Ce qui se cache derrière la lumière et les sourires

Mirror

There were an old story Wren's grandmother used to tell her when she was little. It was now a bit blurry as the years had passed. But she still remembered parts of it. There was a story of mirrors being portals toward another place. A bad place, made of shadows, grey colours, cold air, smoke and spider webs. And something, or someone, was alive there, ready to take you with it at the first chance. The only thing keeping it to do so was the reflection.
    Needless to say, Wren's grandmother was a bit of a strange lady but then again, she was living in an ancient house and had died a couple months ago after a terrible incident including a cat and very old stairs.

Wren had just been informed she was her grandmother's main heir, for her uncle had passed and her mother was not interested by her childhood home's renovation. To be honest, neither was Wren. She was a twenty-five years old woman, who had just finished her studies and had now study loans to pay and two jobs to deal with.
In other words, the only reason which had pushed her in Granny Jemma's house on that dark and rainy Tuesday night, was greed. She was hoping to find furnitures she would be able to sell, before selling the house itself. Because, in this economy, there was no way she would be able to keep it.

Wren repeated this, in her head, like a mantra each time she heard thunder outside the house. The rain was hitting on the windows, the lights were sizzling, the wood was creaking under her feets and each room was dustier than the previous one. She had already packed and listed the furnitures she was planning to sell or keep on the two first floors and was now getting ready to sleep. Wren had chosen one of the smaller room, near the attic, which had it's own bathroom.
She understood something was wrong when she saw the mirror. It was a basic one, not broken, not that dusty. But when Wren glanced at it, she knew something was different.

"I must be tired." she though, shaking her head before turning off the lights and going to bed.

She woke up in the middle of her sleep to the sound of something heavy being dropped on the floor upstairs. She wouldn't have moved if she hadn't heard a mewling sound right after. Wren was pretty sure her grandma's cat had been taken away but if the attic's window had been left open, a stray could have entered. Which would also explain the loud noise she had heard. The young woman sighed but got up, putting a jersey on and taking her phone as a flashlight before exiting the room.

To access the attic, you had to pull on a small rope which unfolded stairs in the most awful screech. Once in the there, you had to be careful for your head, as the ceiling was quite low, but also for your feet because the floor was cluttered by cardboard boxes, old furnitures, bags and other things Wren couldn't really identify. As she stood there, looking for the sound's origin, her eye caught a glimmer behind her.
The young woman completely turned. A white light was facing her, and behind the light stood a black humanoid form. Wren let out a strangled scream as she took a step back, almost falling because of the boxes. Her heart was racing and she suddenly felt trapped in the middle of that dark room. She took a few breaths, trying to calm herself down. Nothing was happening. When she looked again where the light had appeared, she understood.

It was her reflection. In an old stand mirror she couldn't see previously in the darkness. Wren sighed, relieved. Moving her light away from the mirror, she noticed an heavy box which seemed to have fell from a high wardrobe. Getting away from the cardboards that had blocked her way, the young woman got closer to put back the box and check if anything had broken in it. When she got up, the box in her hand, she was facing her reflection. Brown hair in a messy bun, dark circles under her eyes and a shirt way too big for herself.

But something was wrong. Slightly changed. She faced herself, frowning, trying to pick up what was bugging her so badly. It was like those games for kids in newspaper, where you were supposed to find the differences between two drawings. But there, both where identical. Or so she thought. She understood what was wrong when she took a better look at her face. She had three moles under the right eye, perfectly aligned. However. They weren't supposed to be there. It was supposed to be her reflection. Not a perfect reproduction of herself!

Wren took a step back, confused. She wasn't scared until she remembered her grandma's story. There were something behind the mirror. Something that wanted to take her place. And the reflection was the only thing keeping it away. But the reflection was gone, it was something else now.

Her reflection smiled to her, a wicked smile which seemed to be carved in her face, before placing a finger on her mouth. Wren screamed.