Reflections of Another

A short story of discovery.

The dark. A cold, looming kind of dark that seeps into your bones, it infects and attacks like the worst of disease.
The cool ray of the flashlight, the one she grips in her hand as if her only ally. In this house, the one in which none ever dare enter, she warily explores with wide eyes.
Who says you're the only one?
A mirror leaning against an old, musty wall in an abandoned room from uncounted decades ago- a slight ringing, a beckoning sound. Brushing tender fingers against withering wood, she wanders through the decaying doorway to a room with a single shattered window. A hint, a tiny flash of sunlight illuminates the mirror in an otherwise dull room. Here, it smells of dust and age. She makes her way carefully, stepping lightly on barefoot feet on the cool tiles underneath- they told her not to come, but she's not the sort to listen.
There's a soft crackling in the bare walls as she makes her wall across the deserted floor, no man's land. She hesitates, and waits, then step after step she makes her way- indecision clouding the room.
Step by the step, the lulling equilibrium between indecision and waiting breaks further. With a jolt she realized- the mirror had no reflection to be seen, only the front of the glass akin to the surface of a pond looked back. She froze- shocked- and waved her hand in front of the blank mirror- a hand of a stranger waved back.
You're never alone.
Following the hand, she glanced around the edge of the mirror- her own face didn't look back at her; it was a different sort of her. The first she noticed was her own deep blue eyes had turned a soft green that seemed to envelope you with their gaze. Then, she realized, this was the face of a man grinning back at her, and yet her own soul lived in his eyes.
A flash of something completely different this time- not light, fear or shock- but love as she saw his face. Love between two entirely different worlds, but love all the same.
They simultaneously pressed trembling hands against cold glass, spreading fingers to make room for those that could not touch their own.
"I am you..- and you are me."

Author's Note

Hope you enjoyed!

Reviews

[J.E.F.]

Creepy, chilling, but very enjoyable. It made for a very nice little short story. I think you can make this a little scarier and you've got a nice story to tell at campfires! haha

[Swallowing Zoul]

There are concepts here, which I enjoy in my own writing--that separate space containing the Id of one, and the possibility of another, same but different? This piece has a stroke of that ghostly quality...enough to bring the mind to almost a shiver.

I like this, very much.