Mirror-Breaker

Chapter 3

The women's restroom was completely empty, exactly as Sarah had anticipated. She was, after all, the only guest currently visiting the museum, aside from that nosy ghost hunter crew. Like the rest of the building, it had a modern look in stark contrast with the general atmosphere in Hexhdale; it was shining clean, brightly illuminated and, of course, a long mirror ran along the wall on which the sinks were mounted, from one corner to the other. Exactly the controlled environment she needed for her improvised Paranormal Sciences experiment.

Her hands were still shaking from the thrill of the forbidden - she had, after all, just stolen a priceless historical artifact right from the museum where it belonged. Sarah, who had always chastised her high school friends for their illegal and potentially dangerous activities, who had briefly considered a career in law enforcement and who thought shoplifting was unacceptable, was absolutely not used to this kind of excitement.

Well, it wasn't exactly a priceless artifact, just a simple silver knife allegedly bound to a local legend, and it wasn't exposed in the museum yet, and she was just borrowing it until further notice. Still, she'd probably end up in huge trouble if someone found out about her borrowing, so the sooner she found her way out of this curse - was it a curse? - the better. It was unlikely that "Your Honor, I thought it was the only thing that could hurt my murderer ghost stalker" would gain the sympathy of any judge.

No, but seriously, how else was one supposed to defend herself from being stalked by a mass murderer who could appear in any mirror? Ghost spray? Especially from one that was so... handsy. Sarah still wasn't sure if their encounter last night had been real or an hallucination, in which case she needed a psychiatrist asap, but she still hadn't fully recovered from it. What did he even want from her? Was he angry that she had broken something of his? She had already given him the shard she had found - which in hindsight, having heard the legend from the curator just now, had been quite a blunder on her part - but in that case she should be free now.

Anyway, now was the time to test if Liam Montague, "Hexdale's Ripper", was truly after her, and whether or not he was afraid of the silver knife. Sarah closed the restroom door, walked up to the line of shining white sinks and looked into the mirror, with her coat folded over her right arm in order to conceal the silver knife as best as she could.

"Hey, asshole, I know you're there." Her voice sounded suspiciously like that of a child calling out imaginary monsters in a dark basement. "I'm not in my room anymore, in case you're wondering. No, I won't tell you where I'm staying now," she continued, feeling silly yet slightly emboldened by the lack of a reaction, "and you if you try looking for me again, I've told the receptionist to get a restraining order. From the mirror police. Fuck off."

Her voice echoed in the empty, airport-like restroom. She swallowed, quickly looked at the door to check that no one was coming in - worst case scenario, she could pretend she was talking on the phone, but she really didn't feel like explaining why she was talking to a mirror while holding a stolen knife - then continued. "You know, I was just learning aaall about your pathetic little life. Wow, a mass murderer, such a scary big boy. No wonder everyone hates you."

She swallowed again. The fact that nothing appeared behind her reflection should have been an encouraging sign, but staring at it was nerve-wrecking anyway. Besides, the man had actually been a violent murderer. Sarah had seen her fair share of horror movies and knew that taunting evil spirits was just asking for trouble. And his portrait, the one she had just seen... he did look unhinged. The kind of man who could turn violent without warning and who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

"Yeah, and Liam? What a name. Phew. I bet you were bullied all the time when you were a kid. Is that why you turned into a loser psycho?"

It wasn't that odd of a name, really, the escalating shit-talking was just her way to deal with the stress of staring at her reflection while expecting something to appear in it. Any time now. Or never? Maybe she was free? The only sound in the restroom, aside from the dull echo of her words and the soft buzzing of the neon lights, was her heartbeat. "And honestly? That thing with your hands? Total let down. Didn't feel anything. What. A. Virgin", Sarah lied through her teeth, with an imperceptible shiver as those words left her mouth. She took a deep breath. "So yeah, that's all I wanted to say. Glad to see you didn't have the balls to show up, see you never. Actually," she continued, getting a bit too much into the act of an angry girl telling a bad, clingy hookup to shove it, "I'm gonna go get all those silly mirror fragments of yours, and I'm gonna smash every. Single. One. Of them, so that - "