Tales To Tell In The Dark

The Looking Glass

Hello, my name is Preston. I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. I never knew my real father. But I did have a fatherly figure in my life, his name was Mike, my mom's boyfriend, whom later became her second husband.

Mike had three children of his own, who I came to consider my blood siblings. Their names were Gilbert, who was fourteen, Kristina, who was twelve, and Sara, who was eleven.

We lived in Las Vegas for the first four years of my life, and after that, moved to Michigan. I don't recall much, but what I do recall, is that somewhere along the lines, both of my step sisters had developed Eisoptrophibia, the fear of mirrors, and that because of this newly developed fear, we had to get rid of every mirror in the house. Both of my sisters screamed at the sight of their own reflection. God, how could I ever forget that?

Well, after we had moved to Michigan, my mother and step father only kept one mirror in the entire house, it was put in their bedroom upstairs, far away from any of our bedrooms, which were all downstairs.

I was still too young to understand exactly why there were no mirrors in the house, I mean, I realized my sisters were scared of them, yes. But I was too young to comprehend that this was a psychological fear, and had often questioned to myself just what was so scary about the looking glass, as I called it when I was young.

As time passed on, I had no longer paid attention to the fact that my sisters were afraid of mirrors, or questioned why anymore. I went on to cartoons and video games, as most young children do. After nothing was mentioned of my sisters fears anymore, I just put it into the back of my young, feeble mind.

Life went on for me as a normal kid from then on, I bonded with my brother over video games, and had often even humored my sisters by letting them use me as a human dress up doll. By the time I was six, I was close to my siblings as could be. Every chance I got, I would spend time with them playing video games or watching WWE Wrestling.

It wasn't too much longer before we had all noticed my step father was acting strange; He would willingly work more hours and take double shifts, anything really to stay out of the house, or maybe away from my mother. Mike even started sleeping on the couch, instead of his room with mom. I became scared, and thought something bad was going on between my mother and step father, and I didn't want to lose my siblings.

Gilbert and my two sisters then begun to attempt to include both mom and dad in on our activities in an attempt to keep dad home and keep them both together. For a while, this seemed to have been working. Mike went from taking extra shifts to staying home more often, but still slept on the couch.

One night, I woke up thirsty for a glass of water, and as I got to the kitchen I noticed the lights were already on, and I heard voices from behind the door. I put my ear to the door, and overheard a conversation between my mother and step dad.

My mother was talking about how she gets lonely at night because of Mike sleeping downstairs, to which Mike replied, 'I'm sorry, but seeing that terrified me too much to ever step foot in the room again.'

The next day, I told my brother and two sisters what I had overheard, mom and Mike talking about, and what he said. Gilbert got frantic, thinking that what Mike said meant there might be something dangerous in their room, which would eventually harm my mom, or even one of us. Kristina told him to keep calm, assuring him that she would talk to mom about it.

Later that night, while Mike was working, mom sat Gilbert, Sara, Kristina, and I down, and told us that Mike had Eisoptrophobia as well. Gilbert, upon hearing this, was relieved of his fear of there being something dangerous in the house. I might have been young, but I remember that during this talk, my mom had seemed worried or uneasy, but I had this sense of relief and wasn't too worried about it at the time.

Mom and Mike both had the next night off of work, and left Gilbert in charge of watching us. Gilbert was talking about how he had recalled something I quoted Mike on, 'Seeing that terrified me too much to ever step foot in that room again.'

Gilbert had been thinking on this, and was rather uneasy over it.

Gilbert had then decided to go up to mom and Mikes room and take a look around. Kristina immediately stopped him from going upstairs, urging him that it was a seriously bad idea, because mom wouldn't appreciate that. But there was something more to it, I knew my sister well enough to know when she was hiding something, or holding back.

Later that night, I was awoken by a loud bang noise. I heard yelling coming from outside my door, so I put my ear to the door to try listening in. Gilbert and Kristina were arguing:

'So you knew about it this entire time?! How could you keep something like that from your family, Kristina? That puts all of us in danger!' Gilbert was shouting.

I concluded mom and Mike were still at work, or they would have stopped this. Just then I heard Sara's voice:

'What's with all the yelling?' she asked.

Gilbert snapped, 'Did you know about what's upstairs, too?! How could you keep that a secret?! What about Preston, what if he finds that, huh?!'

Kristina interrupted, 'Well, I warned you not to go up there, Gilbert!'

The next morning, Gilbert went on a walk, and I went with him. I asked Gilbert what he was yelling about last night, and he had smiled, assuring me that he didn't know what I was talking about, and that I must have been dreaming.

After Gilbert and I got back from our walk, he just went straight to his room, and didn't say a word to anyone for the rest of that day. I asked Kristina the same thing I had asked Gilbert on our walk, and she just looked at me and told me to never go upstairs, no matter what happens, and went into her room. I then turned to Sara, but got no answer from her at all, just a blank stare, and off to her room.

After that night, all of my siblings became much more distant from each other. We no longer played video games together, or watched wrestling. To make matters worse, mom and Mike started fighting all the time.

Things continued to go downhill over the next two years. The most said between my siblings and I? Simple mannerisms such as 'Thank you' or greetings such as 'Good morning' or 'Good night', nothing more.

My family was falling apart, and I didn't know why, or what to do. After all, what could a little eight year old do, especially without knowing what was happening? All I remember feeling at this point was the fear of losing my siblings forever, after all, it had already seemed like our bond was no longer there.

One day, my fears became reality. My mom and Mike got into a huge argument, which eventually turned physical. The neighbors called the police, and both my mom and Mike had to spend the night in Jail, so I stayed at my aunts for the night.

The next day, my mom picked me up, and explained that her and Mike had split up, and we had to go to Mike's house to pack our things because we were moving into grandma's house. I started to tear up. In the end, my fear became reality, I lost my siblings, not only physically, but emotionally, too. I remember crying so much that day.

When we got to Mikes, the door was wide open, and his car was in the driveway, so it appeared he was home. Mom went inside to pack, and I followed because I wanted to give my siblings one last goodbye hug. But when we got in there, neither Mike, Gilbert, Kristina, or Sara were anywhere to be found.

After searching every room downstairs and finding nobody, I heard my mom scream upstairs. I recalled what Kristina had told me, and stayed downstairs waiting. Not even three seconds later, my mom lets out a blood curdling scream, and I hear crying.

I rushed upstairs to see what was wrong. My mom was sitting on the bed just staring at the mirror, crying. I climbed on the bed with her and looked in the mirror, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that day.

As I looked into the mirror, on the mirror, written in blood, 'Never look at your own reflection clearly in a mirror, we love you. - Mike, Gilbert, Kristina, Sara.', but it was written as if someone's reflection had written it... And oh the horror, when I saw in the mirror something that wasn't really there; the corpses of Mike, Gilbert, Kristina and Sara.

I saw their rotting corpses laying on the bed through the mirror...