MidReal Story
A young woman discovers that her mirror image has a
Scenario: A young woman discovers that her mirror image has a sinister life of its own and will stop at nothing to entrap her, forcing her to confront her darkest fears and desires.
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I didn’t like the way they made me feel when I realized that it was staring back at me.
But my fear of mirrors wasn’t just because of that.
It was also because of what I might find on the other side.
I feared that when the lights went off and I was left alone, the glass would disappear and I would be free to walk through to the other side.
Because of this, I always made sure to keep my eyes shut tight as I walked through dark rooms with mirrors, and I tried not to think about the things I might see in them if I opened my eyes.
I had never walked through one before, but that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t one day.
And I couldn’t think of anything worse than looking through a dark, empty mirror and realizing that there was nothing there, because I had already gone through.
As I got older, this fear lessened.
I stopped thinking about walking through mirrors and into other worlds, and I stopped thinking about the things that might be on the other side.
But I could never get rid of the feeling that there was something wrong with them.
That there was something wrong with me when I looked in them, and that they were hiding something from me when they showed me myself.
This fear returned one night as I was getting ready for bed.
It was dark, but the glow of the streetlights outside still seeped in through the blinds of my window, casting a faint light across my bedroom floor.
This light from the outside made it easy to see in my room, but it also made it easy to see in the mirror, and as I brushed my teeth, I couldn’t help but look over at it.
My reflection stared back at me, and for a moment, it made me stop.
There was nothing unusual about it, and yet it didn’t feel right.
It felt like there was something wrong with me, or with her.
She smiled back at me, and even though it looked like mine, it somehow seemed wider, more sinister.
I quickly looked away and tried to push the feeling from my mind, but as I finished brushing my teeth and left my bathroom for bed, I couldn’t help but think about her.
About how things in mirrors were supposed to be flipped.
About how maybe the smile on her face was real, and the one on mine was fake.
About how maybe she wasn’t just a reflection after all.
The next morning, as I walked past the mirror again on my way to get dressed, I saw her again, but this time, she was facing away from me, looking back over her shoulder with a grin that said she knew something I didn’t.
It was terrifying, but even more so was what happened when I looked away: she didn’t go away this time.
She just kept looking at me.
After this, she appeared more often than she used to, which would have been bad enough if it weren’t for everything else going on.
If Alex hadn’t been spending all of his time with Sarah now that they were dating.
If Sarah wasn’t so busy with work that she hardly had time for either of us.
This was both good and bad.
I was happy for Alex since he was my best friend and I’d never seen him this happy before.
I was happy to be his friend because he was a great person.
And I was happy to be Sarah’s friend because she was a great person too.
But it also meant that he was gone most nights, leaving me alone without anything interesting to do.
It meant that when Sarah came over to hang out with me instead of him—which was rare—I couldn’t invite him because he didn’t want to be there.
So instead of something fun, we usually just sat around watching TV or making small talk until he got home.
This particular night was no exception.
I was watching some cooking show in my living room while Sarah sat on the couch next to me scrolling through her phone.
Even though it was only seven o’clock on a Friday night, Alex was already gone for the weekend with his family because they’d planned a trip before he’d started dating Sarah.
And even though we had planned to have our own mini sleepover as soon as he got back on Sunday night, Sarah was stuck working late because her boss needed help with something.
This was why I was alone again on what was supposed to be movie night.
I tried not to let it bother me, but it did.
I’d been looking forward to seeing him again since we’d spent most of the week apart, but now I would have to wait until Sunday, and that was only if Sarah’s boss didn’t need help again.
It wasn’t like it was his fault, but I couldn’t help but feel lonely as I watched him leave, knowing that I wouldn’t see him for another two days.
This is why I didn’t notice that my reflection was staring back at me until it was too late.
Except she wasn’t staring back at me.
She was staring past me—right at the mirror on the wall across from me.
My eyes followed hers, but all I saw was myself.
Except now all I could see was her staring back at me, making it impossible to look away.
For some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about mirrors.
What they were, what they showed us, what they didn’t show us…everything about them.
But there was something else too.
I could feel my eyes focusing in on her, pulling me further and further into her gaze as I tried to make out every detail of her that I could.
Everything about her was exactly like it should have been: her hair, her eyes, her mouth…all of it was exactly the same as mine.
But as I continued to look at her, something felt different this time.
Something about this felt wrong.
It felt like something was about to happen, but it wasn’t until she blinked at me that I realized what it was.
I stopped and stared at my reflection in disbelief as she continued to look back at me with wide eyes.
She wasn’t smiling anymore, but now she was frowning instead.
As I watched in horror, my heart began to pound in my chest as my brain tried to figure out what was going on.
At first, I thought it had been my imagination, but no matter how hard I tried to rationalize it in my head, it still hadn’t happened before.
Except that wasn’t quite right.
The truth was that I knew exactly what I’d seen.
I’d seen my reflection blink at me, but not just once—she’d blinked twice, once for each of her eyes.
It was only when I closed my eyes that I could finally breathe again as I tried to push the thought away.
It had to have been my imagination, right?
I was just tired and trying to make sense of everything that was happening around me, so my mind had played tricks on me, that’s all.
At least that’s what I told myself as I opened my eyes once more and stared back at my reflection.
But when I finally opened them, she was still staring back at me with those same wide eyes, and now I knew why they seemed so off.
It wasn’t because she was frowning; it was because there was something so unnerving about the way she looked at me.
It was like there was nothing behind those eyes at all.
It was like there was nothing there.
“Stop it,” I whispered as I continued to stare back at her.
But my reflection didn’t listen as she continued to stare back at me with unblinking eyes.
I could feel the fear pooling in the pit of my stomach as I stared back at her, waiting for her to do something else.
As if sensing my fear, she finally blinked again, but this time I could see what I had seen the first time: her eyes moved one after the other in a way that shouldn’t have been possible.
Except for some reason, this time it looked different.
It looked real.
This time I could see the way that the muscle surrounding them twitched slightly as they moved, and when they finally fell upon mine, I knew for certain that what I was seeing was real and not just some figment of my imagination.
I watched helplessly as those cold, soulless eyes continued to stare back at me, waiting for her to do something—anything—to prove that what I was seeing was real instead of fake.
Except that wasn’t possible.
It couldn’t be possible.
There was no way that what I was seeing was real.
Not unless…
But before I could even finish the thought, I reached up and covered one of my eyes with my hand.
Then, I uncovered it once more.
But when I did, I saw that my reflection’s eyes were now closed, waiting for me to uncover the other one.
So I did.
Except this time, when I uncovered it once more, I saw that the other one had opened as well, only now they were both staring back at me with their unblinking gaze.
I shook my head in disbelief as I continued to stare back at her.
This wasn’t possible.
It couldn’t be possible.
There was no way that what I was seeing was real.
Except for the fact that I was seeing it.
I finally understood why I’d always been so afraid of mirrors.
