The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own. I only knew it wasn’t me because of the eyes, lightless eyes that stared back at me emptily.                      Everything else about the face matched my own, but those eyes terrified me.

          With a slight tilt of her head, my reflection smiled at me. Her mouth moved, saying words I could not hear, yet I knew by each movement of her lips what she said.

          “Just a little bit closer.”

          I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to obey. I took a small step towards the mirror, then another, and another. As my face neared the glass, a mere inch between it and my nose, my breath fogged its surface and turned to mist that wafted around my reflection like smoke. She continued to smile at me, though I now stood too close to see more than her eyes. Fear prevented me from turning away.

          She stepped back and away from me, though I felt no ease at the distance she placed between us. Somehow, being so close to the mirror meant I remained within her reach, yet my feet would not move at the urgency blaring in my mind.

          “Look,” I saw my reflection say.

          As she stepped aside, I saw the room behind me in perfect detail. It was the same, except, like my reflection, it wasn’t. The colours were dull, as though polluted by shadow.

          I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as a chill made my hair stand on end. Something lurked beyond the walls of that room

          My reflection returned, her face as close to the mirror as my own. She took a step back. I did, too. With each step she took, I followed, as though I were the reflection. That thought terrified me, and I screamed at myself to look away, to run, to escape.

          The scream was only in my head, and it went unanswered.