Through My Own Reflection

Watching her through the looking glass is as boring as lying awake at night.

She wakes up every day and walks to the mirror, and I'm always there to watch her, mimic her, move the way she does and only stop when she's not looking. The Others don't have to do this as often as I do with their Reflections. Normal Reflections get up, fix their hair, change their clothes, and actually leave the house to go to school, work, or whatever they do, and then the Others follow them to meet again in any other looking glasses they may pass by throughout the days of their miserable lives.

But at least they're not as miserable as my Reflection. She's still standing at the mirror, only pulling her hair up into a bun in the shape of a rat's next before proceeding back to bed. She doesn't push back the curtains to let the light in. She doesn't even rub her eyes. All she does is climb back into bed and fish out the book she had placed on her nightstand only hours ago, beyond the witching chime.

Like I said, watching her through the looking glass is as boring as lying awake at night. Thankfully, the position she takes in bed tonight is under the covers, therefore she can't see me moving around through the looking glass. I watch her grab the flashlight that stood next to the vacant spot of the book and her head disappears underneath the duvet.

Another day, another boring adventure. It's a shame she never reads pressed up against the mirror. At least that way I could read with her. But no, she hates her own reflection so much, that she avoids me for the majority of her days. What the Hell did I ever do to deserve this? Rotting my entity away behind this glass, never leaving the house, cursed to mimic a pathetic Reflection whose life can only be summed up by the pages she sticks her nose in.

It wasn't too long ago when I wasn't the only one like this. On the other side of the glass, in the Reflections' world, something happened where all of the Reflections and their families stayed inside their homes for what felt like years, which to them was only equivalent to one. It confused all of us Others, and we worried that as long as our Reflections stayed inside and are constantly walking in front of their mirrors, we would forever be stuck to mimic them and never have our own freedom of movement. For a brief moment, we thought it was going to be like this forever.

Some Others did something about that. Plenty of Others went mad from the mimicking, tired of feeling like shadows, and broke through their glass. I never saw any of these incidents, I've only heard rumors. I've heard rumors of Others breaking through their mirrors and killing their Reflections. What happened next, no one knew, because no one knew what would happen after their Reflection dies. Do we die, too? Or are we free? The ones who rebelled never return to tell their story. It's possible that they couldn't return because you're not supposed to come through the mirror from the Reflection's side. If they survived, we will never know. As for the murdered Reflections, most of them lived alone so there were no witnesses to the freak incidents. And if there was... I've only heard that those Reflections went mad, too.

After a year of this madness, the Reflections began to go back outside again... all except mine. She had yet to leave the house since this whole chaos began, I barely remember the last time she saw light... when we saw light. No one comes to visit her, the only communication she had from the outside world was her mother's voice on the other end of her phone.

Her mother would be the only one who noticed her missing if I decided to tear open her throat.

I've thought about this a lot. It only makes sense if I go for the throat, my claws are the deadliest thing I have as an Other. I'd be doing everyone a favor. Me, of course, since I don't remember what the sun looks like anymore. For her, it would be a mercy killing. I'd kill her out of pity because she is clearly miserable and dead to the world already, Hell, I'd even be doing the books a favor by killing her. I don't expect it's comfortable to have your spine bent and break at the expense of someone's enjoyment while they eat your words.

Perhaps I should bend and break her back as ironic justice for the books she folds back to flatten out the pages.

I wonder what other killing methods were optional. If she leaves to go to the bathroom, I could follow her there and break through the mirror. I've always wondered what could happen if you stuck a heating curling iron in someone's eye.

If she went to the kitchen to finally eat, the kitchen knives are in reaching distance from the reflection of the fridge, but it's too easy. I would much rather grab her hair and watch it get caught in the blades of the blender to see what happens. Maybe then she would finally learn to brush her hair... if she survived.

The truth is, I would hope she survives my attempts to kill her. Perhaps then she would learn that there's more to life than finding one in a book. Maybe then she would go outside, find a job, visit her mother, go to the beach, or if it freaks her out so much then find a damn library!

This wouldn't be out of the kindness of my heart to teach her the ways of the world. It would be for my own freaking sanity! How ungrateful this Reflection would have to be to let her own Other suffer indoors and let them go mad with the isolation! I would like to see my own people along with their Reflections!

If only she would stop being an introvert, maybe she wouldn't have this evil entity thinking about breaking through her mirror to kill her.

Yes. I'm talking about YOU.

Stop reading this.

Look. Up.