Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Write a story that involves a reflection in a mirror.

Posted in Horror on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or use an email address:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 294 stories

Prom Night

Submitted to Contest #101

“Do you like it?” Gracie asked anxiously. I didn’t look in the mirror, but I pretended to.“It’s perfect!” I squealed in my well-rehearsed girl voice, hugging her. It was so easy to make Gracie happy. “You are a makeup goddess!”“You are so lucky you have a date,” she said. I nodded silently. I couldn’t really say I disagreed. As much as I wanted to take a girl to prom, that wasn’t happening, and my parents love Keith, so I might as well make them proud one last time.“I mean, all the good ones from our school are taken,” she continued. “Y...

136 likes 41 comments 41
Read story

My Long Overdue Letter to Me

Submitted to Contest #101

July 8, 2021 Attn: Mr. Stevie B’s Reflection c/o Mia Mind Music 256 Sixth Street Suite # 2 Hobohemia, NJ, 07030 Re: These occasional lapses in communication Dear Self, Long time no see (LOL). You’re not looking all that bad today. I keep bumping into you in the bathroom mirror, but it seems like we never get the opportunity to talk anymore. We usually see each other in the mornings while shaving, and brushing our teeth, combing what’s left of our hair. Other than that, we don’t spend too much of our time looking in the old, looking...

104 likes 61 comments 61
Read story

dysphoria's love letter.

Shortlisted for Contest #101 ⭐️

CW: transphobia When she cries, you try to ignore her.    It’s hard. Granted, most people don’t like hearing young girls cry but you have no other choice: Nothing you can do will ever make her stop. She has been crying for as long as you can remember, determined to remind you of the things you did. Of course, you’re the cause for her crying, aren’t you? Who else would listen to a young girl cry until she was nothing more than the melody that allows you to sleep every night?   When her mother begs to see her, you have to tell h...

98 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

bastard

Submitted to Contest #101

Bastard.It’s the first thing he hears when he comes into this world, pink-skinned and pink-gummed and dripping with pink fluids.A midwife holds him against the soft glow of an aqualamp and waits for tender eyelids to peel open. When they finally do, her smile withers away. Two syllables drip from her mouth like acid. It’s only once she presses him into her mother’s embrace, as if she can’t bear touching his flesh any longer, does he hear his own name. It should be the first thing he hears, and it’s too late.His mother’s tears stream down her...

92 likes 75 comments 75
Read story

Do You Smell Carrots? 🥕 ⛄️

Submitted to Contest #101

“STEAM THE POO!” screamed Callum at his mates who knew instantly what he meant as they joined him in running as fast as they could across the snow-covered sports field. Over the many years of their friendship growing up together, Callum, Seth and William had generated a range of catchphrases only they would understand. Along with “Steam the poo!” their current favourites included referring to girls as “Yucks”, parents as the “Enemy” and anyone who had really annoyed or upset them as various chocolate bars including “Fruit and Nut”, “Twix” an...

64 likes 12 comments 12
Read story

Big girl

Shortlisted for Contest #101 ⭐️

CW: body shaming, mental health, body image issues The mirror's size, shape, clarity; the lighting in the room, the color of the paint on the walls, the surfaces in the reflection, whatever was behind me; none of that mattered. Those things weren’t the problem. The problem was the fat girl in the mirror’s reflection. The problem was me.  My dad is Wayne, my brother is Wayne Jr., and my mother died of breast cancer when I was thirteen. We’ve always been the big family. Not like, “there’s a lot of people in that family” big, but like, “wo...

48 likes 13 comments 13
Read story

Past regrets and Future promises

Submitted to Contest #101

The old saying goes that the eyes are the window to your soul then why did his eyes look so dead? Starting into a square medicine cabinet mirror he examined himself. Dead hollow eyes stared back at him reminding him of the man he once had been. Dark murky brown hair flopped messily in his face. His reflection was like a ghost hollow and pale. It had been three months sober and still, his body looked like shit beaten to hell by his years of abuse. The only starting feature where his blue-grey eyes that glared mockingly back at him, reminding ...

44 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Finder

Submitted to Contest #101

“What do you see?” Carleton asks,“Shhh, give her a minute.” Comes Sandy’s harsh voice.My eyes are closed: in one hand, I have a thumbtack hovering over a map of the state. In the other, I have a picture of the girl. She's got long blonde hair, bright green eyes and a wide smile. Alexis is her name, and she’s been missing for five weeks.Then it comes in flashes. Welcome to Northbrook, an Ash tree, a street sign, six, eight, nine, a blue house. I’m taken to the basement, which has one long mirrored wall that reflects the room back onto itself....

44 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Blue

Submitted to Contest #101

I think there is a reason my father left us. No, I do not seek to justify his leaving. I think it was immature but I also think he left because he had seen what I had to offer and it was not good enough. I don’t suppose it was ever about mother and how she stopped going to her therapy sessions only to end up filthy drunk on the couch. I think he snapped the day I destroyed a bird’s nest. It was never quite the sure thing. I think I put the bird out of his misery but my father thought otherwise. He thought it was the beginning of a selfish li...

34 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Creepy John

Submitted to Contest #101

  The mirrors in my room are hidden under white sheets that hang like silent ghosts.   The nurses think they’ve contained him, but I still catch glimpses of Creepy John—watching, waiting.   His rotting teeth snap from the edge of the stainless steel sink. His rolling amber eye leers from the curve of the polished doorknob. His gnarled finger marks me from the window.   The surgery they tell me I’ve had has shaken my fortifications, vibrations of pain and drugs sending the stone walls of my will crumbling. He senses the we...

32 likes 9 comments 9
Read story

The Man in the Mirror

Shortlisted for Contest #101 ⭐️

How often do you look at yourself in a mirror? Sure, you may check to see how far a certain shirt comes down your waist, or maybe you check to make sure the part of your hair is in the right spot, or maybe you’ve been hitting the gym more frequently and want to see your progress. Perhaps you want to see if that shirt still fits from your 20’s. But this is not what David was tasked with. He wasn’t supposed to look at his body, he was supposed to look at himself. David couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that.&nb...

30 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Manipulative Reflection

Submitted to Contest #101

Astra cautiously walks through the hall and towards the bathroom and attempted to not make any noise. At least not until they got in there, as they could hear the light snoring from their roommate coming from another part of the apartment. It's not just my 'silly imagination'... I know what happened! They turned the doorknob and entered, still quietly as possible. In the next step, Astra managed to somehow be even more careful, by just simply closing the door, which was known to be creaky. A grin appeared on the teenager's face once succ...

28 likes 53 comments 53
Read story

The Reflection

Submitted to Contest #101

Magnolia gently ran her fingers over the worn leather spines of the stack of books; Spells for Aspiring Mages, The Official 21st Century Potion Cookbook, The History of Magic, and The Laws & Regulations of Mages. She’s read The History of Magic, and The Laws & Regulations of Mages. However, her mother forbids her from spells or potions until she’s eighteen, though the law states Mages can begin practicing magic on their sixteenth birthday.“Magnolia Opal, quit touching those!” her mother, Narcissa, scolds, “This is why I don’t take yo...

27 likes 11 comments 11
Read story

Cold, hard concrete floors

Submitted to Contest #101

After the sun sets every night, and the bell on the far left compound dings and dongs, and all the inmates are rushed to their cells, and the icy winds penetrate the ragged and tattered walls of the building, I end up in the same place as I do every other bitter night, on the cold hard concrete floors, dwelling on thoughts. Thoughts about my life's happenings. Reflection. Definition: The ability to witness and evaluate ones own cognitive, emotional, and behavioural processes. 'Know thyself'. The concept of self reflection itself, ...

27 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

The Girl in the Glass

Submitted to Contest #101

They keep telling me she isn’t real. My husband, my kids, the doctors. Especially the doctors. They keep telling me she isn’t real. But she’s all I see. She’s more real than the people here, than my own breath, than my existence. I lost her, but she never left. And if she isn’t all the places I never made it to, then she’s all of the paths that were taken from me when she went away. It’s been 6 years, 5 months and 8 days. And I am still waiting for her to walk through the door and tell me that she was wrong; it was all a misunderstanding. ...

24 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a character doing something they’ve done hundreds of times — only this time, it’s taken on a new meaning.

Character – 148 stories

Write a story about a character who fails to understand something until they have the full context.

Character – 75 stories

Write a story in which the same line recurs three times.

Fiction – 162 stories

Write a story about a character who always repeats themselves.

Character – 45 stories

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel