THEY SAID GRANDMA WAS HALLUCINATING, BUT I KNEW BETTER.
Everyone dismissed her stories of the “mirror people” as dementia, but I saw her fear. She would clutch my hand, her eyes wide with terror, begging me not to look directly at any reflective surface.
One afternoon, while visiting, I caught a glimpse of my own reflection and saw not myself, but another version; twisted, malevolent, and with eyes that burned into my soul. I never told anyone. Grandma wasn’t crazy—she was protecting me.
Now, every time I see a mirror, I wonder if it will be me staring back or… *him*. ⬇️
The fear became a constant companion, a cold, clammy hand gripping my heart. Sleep offered no respite; my dreams were a kaleidoscope of distorted faces, their eyes blazing with an unholy light. The mirror people were real, and they were watching. My reflection oscillated; sometimes it was me, haggard and fearful, and sometimes…him. He was growing bolder, his presence more tangible, his malevolence a palpable weight in the air.
One day, I found Grandma’s old journal. Its pages were brittle with age, filled with spidery handwriting and disturbing sketches. The drawings were unsettlingly familiar – twisted parodies of faces, mirroring the visage that haunted my reflections. Her entries detailed a pact made, a desperate bargain with entities that dwelled between worlds, entities that claimed mirrors as their gateway. The bargain was to protect her family, at a terrible cost.
The cost, I realized with a jolt, was me.
A chilling realization washed over me: Grandma wasn’t protecting me from the mirror people; she was sacrificing me to them. The pact was tied to a lineage, a generational curse. The “him” in the mirror wasn’t a separate entity; it was a fragment of my soul, a corrupted reflection slowly consuming my being. The longer I lived, the stronger he became.
Panic clawed at my throat. I needed answers, but whom could I trust? My reflection, mockingly distorted, seemed to sneer at my helplessness.
Driven by desperation, I sought out an old, reclusive professor of esoteric arts, mentioned in Grandma’s journal. Professor Eldritch, a man whose eyes held the weight of centuries, listened patiently to my harrowing tale. He confirmed Grandma’s account, his voice laced with grim understanding.
“The pact can be broken,” he said, his voice low, “but the price… it’s steep.”
He explained that the mirror people fed on negative emotions, fear, and despair. To break the pact, I had to confront my reflection, not with fear, but with absolute, unwavering self-acceptance – a love so profound that it would banish the darkness clinging to my soul.
The final confrontation took place in an old, abandoned funhouse, a labyrinth of warped mirrors and distorted reflections. The air hung heavy with a malevolent energy. I stood before a colossal mirror, my reflection – *him* – looming, his eyes burning with malevolent triumph.
“You cannot win,” he hissed, his voice my own, yet twisted and warped. “You are already mine.”
But something shifted within me. The fear was still there, a gnawing presence, but beneath it, a resilient strength emerged. I looked into his eyes, not with terror, but with a quiet, profound understanding of my own imperfections, my own flaws. I loved myself, despite them. I accepted the parts of me he sought to exploit, the cracks and shadows, the very things he fed upon.
As I did, the image in the mirror flickered, distorted, and then… vanished. The funhouse seemed to collapse around me, its warped reflections shattering like glass. The malevolent energy dissipated, leaving behind an eerie silence.
I emerged from the funhouse, shaken but free. The threat was gone, but the ordeal had left its mark. I still saw myself in the mirror, but now, I saw only me; flawed, imperfect, but whole. The mirror people were defeated, but their absence left an unsettling echo, a lingering sense of the uncanny, a silent reminder that the line between reality and reflection remains perpetually blurred. The price of freedom was paid, but at what cost to my sanity, I could never fully know. The ending, though seemingly resolved, left a chilling uncertainty hanging in the air, a stark reminder of the darkness that always lurks just beyond the glass.