Mirrored Image

 I woke and stared at the ceiling. It was still dark out. I glanced at my nightstand to look at the clock. 3:15am. I rolled my eyes in the dark, annoyed at being awake so early. I sat up on one arm and reached for my glass of water. As I took a long gulp, I watched my doorway through the bottom of the glass. I could see the nightlight in my living room. A soft blue light, slightly shimmering in the bottom of my glass. I watched it as I downed the rest of my water. As I started to lower the glass, for a split second I could have sworn the glow from the nightlight disappeared, as if someone had walked in front of it. I darted my eyes to the doorway. Nothing. The nightlight shown as normal and I didn’t see anyone or anything in the opening. I huffed at myself for being ridiculous and decided I needed another glass of water. I tossed my blanket off and got up. I carried my glass out of my room and walked through my living room to my kitchen, glancing in the mirrored door of my kitchen closet as I passed it. I let the tap run cold with my finger underneath. Once at a reasonable temperature, I filled my glass and turned around, raising my glass to my lips in the process. The glass dropped from my hands as soon as I saw it.

My reflection in the mirror was staring at me, smiling. I wasn’t smiling. I let out a gasp as she, I, glanced down at the broken glass on the kitchen floor and smiled wider. Then she looked at me. I felt like screaming but I couldn’t! I tried to run and found my legs wouldn’t move! Panic rushed through my body. I felt my blood run cold. She raised her hand up to her face and waved a finger at me. I gasped again, sharper this time, desperate to get away. She looked like me, but she was darker, more ominous. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I had to be dreaming. I closed my eyes tight and told myself over and over to wake up. That’s it, just a dream. Just a really fucking scary dream! I felt my body surge forward. Thinking, briefly, that this was my body’s reaction to waking up from such a terrifying and realistic dream, I opened my eyes and screamed. Well, tried to scream. I was standing inches from the mirror now, though I hadn’t moved my feet. My reflection was inches from my face, looking at me from the top of her eyes, grinning from ear to ear. She raised a hand and touched the mirror. I watched in horror as my hand mimicked her. I felt goosebumps starting in my arm and glanced down to watch them spread all the way up. I tried to pull away and still couldn’t. I couldn’t understand what was happening. My mind was so overwhelmed, I thought I might faint, but I knew she wouldn’t let me. Somehow I just knew.

Looking back at her, I saw her lips moving just slightly. She was saying something through that horribly impossible grin. As I watched, I started to hear my voice, as if listening to a recording of myself. There were no words really, or maybe there were just too many words to differentiate between, either way, I couldn’t make anything out. I felt a tear run down my cheek. My reflection only smiled wider and seemed to chuckle under her breath. I felt a cold sensation on my fingertips that were touching the mirror. Looking down, I watched in agonizing dread as my fingers melted into the mirror, seeming to replace my reflections fingers. I began to cry profusely, trying to beg my reflection to stop, but the words still wouldn’t come. I was powerless to stop whatever was happening to me. Suddenly, very clearly, I heard my own voice shush me. I paused and looked at my reflection. She was cooing at me. Shushing my crying. I just gaped at her. What on earth was happening to me?! Had I lost my mind? Had I finally snapped and followed in my crazy mothers footsteps?! Again, she spoke. Real words this time, though. She told me it was time. It was time for me to go back home. What was she talking about?! I was home! I cried harder than ever as I watched my arm, all the way up just past my elbow get sucked into the mirror.

This was it. This was how my life ended. Or so I thought. I fell into the mirror, my body crashing hard on the floor. I couldn’t open my eyes. I didn’t want to know where I was. I didn’t want to know what was happening to me. If I was dead, or crazy, or if I had really just been sucked through my mirror into another dimension. I laid there sobbing, my body shaking violently with every gasp. I must have cried for twenty minutes before I ran out of energy and allowed myself to just tremble on the floor. I finally talked myself into opening my eyes. Holding my hands over my eyes, I slowly sat up. I rubbed the tears from my clenched eyes and took in a deep, slow breath. Here it goes. I opened one eye, and then the other. I blinked a couple of times to clear my vision. I looked around and burst out in laughter. I was sitting in my kitchen, on the floor. I laughed harder when I saw my glass of water sitting on the kitchen counter by my sink. I covered my eyes, flopped on the floor, and just sobbed and laughed and shook for what seemed forever. My mind reeling from what just happened to me.

Finally, I managed to get myself up, using the counter to help me, not trusting that I was actually in control of my legs. I glanced over my shoulder at my mirror. My reflection looked how it should. Scared, ragged, crazy. Doing everything I was doing without variation. Was everything back to normal? Had anything happened at all? I took a deep breath and grabbed my glass of water off the counter. I glanced at my oven clock, 3:23am. How was that possible? Eight minutes. That’s all that had passed. It felt like hours, days even. As I started to walk past the mirror to head back to my room, I paused. I slowly reached out to touch my face in my reflection, stopping just before my fingers touched the glass. I shook my head and went in my room, got under my covers, and tried to go back to sleep. I told myself over and over that it had to be a dream. Eventually I was able to doze off, though I had wild dreams about conversations I never had with people I didn’t know.

To this day I have a hard time looking in a mirror. Sometimes, when I turn away from a mirror, I almost feel as though my reflection stays standing there, watching me walk away. But I’m not brave enough to check. I’ve noticed little things in my life are slightly different. My boyfriends eyes, a different shade of blue. The tile at my office is orange, white, and black instead of purple, white, and brown. Subtle enough differences to doubt myself. Maybe they’ve always been that way. I can’t remember anymore. I still can’t go into my kitchen without all of the lights on at night. I can’t bare to see my reflection like that again. I can’t handle it. I can’t, and I won’t.