The Kingdom of Warped Mirrors

Zoe had always believed she was real. Every breath she took, every touch against her skin, every whisper of fabric against her body confirmed it.

She was Zoe. She had always been Zoe.

Until tonight.

Her boyfriend’s hands traced the curve of her waist, his lips murmuring sweet nothings, something meant to pull her deeper into the moment. 

But then he stiffened. He pulled away. His fingers trembled against her as if he had just touched something cold.

"Zoe…" Peter’s voice cracked. His eyes, wide with horror, stared past her, into the mirror on the far wall.

She turned, expecting to see herself wrapped in moonlight. She wanted to see the gentle angles of her face flushed with love. But the person staring back was not her. Not Zoe.

The reflection was wrong. Off-kilter. The features she had known her whole life were now twisted into something broad-shouldered, angular, unmistakably male. A face she did not recognize, yet knew in the pit of her stomach as her own.

Zoe stumbled backward, clutching her arms as if she could keep herself from unraveling. Every mirror in the room whispered the same truth. The ornate dresser, the bathroom door, even the reflection in the darkened window—all of them showed the same thing. 

A man. A stranger.

"No… no, this isn’t—" She reached up, touching her face, her cheekbones, the soft lines of her mouth. But the reflection did not match the sensation beneath her fingertips. Her mind screamed, rejecting the impossibility of it.

****        

I push open the bathroom door while the bass from the speaker amplifies its vibrations across the flooring all the way to my ribcage. The door closes with a powerful slice like that of a guillotine blade falling down and slicing off the head of a sinner.

The space reeks of perfume spill around the pipes developing rust in the ceiling. A dim bulb fights the surrounding blackness to illuminate the damaged floor tiles. And there it is—the mirror.

It leans against the wall like a drunk, its surface warped, like a carnival distortion of reality. My reflection ripples, bends. A funhouse lie. The real me—or the me I know—has been fractured into something unrecognizable. 

A man. A handsome man, but a man nonetheless. With olive skin and the hair tussled from bar fights, the color of sand. 

I drop my bag on the sink. It shouldn’t matter. It’s just a mirror. 

I look back.

But its edges gleam like something alive, and the more I stare, the less certain I am that the reflection is mine.

I shake my head, unzipping my dress with a swift tug. The fabric peels away like old skin, pooling at my feet. I am shedding the husk of who I was just minutes ago—a woman draped in hesitation, in old fears stitched into every seam.

From my bag, I pull out something new. A dress the color of spilled wine. Shoes with heels sharp enough to kill. A lipstick so red it looks like a bleeding wound.

I keep changing, peeling away the past and layering on the future, but the mirror keeps watching me. It twists, showing me shapes I do not want to recognize. A version of me that is too long, too thin, too hollow-eyed. A shadow stitched to my feet, swaying even when I stand still.

I reach out, pressing my fingertips against the glass. It feels soft, yielding, like soft flesh of true love. The surface trembles beneath my touch.

I yank my hand away.

The music outside surges, like an ugly beast pressing against the walls, demanding to be let in. I take a breath. My hands sweep through my hair, mussing it into something sexy, deliberately careless. 

When I meet my own eyes again, the old me is still lurking, shrinking away behind the glass, like a ghost trapped in silver. But she does not belong here anymore.

I step back, smoothing my dress. The heels bite against the tile as I turn.

As I reach for the door, the mirror shudders behind me. 

I do not look back.

I step into the night, and the club swallows me whole.

But somewhere behind me, the reflection does not leave. 

And the bartender keeps calling me Peter. 

****

"How often does it happen?" The therapist’s voice was gentle, but she watched Zoe too closely, like she might shatter if she blinked.

Zoe swallowed dry. "All the time. Every mirror. Every window. Even in puddles on the street when it rains."

The room was quiet except for the soft scratch of pen on paper. Outside, the city hummed, the distant wail of sirens threaded through Zoe’s brain. She sat with her hands folded, knuckles pale and rubbing against each other like sandpaper. She didn’t look at the mirror behind the therapist’s desk. She never did.

"And what do you see?" she asked.

 Zoe clenched her jaw shut. "Not me."

The pen paused. "Who, then?"

Zoe exhaled, slow and shaking. "Him."

It’s always him. The man she used to be. The one she thought she had left behind, buried beneath new skin, new clothes, new certainty. But he lingered. A phantom stitched into her bones. He stood behind her reflection, staring through the glass, waiting.

"What does he do?" the therapist asked.

Zoe hesitated. "Nothing. He just watches."

Zoe dragged her nails against her palm. "Sometimes he looks sad. Sometimes angry. But mostly… he just stands there. And I swear, sometimes—" Her voice cracked. "—sometimes, he moves when I don’t."

The therapist nodded, scribbled something down. "You know his intentions might not be evil, Zoe."

Zoe scoffed.. "That’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t know that at all."

Silence pressed between them. A deep, knowing silence, as if the walls, the air, the city itself were pushing her to agree with her sweet therapist.

“Zoe, is it possible you think of yourself as evil?” 

“What?” Zoe all but barfed at the woman. Of course not, why would she - 

“Next time you see him, I want you to try and have a conversation. Without any assumptions. How does that sound?” 

Zoe finally glanced at the mirror behind the desk.

For a heartbeat, it was only her.

But then, just for a flicker—a shift in the light, a trick of the mind—

The man smiled.