Midnight Tales From The Depths of an Odd Mind

Mirrors

    She stares back at me from the mirror. Her pale face, with its hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, looks at me as if uttering a quiet threat. What are you looking at little girl? Her bright green eyes burn through my soul, with their long dark lashes and eyebrows to frame them. Her rosy lips are shut, not a word ever spoken; and her dark brown hair cascades gracefully down to her waist. Some might say she is beautiful, but I know better. I know what happens behind closed doors. I know the white gown she wears - that gown that looks at people as if it was threaded out of pure innocence - hides all the awful things she's done.

   My reflection is quiet. She doesn't look too different from the other girls. In fact, she looks just like me, another boring teenager getting ready for bed.  The resemblance is definitely uncanny, upsettingly so. I know she's not just a pretty thing like others say she is. I know what she did to herself. I know about the thin windows on her skin, those through which monsters attempted to escape through. I know what she did to that other girl. I saw how she pushed her away and over her limits. I was there when she let her hand go, and also while she watched her fall off that high, high ledge.

    She looks so innocent and pure. Who could ever doubt her? Everything about her is so familiar. Even the room behind her is just like my own! The white duvet is neatly stretched out. All the colorful decorative pillows are carefully piled at the head of the bed. A dark scarlet blanket is carefully folded at the foot of it, a lake of blood on the pristine snow. The lazy glow of fairy lights keeps the room from falling into the never-ending darkness. A grey cat naps on the carpet by the bed, while some succulents look out from the nightstand. It looks so much like my world, it makes my stomach uneasy. I know she isn't who she says she is.

   Everything about her is so eerily familiar. Every movement, and action, and feature, she is just like me. We might just be confused for twins! But she's not me, and I am not her. In the mirror, my reflection grins, a slow sinister grin. I don't.