I don't know why, but I have feared mirrors since a young age. I guess maybe the fact that it felt like someone was staring back startled me into turning all the mirrors around. I couldn't stand them. Ironically enough, I own a mirror shop. But, every single mirror must face the wall. I even went as far as to ask all the customers to keep the glass pointed away from me. They said I was paranoid, but never complained. I guess that is why I never want to be rid of that shop.
I met my wife a couple years ago. She never complained about my paranoia, and I never questioned her methods of believing in the supernatural. She believes she can see things that most cannot. This includes spirits and demons, among other ungodly spectors. She says that I fear a doppelganger, a figure that looks like me, acts like me, but is not me. It is a creature wanting to take my life, and they live in the mirror. I thought she had a point, but no. I just fear the mirrors, and the "doppelganger" who stares back. She managed to convince me that I was afraid of nothing, so I trusted her. I turned the mirrors around.
Everything was fine at first. Customers were able to point the glass of the mirror towards me, making it significantly easier to carry. My wife was able to enjoy fixing her hair in the mirror for hours. I, however, avoided looking in the glass. I became paranoid constantly, checking behind me every few minutes. My wife insisted I see a therapist, and I did. She asked me to explain my paranoia of mirrors, and why I fear them. I told her the same thing I told my wife.
"I see my fears come to life on the other side of the glass. Sometimes, it comes through. Sometimes, the figure of me never moves, or reaches for things I don't want to grab." Just like everyone else, she didn't believe me.
She pointed a mirror towards me and asked me to look through and tell her what I saw. I turned behind me and looked through it, seeing her sitting in her leather chair behind me. I stared in horror as the figure of me turned and attacked her, stabbing her neck with her pen. He gazed at me and picked up her now bloodied clipboard and pen, writing a note.
'You're next, me'.
The scene returned to normal and I turned back to tell her, finding her gone. I looked back in the mirror, seeing the blood stains on the floor, the knocked over chair, the bloody pen, and nothing else. The scene I saw behind me was a reflection of that, but I was concerned more about myself. No reflection. I ran for the door, running past the overturned chair and the growing bloodstain. I didn't even bother looking back, thinking nothing would change. I was mistaken.
I reached home and never spoke of what happened. A few years passed and we had children. I had grown to no longer fear the mirrors and had my house full of them. My shop grew and became well known. Life was good for us. That was, until my little girl was drawing. Normally, I'd think nothing of it and carry on, but she seemed so interested in what she was drawing that I asked her to show me.
It was the very scene from the therapist's office, but from the perspective of the mirror. It showed me doing the killing, which I remember never doing. Even the note was there, able to be read through my four year old's scribbling. I was terrified to the point I tore up the paper in front of her. She cried for days after, but grew silent. My other daughter was the real issue.
She was fascinated by the mirrors, staring into them for hours at a time. She even went as far as to hold conversations with the glass reflection of herself. I approached her warily one morning when she was laughing.
"Sweetheart," I began, "what are you doing?"
She turned to face me, saying she was just talking with herself. What scared me is I could still see her reflection staring at her, grinning. It returned to normal as she turned back to face it. I started turning the mirrors to face the walls and instructing my children and wife not to touch them. They all seemed to be okay with my paranoia, maybe "okay" is not the right term. They had grown used to it.
The next morning, I felt uneasy. I revisited the mirror my daughter loved and eased it away from the wall, hoping to see her reflection waiting. I never got to seeing the glass. The wall was torn up, scratched to hell and back. No one touched this mirror, not even my daughter. I couldn't figure out who was scratching the wall. I checked another mirror, finding similar scratches. Another, the same marks. These seemed to be behind every single mirror, except one. One had a hole in the wall. The mirror, when I put my hand in front of the glass, had absolutely no reflection. As I had searched mirrors, I had them facing the rooms again, too afraid of the markings.
Before I knew what was happening, the glass itself bent and grabbed me, pulling me inside. I yelled for my family, hearing them running towards the room. But they weren't quite fast enough. I was pulled in, but it looked like I wasn't. I saw myself standing in the room, grinning at myself.
"I told you. You were next."
The figure grinned and grabbed a chair, throwing it against the glass. From the shards, I watched him take over my life. I lost everything, and became the very thing I feared.
