I remember the day the first reflection went missing. I remember coming home from school at 9 years old to find my parents in the kitchen talking in hushed voices looking worried. I knew it was serious when I saw my father with a cup of coffee in his hands. Id only seen him drink coffee twice before, when my grandmother died and when my older brother disappeared. I remember hearing my mother say he should be hanged and in my mind picturing the endless games of hangman my brother and I would play when I was younger. The next one disappeared a year later. The one after that 6 months later. My teacher drew with red pen a single line at the top of the board for every one that went missing. I always wondered why she was counting them at all. By the time I turned 13 it had become a regular occurrence. Every other day there would be articles in the paper suggesting we take the reflection less and lock them away, that they where soulless, or defective. My mother became very political and fought very passionately for them all to be sent away. Until the day her reflection went missing. I've never seen her so scared or angry. She collected every mirror in the house and shattered them all. She threw out anything that would show her reflection, if she still had it. I'd sometimes find her staring into cups of water, as if waiting for it to magically pop back like a naughty child coming home after curfew.
I'm 16 years old now and I'm the only person I know who still has a reflection.
