The Reflection in the Depths

When I was twelve, my family moved into a sprawling, decaying Victorian house that had been converted into a triplex. Our apartment was on the top floor, and my bedroom was a narrow attic room with a single, dormer window that faced the dark, tangled back garden. The garden belonged to the ground-floor unit, which had been empty for years, and the windows of that abandoned apartment stared blankly at mine like blind eyes. My bed was shoved against the far wall, and directly opposite its foot was an old, full-length mirror that came with the room. It was framed in heavy, tarnished bronze, and its glass was slightly cloudy, as if it had breathed on itself one too many times.

My illness was just a late summer flu, but it kept me awake that first night. My parents had gone to bed early, exhausted from unpacking, and I was left alone in the unfamiliar dark. The house creaked and groaned around me, but it was the mirror that caught my attention. A faint, pale light seemed to emanate from it, not reflected from the moon, but as if the glass itself was glowing with a sickly luminescence. I could see my own reflection faintly, but there was something wrong. The image of my face seemed to lag just a heartbeat behind my movements, like a delayed echo. I dismissed it as a trick of the dim light and tried to sleep.

But I kept being drawn back to the mirror. Each time I looked, the lag grew longer, and my reflection’s expression was subtly different. One night, I saw it smile before I did, and I felt a cold chill race down my spine. The following morning, I mentioned it to my mother, but she said it was just my imagination, that the old mirror was probably warped. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was living in that glass, watching me, learning me.

A week later, I was home alone due to a fever. I lay in bed, the room bright with a full moon, and I found myself staring at the mirror. The glass was no longer cloudy but impossibly clear, and my reflection was sharp, vivid. It was smiling, a wide, unnatural grin that stretched ear to ear. I froze. My reflection reached out and pressed its hand against the glass. I felt an urge to do the same, as if something was pulling me. I stood up, my feet cold on the wooden floor, and approached the mirror. Our hands touched, glass to glass, and I felt a faint warmth, like a hand on mine. Then, my reflection spoke. Its lips moved, but no sound came out. It mouthed words, and I read them: ‘Let me in.’

Terror seized me. I stumbled back, and my reflection’s smile vanished, replaced by a look of desperate rage. It pounded on the glass, silent but furious, and I saw its face distort, becoming a grotesque mockery of my own. I ran from the room, screaming for my parents. They found me in the hallway, sobbing, but when they looked at the mirror, it was just a mirror. They thought I had had a nightmare. But I knew what I had seen.

I refused to sleep in that room for days, but my parents insisted I was being ridiculous. They made me go back, and I was too scared of their anger to disobey. That night, I kept the light on, but the mirror was in shadow. I tried not to look, but I could feel its presence. A cold breath on my neck. A whisper that was my own voice, but twisted.

By the second week, I was exhausted. I lay on my side, facing the wall, but I couldn’t resist a quick glance. My reflection was there, waiting. It had my face, but its eyes were dark pits, and its skin was mottled like the moon. It pressed its face against the glass, and I saw its lips form my name. And then, the glass rippled like water, and its hand emerged, grabbing the frame.

I screamed, but no sound came out. The room spun, and I felt a horrible suction, as if the mirror was inhaling me. I dug my nails into the mattress, but the pull was too strong. The thing in the glass smiled, and I was dragged into the cold, shimmering surface.

I woke up on the floor next to the mirror, the room dark and silent. My body ached, and I felt a strange detachment. I stumbled to the window and looked out at the garden. But it was wrong. The trees were bare, and the sky was a sickly green. I turned to the mirror, and I saw my reflection—but it wasn’t me. It was the thing, wearing my face, looking out at me with triumph. I realized then that the world I had woken in was the inside of the mirror, and the thing had taken my place. I beat on the glass, screaming, but my voice was only a whisper, and the world beyond the mirror was quiet.

Years passed. I watched from my prison as the thing grew up in my body, living my life. It visited me sometimes, standing before the mirror, its reflection showing my face, scarred and pale from my endless captivity. It would smile and trace the glass, and I would cower in the cold, dim world that stretched beyond the mirror’s surface. It had been my mirror for years, but now I was its reflection, a trapped ghost in the depths.

One day, a new family moved into our old apartment. A young girl, about my age, was given my room. I saw her in the mirror, and a spark of hope flickered in me. She looked at me, and for a brief moment, our eyes met. She paused, puzzled, then shrugged and turned away. I wanted to cry out, to warn her, but I had no voice. All I could do was wait, in the cold, silent glow, until she looked again, and I could try to tell her the truth through the glass.