Tell Your Story

Smile

It's two in the morning, and you're staring at your reflection. It smells like shit in here - cheap booze and cigarettes and vomit. Someone pounds on the bathroom door. You ignore it.

how did you get here?

Glitter on your eyes, smoke in your lungs. The bitter taste of alcohol on your lips.

Walking in on him with some other bitch. Drinking too much - not enough - to forget how he looked out by the pool.

why are you here?

Whose idea had it been to put a mirror on the ceiling anyway? Fucking awful idea, in your opinion. All it did was remind you of where you were, half-passed out in someone else's bathroom because you went against all your best friend's advice and got back with your shitty ex.

You marinate in your own misery a while longer, taking a long swig from the bottle of vodka you nabbed from the kitchen. Fucking bitch, you think, going behind your back like that.

do you want to be here?

You groan, letting your head fall back against the cold porcelain. Your eyes flick upwards, to the reflection you've been studiously ignoring.

It winks at you.

You do a double-take, searching the mirror for any sign you weren't going crazy, and just as you start to relax, it smiles.

Too wide. Too sharp. Too many teeth. Cat-like, you would say, if cats could dislocate their jaws.

It blinks, and it's eyes are red and slitted.

"Poor thing," it purrs. It's voice is garbled, like it's speaking through static, but smooth as honey even then.

You've practically sobered up by now, staring into the face of your doppelganger. It's still smiling that awful smile, twisting your mouth further than it should ever go.

"What the fuck do you want?" You snarl.

"Why, to help, of course." It stands up in one smooth motion, still looking at you. It's closer now, and you'd swear you could smell blood on its breath.

"Help?"

It fixes you with a pitying look.

"You do want revenge, don't you?" That garbled voice was yours - you were sure of it. But it was wrong, too disjointed, only the motions of speech.

You don't know. Any other time, you'd never even consider it. But here, with the taste of vomit still in your mouth, and the memory of the pool in your mind, and this... thing in front of you, staring at you with those unblinking red eyes, and speaking with that awful honey-static voice, and smiling.

Smiling that predator's grin.

"Yes."

It smiles again (had it ever stopped?), wider and wider and wider, until you think its face is about to split, and presses its hand to the mirror (had it always had those claws?).

You reach up, closer and closer still.

You press your hand to its talons, expecting to touch cold glass.

You don't.

The claws seize your hand and pull.

It's three in the morning, and you're staring at your reflection.

Except... that isn't you.

Was it ever actually you?

The demon grins up at you. Limbs swing at strange, gruesome angles, claws extending from bloody hands. Greasy hair hangs over dozens of glowing eyes.

And that smile. That fucking smile.

It's wider than ever.

It opens the door and disappears onto the dance floor.

The music is muffled, the smell of party drugs and sex nearly gone. No one pounds on the bathroom door - there isn't a bathroom door at all, where you are.

The room is covered floor to ceiling in blood, rotting guts strewn around the room. (they weren't always there...were they?)

You'd throw up, but even that feels too hard.

It feels like floating, like you're still watching yourself in the mirror. Dimly, you register screams.

You don't notice when the demon returns.

You don't notice when it throws you back, and you land with a crack on the cold tiles.

You don't notice when it thanks you, satiated and smug and almost proud.

You don't notice when the police arrive, lifting you on a stretcher.

You don't notice the ambulance, or the hospital, or your best friend in tears.

All you see is yourself.

Staring back.

Smiling.