The warning was written on the bathroom wall in black marker.
Never look in the mirror when you’re tripping.
It seemed like the sort of advice that belonged in a stranger’s apartment, wedged between a broken towel rack and a shower curtain patterned with mushrooms. Still, curiosity had already done most of the damage by the time caution arrived.
The reflection was smiling. The person in front of the sink was not.
That was enough to make the room tilt harder. The reflection lifted one hand and pressed its palm against the glass. A matching hand rose on this side, but not voluntarily. Fingers spread. Skin met cold mirror.
The reflection mouthed something.
“What?”
It tried again.
This time the words became audible inside the skull.
You finally loosened the door.
The hand would not come away.
The reflection began changing. Not dramatically. That would have been easier. It simply corrected things. The shoulders straightened. The face became less tired. Old scars vanished. Teeth aligned. The eyes brightened with a confidence that had never existed outside fantasy.
Then it stepped closer.
The person at the sink understood with nauseating clarity that the thing in the mirror was not an impostor. It was an improvement.
The glass softened beneath the trapped palm.
On the other side, the reflection offered a sympathetic smile.
You can rest. I know how to be you better.
The struggle lasted only seconds. Maybe minutes. Time had become unreliable.
A roommate found someone sitting calmly on the bathroom floor later that night, sober-eyed and strangely cheerful.
“You okay?”
“Great.”
“You were in there forever.”
A laugh. Easy. Warm. Perfectly timed.
The roommate relaxed.
Behind them, the bathroom mirror showed an empty room.
Then a figure appeared inside the glass and began pounding silently from the other side.
©2012 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys
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