I glanced at the mirror.
I could’ve sworn my reflection moved a second after I did.
I decided I was just imagining things and grabbed the book I was reaching for. I glanced at the mirror again, and this time I saw myself blink.
What is going on?
I couldn’t formulate a clear thought. I was imagining things. I ignored the mirror for the rest of they day, but as I lay in bed, bored, I looked into it by accident and saw my reflection scratch its nose.
Either something paranormal was going on, or I was being paranoid.
I grabbed my phone and googled it. I found a few trashy websites but then I came across a serious looking one. It had heartfelt stories of people whose relatives were killed by mirrors. I snorted. I had a major in science. This wasn’t real. I still felt uneasy all the same. I clicked back on the trashiest website I found and it explained the mirror game. I decided to try it and prove to myself how stupid I was being. I had to stay up until midnight and turn of all of the taps in the house. I had to sit in the bathroom with one single candle lit and a water source running. Then I was to close my eyes and whisper “Bloody Mary” ten times, and when I opened my eyes her entity would appear to me as my own reflection. I could choose what she did – if I wanted a child I was to show a flower. If I wanted marriage I was to show a ring. If I wanted guidance I was to show a book, and if I wanted a wish I was to hold my hands in a prayer. I prepared the bathroom and decided I would “ask” for a wish. I counted down the seconds to midnight and then whispered her name. I opened my eyes and calmly looked into my own eyes.
Except those eyes weren’t in my face.
Bloody Mary looked back at me through my own eyes, as my own reflection.
I held back a scream and put my shaking hands together in a prayer. She lifted a finger and pointed to a flower in the vase on the windowsill. A baby girl appeared in her arms, and she tossed her to me. I flailed to catch the child but she fell to the floor, and she slowly stood up as she grew older, and soon a pretty little seven year old stood before me. “Mama?” she said. “Mama, is that you?” I shook my head, panicking, and looked back at Mary.
The girl fell to the floor, her throat slit in a bloody red smile.
My hand flew to cover my mouth as her body rotted, and became a warped, decayed corpse.
Then Mary pointed at the ring on my thumb. Someone tapped my shoulder and I jumped so violently I fell off the chair. The man I’d fallen in love with deeply but had left me a year ago for a younger girl dropped to his knees and offered me a beautiful ring of smoke. “Will you marry me?” he asked, smiling exactly as I remembered.
“No… Stop… This isn’t real! Wait! I don’t want this! No!” I begged Mary, but she stared ahead, cold as ice. The man crashed to the floor, writhing in agony, but no sound passed his lips. His body was covered in red claw marks that dripped onto the floor, and soon he lay still, his sunken dead eyes staring up at me. I grabbed the nearest things off the shelf and threw them at the mirror. It should’ve smashed but it remained unharmed.
Mary again raised her hand to a book on the floor that I had thrown.
The room around me melted. I was stood at a crossroads, shrouded in smoke, eerie white eyes in the shadows, tendrils of wispy fog curling like fingers that snatched at my clothes. Bloody Mary’s face loomed from above.
“THERE IS NO. WAY. TO.
ESCAPE.”
The last word was accentuated by Mary swallowing me whole. The crossroads dissolved back into my bathroom and I sat there, stunned, shaking and shivering, freezing cold yet drenched in sweat. Mary smiled sickly sweet at me.
I didn’t have time to scream when I was stabbed from behind.
They hit my stomach. I lay there in pure agony, as my life bled out onto the tiled floor. The last thought my dying brain could formulate was:
Mirror mirror, on the wall.
Who’s the fairest of them all?
And then the world went dark and the curtain fell on my time in this world.
***
Investigations continue into the disappearances of Charlotte Denham, 7, Marcus Knight, 29, and Amy Robinson, 31. Police are baffled. They have been missing for a week now and evidence points to the conclusion that they are dead. Blood from all three victims was found in the latters’ bathroom. Police hope to apprehend the suspect before they can strike again.
