Reflection of My Soul

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own. When I stared directly at the misty image, where there should have been myself staring back, a wolf’s head had taken its place.

Its ashy grey fur swayed with no breeze. Its eyes dark like the bottom of an abyss. The creature was large, but stood upright like a human, wearing the same clothes as I had. Ripped jeans and a torn white t shirt I’d bought in the sale. Whenever I would cock my head to the side, trying to remove my long, tangled hair from my eyes, this creature would copy me.

Other people may have been terrified by this prospect, but somehow, I was intrigued. I was lost inside its thoughts, my pupils transfixed on its fur, blowing in the wind from across a different universe.

The alarm on my phone vibrated inside my pocket, making me snap out of my trance. My eyes started to adjust to the bright screen, glaring in front of me, coming to terms with what I was seeing. The time 7.45am flashing and drowning out my current thoughts. When I glanced back at the old, mahogany, oval shaped mirror, my ordinary reflection reappeared again, making me think that I was crazy.

I felt confined inside my office block of white and cream, locked inside a tiny space of four, grey, half walls, staring at a computer screen. While taking a bite of my sandwich, soggy and unappealing, I daydreamed of the wolf creature looking back at me, as though it were my own reflection. Black mirrors of technology didn’t seem to make the beast appear, and I longed for that comfort, away from being trapped in life. It was a possibility that all of this wasn’t real, my imagination trying to help me escape the life of screaming taunting, the voices deep inside my mind, pressuring me to do better, that I was better off dead, all the things the wolf stopped my brain from thinking. My chest felt tight, closing in on itself, as the murmurs inside chattered away, pushing me into a corner, whispering into my ear telling me I wasn’t any good.

I rushed to the bathroom in a panic, dizzy and out of control. I pushed the heavy, metal doors open, falling into the room, where everywhere was quieter. No one around, just as I liked it. The overhead lights flickered, and the cubicles were tightly shut. The tiled, white floor, glistened from the reflections of the row of mirrors in front of me, above porcelain sinks with taps dripping water. The drip, drip, drip of the bedraggled water droplets, made me focus on my breathing. My ears opening to this rhythmic melody. I grabbed hold of one of the middle sinks, tightly with both hands either side, breathing shallowly, staring right into the depth of the basin and the darkness of the plug hole. As my eyes focused, water began travelling upwards up the pipes and filling up the space. The more I concentrated the more I soon realised, this was not water but blood.

I jumped away in horror, watching the sink fill with red liquid, however when I moved backwards the blood disappeared, just like a sick and twisted magic trick. I moved closer, edging slowly with caution, my mind was once again playing cruel tricks on me. The mirror in front of me, showed me looking drained and tired, large bags had appeared under my eyes, because my mind was taking over my sleeping pattern. I would often lie for hours just staring up at the blank ceiling of my bedroom, watching shadows and lights from passing cars cast occasional light shows.

I blinked. Then I continued to blink, like a camera taking shots, until my long spindly eyelashes parted like curtains, showing me the wolf staring back at me again.

The creature was still, its eyes transfixed on my glare. The few bristles of fur swayed back and forth even though there was no breeze.

“How are you here? Can you travel from mirror to mirror? Is the world you appear to be inside, connected?”

The Wolf didn’t move a muscle, just stood in the same position I was. When I rubbed my eyes, stuck with sleep, the wolf copied, her large, furry, grey paw and long sharp nails scratching its own eyes.

“Ow!” My own nails seemed suddenly as sharp and deadly, but looking at them with interest, I could see my fingers and fingernails still looked human.

I rubbed both eyes with my fists, this time carefully, staring at my reflection through my fingers. Just as before, the wolf rubbed its own black, curved, eyes with its paws. Large, knife claws scratching its own eyes out with no sign of any pain or screaming. I pulled my fists away from my face with force, seeing how the creature repeated the same movement.

Even though my hands were now by my side, I yelled in pain. The movement of daggers crawled through my eyeballs. A tiny drop of blood spilt from the corner of one eye and splashed in the basin.

I looked straight back at the mirror. With no emotion, the mute wolf eyes started to bleed. The once river of onyx, was now pouring with the rush of deep scarlet, trickling down its fur. It’s large mound of neck fur drenched in red, my own clothes reflected, covered in the stuff. I opened my mouth to scream but couldn’t. The basin was now filling up with blood again, and as I tried opening and closing my eyes, telling myself this wasn’t real, the pain in both my pupils stabbed me, like many injections being inserted all at once. My own plasma was pouring out of the corners of my optic nerves, I could feel my blood vessels popping inside my skull.

I couldn’t move or speak, I just watched the blood flow into the sink in front of me, my clothes and skin covered in red. The pain was excruciating, as though half of my body parts were filling up like balloons. With as much effort as I could manage, I grabbed hold of the sink tightly, digging my nails into the porcelain, I looked at the reflection in the mirror.

Like me, the wolf was covered in blood, that stuck to her fur like glue, her eyes gushing, the only difference was this creature didn’t seem to be in any pain whatsoever. I locked eyes with her, pleading for the pain to be over, screaming inside my mind.

“What do you want from me!”

There was silence from the beast, her blissful look turned into a smile, the corner of her mouth revealing large fangs either side. The wolf suddenly took one large bite and bit through her own arm, the skin through her fur bleeding out, all over the tiled floor.

It seemed that the creature and me had switched sides now. She was the commander, the one to decide what I was going to do next, and as I realised this, my left arm started to throb, as I looked my skin had shattered, my bones completely exposed and again blood gushed out, leaving puddles on the floor. I pressed my right palm on the wound, but the blood still ran. There was nothing I could do and it was all my fault.

“I feel faint…” I thought. I fell onto the cold tiled floor, painted with my own blood, banging my head, and feeling my mind crack into a thousand pieces.

I was left lying there, unable to move, while I bled out from my arm and eyes, the floor around filling up like a bath. From this angle, I could see part of the mirror hanging from the tiled wall. Mist and steamed formed around the frame, until bloody paws peeked out, then each of its legs clambering from its captive mirror.

The wolf, drenched in blood, stood over me with no concern. Her breath smelt dead and rotting. I tried to speak back but the wolf just smiled, crushing my body with its boots, the boots I was currently wearing. It wandered off and pulled the large metal door to outside, leaving me helpless and dying on the cold floor, while blood surrounded me.

My vision was clouded with scratch marks, lights and hues bounced around my iris. My body felt too weak to lift, but I managed to raise my head from the bloody floor, it was then I first noticed the difference in my appearance. There was no tangled hair rested upon my neck, but ashy grey fur that covered my entire face. My ears were no longer on the sides of head but high and pointed. I blinked rapidly. In front me, my human body had been replaced by matted fur; a tail tucked in between my hairy, muscular legs. Everything I was witnessing was happening at a hundred miles per hour, and my sense of hearing heightened.

I could hear every droplet that fell from my skin, like it was flowing inside my brain. The door swung open, banging into the wall in urgency, the vibrations drummed and nestled into my mind, every little pin-drop felt like an earthquake.

A crowd began to gather around me, my head was unable to support itself anymore. I crashed to the ground, pounding my head once again, against the broken tiles. The conversations bled into my skull, my ears bleeding with the pressure. The last image I saw, a version of myself, hovering over my body, the twinkling eyes from the wolf in the mirror, staring into my soul, its teeth catching the light from the flickering lightbulbs overhead. This reflected my soul, laughing at me in the darkness.