The Stillness in the Dark

I never thought I’d be too scared to use the bathroom alone, but here I am, typing this from the safety of my living room with every light in the house blazing. The incident happened at my workplace, an old textile mill converted into a quirky office complex. The building was originally constructed in the 1950s, and some parts of it remained untouched, like the restrooms near the break room. They were ancient, with cracked tiles and a constant musty smell, and the fluorescent lights hummed with a dying energy. Everyone avoided them if possible, but nature called, and we had no choice.

One afternoon, the power went out in that section of the building, plunging the corridor and the restrooms into near-total darkness. My colleague, Marcus, thought it would be hilarious to play a game of ‘Bloody Mary’ in the mirror, just to scare us. I wasn’t a believer, and I still don’t think I am, but something about that dark, damp room made my skin crawl. We huddled around the grimy mirror, three of us: me, Marcus, and our friend Dana. Marcus chanted the words three times, his voice echoing off the tiles. Nothing happened at first, just the sound of dripping water from a leaky pipe.

Then the lights flickered, not from the power surge, but as if something was playing with them, a rhythmic pulsing that made the shadows dance. We laughed nervously, dismissing it as faulty wiring. But then Dana stopped. Mid-laugh, she just froze, her eyes wide, staring at something behind us in the mirror. Her mouth hung open, but no sound came out. She didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe. It was as if she had been turned to stone. Marcus and I exchanged worried glances. We shook her, called her name, but she remained rigid. I leaned closer to her face, and that’s when I saw it: a faint reflection of a woman standing right behind us, wearing a tattered dress, her hair hanging over her face. She was just standing there, barely visible in the flickering light.

I spun around, but there was no one there. When I turned back to Dana, her eyes were now locked on mine, but they were not her eyes. They were black, like voids, and the faint smile on her lips was not human. I screamed, and Marcus grabbed my arm, pulling me away. We ran out of that restroom, leaving Dana behind. The door slammed shut on its own, and we heard a sickening crack, like bones breaking. We didn’t stop running until we reached the main office, where we collapsed, breathless. When we finally told our supervisor, he went to check, but found nothing. Dana was gone, and the restroom was pristine, as if it had been newly renovated. But the mirror was cracked, right down the middle.

I haven’t been able to be alone since. Every time I close my eyes, I see Dana’s empty eyes, and I hear a faint whisper, not from the mirror, but from inside my own head: ‘Join me.’ I don’t know what that thing was, but I know it’s still there, waiting. And I can’t shake the feeling that it’s not done with us yet.