I can’t say I’ve ever been one for looking in the mirror, sure when I get ready in the morning I take a glance, but that’s about as far as it goes.
But tonight. Tonight I stepped out of the shower and there it was, something strange, something different.
The room was thick with steam, I could hardly make out the shapes of the sink and the cabinet. But there, in the misted glass of the mirror… I stepped closer, and wiped away some of the condensation with my hand, peering through the fog, looking at the reflection. It was off. Something about it felt off like there was some fuckin’ thing in the room with me.
I stood there for a little while, staring into the mirror, and the more I looked at my reflection the more I knew, something was very wrong with it. I blinked and shook my head, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. Sure, he moved as I moved, his face contorting in the same ugly way as mine. And yeah, he frowned along with me, his eyes darting around exactly the same. But it wasn’t me. It was not me.
I took a step closer and tried to get a better look, and he stepped closer with me.
“Who are you?” We whispered, together, voices barely audible.
“I don’t know,” we replied, uncertain, low and hollow.
“What do you want?”, a good question I thought, but we had nothing more to say.
He just stared back at me with a blank expression. Instinctually, I knew I should leave, but I was mesmerised by his presence. I wanted to talk more too, but I found that no sound would come out anymore. And then finally, he spoke for me.
“Hello Charles,” he said, his voice uncanny, a perfect imitation of mine.
I was unable to reply, almost like he’d taken my voice, so I just kept watching.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked me, all polite.
I shook my head. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of the damn thing.
Then he flashed a smile that made my skin crawl. “I’m you,” he said, “and I’ve decided that it’s time for you to go.”
“Time for me to go? What the fuck?” I thought. “Go where?”
I tried to brush it off, to calm myself down, but my heart was undeniably pounding away in my chest, and he seemed to be getting closer to me. I tried to turn away, but even my body wasn’t listening to me anymore. And he laughed at me, laughed at my predicament, it was a gravelly, sinister racket.
“Like I said, I’ve decided. So it’s time you went.”
And with that, he stepped out of the fuckin’ mirror.
Into the real world.
Right in front of me.
He took me by the arm and pulled me along the wet, tiled floor into my hallway. I wanted to fight, but I was completely unable to move, and he was strong anyway, much stronger than me.
He dragged me along the hallway, my heels burning from the friction, and next thing I know he was taking me through the apartment door, onto the concrete walkway outside. My feet were bloody now, and in my mind, I was yelling, but to the rest of the world, I would have been dead silent, save for the sound of my ankles dragging along the coarse pavement.
Before I knew it, I was in the middle of a fuckin’ highway, in nothing but my bathroom robe, arm still in his grasp. Ribbons of light were passing us by, but not one of the damn cars stopped to check what was going on.
He turned to me then, his face illuminated by the street lamps, shadows softly strobing from the passing beams
He looked me dead in the eyes, one last time, and said, all matter of fact like, ”It’s time for you to go, Charles.” And then he just released his grip, and stepped back, and faded into the night.
I damn near fell into the highway. Stumbling, I somehow caught myself, my legs were weak and uncoordinated. But, I had my control again.
And the man? Well, he had vanished.
Alone, I stood in my fear.
What the fuck had just happened? What did he fuckin’ mean? And, what in the ever-loving fuck was he?
I tried to collect myself, clearing my mind of the cloud of confusion and all the questions.
I had to get back to my apartment, certainly I couldn’t stay here in the middle of the damn highway. So I made my way across the traffic and began then journey back home, bathrobe fluttering behind me in the cold night air.
Every now and then I would hear a sound, or catch a glimpse of something out the corner of my eye that would make me turn, and every time I turned I figured I would see the guy, standing there, or something. Maybe he would be watching, staring at me all expressionless, or maybe he’d be grinning and laughing with that fuckin’ awful laugh of his. But he was nowhere.
The bastard was gone.
Shivering, barefoot and bleeding, somehow I made it back to my apartment. At first, I was too shit-scared to go inside, what if he was still there? But I didn’t have any other options. The door was still ajar and I nudged it all the way open only to find it empty, so I went inside and slammed the door shut behind me.
I wrapped myself in the first blanket I could find, and while I was warming myself on the couch, I tried to rationalise what’d just happened.
I couldn’t though. That man in the mirror had not been a figment of my imagination, I knew that for sure.
He was very real. He had been there with me, and the thought was terrifying.
And then, I remembered, what he had said.
“It’s time for you to go.”
I rushed back to the bathroom, it was still thick with steam in there, so I had to wipe away the condensation from the glass. Then I peered through the fog into the mirror.
But it was only my reflection, my eyes and my face.