Stalker in the Mirror

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I have a theory.

Not everything in the world is black and white. Not everything in the world is good or evil. It's not that simple. It never was, it never will be. Most people are just blind to all that isn't simple. They turn away because they couldn't bare the thought that they didn't live in as normal of a world as they thought. As they wished.

I didn't turn away.

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Adira

Of course, it started out normal.

It was almost summer, just one more day of school left until I was done, though, not for good. I still had two more years of high school, which sixteen-year-old-me was not happy about. School had been getting on my nerves, but that happens to everyone.

Unfortunately, I still had to take finals before I got to feel the saving grace of summer. Studying was about the only thing I'd done for the past week, just like every other kid that wanted to pass. That day, however, something felt different, off.

I had been sitting at my desk in my room like every other day, but I had this feeling, like someone was watching me. I thought I was being paranoid, my normal, jumpy, overreactive self - a perfect explanation. There wasn't an explanation for why the hair on the back of my neck was standing up, or why goosebumps were appearing over my arms and legs on an eighty degree summer day.

I tried to ignore it by focusing on the textbook opened in front of me and my spiral of notes for the subject opened on top of it. Pointless. I was starting to get worried, my breathing became short and quick, my heart sped up.

Just focus. Just calm down. Everything is okay. Focus.

I tried. I studied the wood grain of my desk, how it ran horizontally across it, how the color of the desk was the same as the dark wood floors. I focused my attention on something easy that really didn't need my attention, but the feeling stayed. No one was home except for me, it was illogical to think I was being watched. My mom, the only other person who could have been in the house, was still working, always working.

I glanced, to my right, out the window that rested above the side of my bed closest to the wall. Nothing. There was no head, no eyes, no human, not even a bird. There was no one on my bed, no one under it. I kept turning in my chair trying to keep it normal, but I was freaked out beyond my control. In the end, it probably looked like I was a grandma trying to move while I was sitting in a rolling desk chair that could spin, like I didn't know it could do that. To the right of my bed sat a little bedside table with my alarm clock and a book, next to that was my bookcase, still intact and untouched by anyone but me. The same went for the open closet with a small dresser inside it - the drawers were closed as I remembered and all the clothes hanging above it were the same as when I had left that morning. Next to the open door of the closet was a mirror, a full length, oval dressing mirror. It was mostly covered by the door of the closet, but from what I could see in the reflection, it wasn't right. It should have been the door to enter and exit my room, but it seemed almost shadowed.

I leaned forward, over the back of my computer chair, to try and get a better look. Pushing myself to the side a bit, I could make out more than half the mirror. What I saw made my eyes widen and my breathing stop as I tried to understand what it was.

"What the h-" I started to say to myself before the wheels of the chair slid out sending me flat on my face on the ground. I had been inadvertently leaning forward the whole time until I unbalanced the chair. Leaning forward to try and see the man standing in the mirror better.