I laid in bed with my girl, the love of my life. We’d been dating for some months now and everything was just perfect, all pieces put together. After many excruciating and painful previous relationships, this one was stellar. But there is actually one thing that is holding me back to fully commit to it. It might sound silly actually, but it’s one of my fears so there is nothing I can do about it.
She lives in the countryside, since she has her own horses to take care of. Having her own stable and field takes a lot of ground, so that is the reason the house is in the middle of nowhere. But not only is it in the middle of nowhere, it’s surrounded by a forest, it’s not placed on a passive field, its trees hugging a large meadow.
So when night strikes, it’s void outside. Stepping just a few steps outside of the comfort lights inside the house, your hands vanish in front of your face. This isn’t the case in the summer though, since the nights around here are rather bright. And of course if the moon is shining brightly down, it ignites the world brightly around. But on those cloudy, dark winter nights, I get the creeps.
But just stay inside you might say. Yes, that is the problem. Because you see walking inside with the lights on and the darkness surrounding the house, the windows reflect everything inside the house perfectly. It’s almost like a mirror. It’s so perfect that if something were to stand on the other side of the mirror, you’d see your own reflection before you’d notice the thing watching. This is the problem.
I laid there in her bed, watching her sapphire eyes and her bright, wide smile as she looked at me.
“Dear, can you fetch me some water from downstairs, pleaseeeeeee?” Her round puppy eyes were begging and I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Of course.” I gave her a kiss and stood up, readying myself to walk downstairs. The wooden steps creaked with each footstep, and I began walking slower and slower downstairs. She always had some lights in each room lit, so the house was faintly lit up at night.When she was alone she was the one coming down getting water most nights, so she felt comfortable having lights on in case. But even though the lights may be faint, it didn’t stop them from creating the perfect copy reflecting the room the windows were in. I walked to the counter, took up a glass and filled it up with water under the tap. I turned to the window, knowing I’m scared but I always looked, anyway. Something moved in the reflection. Something behind me. I froze. I saw it in the corner of my eye but there was nothing there anymore.
Gentle taps on the counter behind me were heard followed by a meow. Her cat. I sighed in relief, dumbfounded by my buffoonery. If she’d only see how much of a scaredy cat I actually was. I put the glass on the counter next to the cat and pat it. Its head rubbed against my arm and I smiled.
The window in front of me did something pass by. It looked like a gray shadow sprinted by the window. No, it can’t be right. Sometimes when you look down and then up to the window the light messes with your head. But still spooked at the thought, I grabbed the glass with one hand, and the cat with the other.
“Let’s go buddy.” I began walking out of the kitchen. There it was again, on my side, that same gray shadow passing by the window. As I headed for the stairs, I took one glance at the window in the living room. I saw myself, but for the split second I looked as if my face was that of someone else, and a second later, it turned back to mine as that gray shadow ran to the side. I stumbled on my feet and dropped both the cat and the glass in fear and shock.
“Fuck!” I heard my girl running down stairs.
“What happened?”
“I-I swear I saw someone looking at me in the window.”
“Who? There is no one else out here except for me.”
“I-I don’t know. The darkness gives me the creeps. Let’s get out of here.” My heart rate was increasing significantly. My breath was light and fast and I felt my forehead becoming sweaty. I was panicking. I couldn’t take this anymore. I was shit scared. I swear I saw someone looking at me. I couldn’t tell what it was or who looked like. I just saw someone looking at me behind my own reflection.
“Well, we got to clean up this mess you made so the cat doesn’t hurt himself.”
“S-sure…” My girl walked into a storage closet and brought out a broom and began sweeping. I was going to help but I was still frozen in place, looking at that living room mirror. Am I going crazy?
“Are you helping or not?”
“Yea sorry I… I don’t know what’s coming over me tonight.”
“It’s okay. We all have those nights. Just grab a bag so we can put the glass away.” I nodded and went into the kitchen, scavenged through the cabinets until I finally found a roll of plastic bags, and ripped one and turned back to the accident. But at the window inside the kitchen, next to the entryway to the hallway. I could see the window behind me to my side. A blurred out figure inside a reflection, as my eyes turned to it the figure backed away into the darkness. This time as well i couldn’t tell what it was. The structure was that of a human. I could see a round head, shoulders, but no details. I couldn’t let out any words at that time. I just stood there before realizing what I’d seen.
I looked down at the floor when it kicked in.
“Holy shit.” I ran back to the accident and quickly helped her by putting the glass shards inside the bag and grabbed her as we ran back into the bedroom. I threw myself at the bed. And she just laughed, thinking I was eager to go back to our cuddling. But when she saw my face, she began questioning.
“What is it?” I only looked at her, my eyes wide open, my lip twitching and my hands tightly hugging our blanket. I couldn’t answer, and she answered with silence as well.
We just fell asleep. My head was aching all night. I couldn’t think of anything else. What had I seen? But sometimes during that trail of thought, I must’ve passed out from all the stress.
In the morning, I apologized to her and told her what I’d experienced. She didn’t explicitly say she didn’t or believed me, she just hugged me and said it was okay. Which honestly felt better. It was all I needed.
We sat down on the living room couch and tuned on the morning news. They had caught a murderer this night that had been going around in different places, slaughtering people. His signature was always to mark a house after his killings.
As we left to take care of the horses, I noticed a strange particular sign drawn onto the house wall. A circle with an X drawn into it, under the kitchen window. It was the murderers’ sign. Apparently, he didn’t paint it after the killings. He drew it before he struck. I had seen the murder in the reflections of the mirrors, ready to plan his next kill. At least it was no ghost.