts or just the desire for excitement? I don’t know and I don’t care.

I have always been good telling scary stories. I can make people be afraid, very afraid. But this is no story. At least not a false one. It may scare you or it may not. But, at all moments keep in mind: I’m not making this up.

It was past midnight when I woke up. The usual chill of dawn was leaking into the room and my blankets, being on the floor, did little to protect me from it. Is funny, as I have always needed to cover myself when I sleep, as if to protect myself, but I am always uncovered when I wake up.

As usual, once awake I had to go to the bathroom. In the darkness I used my feet to scan the floor next to the bed in search of my slippers. I found one and considered myself satisfied. I knew the short path to the bathroom so I needed no light to reach the door. Those were probably the most uneventful five steps of that night. Sometimes I wish I had lost myself on the way and never reached that door. But, how could I have anticipated the unexpected?

I got into the bathroom and turned on the light. The room was I would have expected. The sink in front of me, a mirror above it, showing a reflection of my face and upper body, darkness engulfing everything behind me. Next to the sink was the toilet, so I dedicated myself to the business that brought me there.

Once done I stood, once again, in front of the mirror to wash my hands. While I did so, I suddenly had the feeling someone, or something, was watching me. Which is a common feeling people experience when going to the bathroom during the night so I dismissed it.

But the feeling got stronger. I turn myself around so I faced the dark room.

Nothing. Darkness and silence coexisted both in complete harmony.

I turned once again and my eyes locked with the ones on the mirror. For a few seconds I stood like that, looking at myself. It took less than a minute for the shaking to start and the full sixty seconds for the scare to be forgotten. I turned off the water and rubbed my wet hands on my shirt. Most of the water had already been shaken away from them when I turned. I looked at my face once again and realized I was smiling.

I know, I thought the same thing. Why would I be smiling?

I erased the smile from my face closed my eyes. I breathed deep, letting the air slowly come all the way to my lungs and to stay there before releasing it all through my mouth.

I opened my eyes again and I had the same smile on my lips as before. I shook my head. It was at that moment that the unexpected was too much for me to believe. The reflection never shook its head. It stood still, looking me right in the eyes with that sinister smirk.

At first, I thought the late hour was playing tricks on my mind. I closed and opened my eyes many times and the image in front of me was always the same. I then realized, on the reflection, the lights were on in the bedroom behind. And, on the bed, there was still someone laying, sleeping.

I looked behind me, clearly scared, and quickly positioned myself facing the mirror. The reflection was as it should be again. Everything was normal, or at least, seemed to be. I laughed aloud, thinking I was foolish to be scared, I was just tired.

That was when I heard the voice.

“What’s so funny?”

It was like my own voice but coming from a very far place. Coming from far away but also, inside of my head. There was some evil tone to the way it dragged the words.

I was scared again.

I woke up then. It was morning and everything was alright. I scanned the floor looking for my slippers, I had to drop to the floor to find one, it was under the bed.

The other, I found on the bathroom, right next to the sink.

Wondering how it got there I walked into the bathroom. It was then when I looked the mirror. I could have screamed but instead I was paralyzed.

On the mirror, with what seemed like black ink it was written:

“WE KNOW YOU ARE NOT THE REAL ONE. WE ARE COMING FOR YOU -S”