The Bedroom Mirror

When I was eight years old, my grandparents moved into a new house. It sat on 13 acres, had two buildings beside the house, and was in a rural area between the two towns that she commuted to on a daily basis. The house had come with some of the previous owner's furniture, and Grandma and Grandpa were delighted with what they had purchased I was in Seattle with my parents at the time, and wasn't there for the move. When I returned, Grandma had already selected a room for me.

The walls were painted lavender and the floors we hardwood. The air carried the scent of perfume that was faint but pleasant. The windows overlooked the new property and gave me a view of the encroaching forest. However, the most dominating thing about the room was the large, wall- to - wall mirror parallel to my lengthwise bed.

That night, Grandma and I had our usual routine. We sat in her bedroom, which was across from my own, talking with one another and eating some sort of fruit. At some point i fell asleep between she and Grandpa, but I been transferred to my bedroom and tucked in.

I awoke facing the wall. My arm was asleep, pinned beneath me.To relieve the pins and needles, i turned and faced the mirror.

It took me a moment to notice something odd. My mind picked up on the strangeness only as the shoulders in what should have been a mirror image shook, I was seeing my back. The me in the mirror rolled over to face me, peaceful in sleep. I stared, my young mind raking through everything i knew to try to put together a reasonable picture of what i was seeing.

Suddenly, the peace left the mirror's me and the face sprang to a look that has haunted my dreams. Bloodshot eyes with no irises, there was a dark maliciousness to the face. The pupils were the size of coins and were somewhat glazed with a milk film that made it seek as if the outer casing of the eyeball was sloughing off. The nose was pushed up like a pug's, but cracks were formed in the wrinkles of the skin around it, as though the face was made of very old leather. The mouth was monstrous. Chapped lips were pulled back over blackened gums and jagged yellow teeth in a smile that stretched literally, from ear to ear.

Terrified, I sprung from my bed, but I felt as though a hand was clapped around my throat, for no sound escaped. The mirror's me sprang from it's bed too, revealing beneath the covers blood stained sheets and unnameable organs that had sloughed out of a completely uncovered and now empty chest cavity, a wound that was surrounded by claw marks.

As inched towards the door, I willing myself to move despite my horror. The mirror's me remained in place, following me with those terrible eyes. As my fingers brushed the doorknob, the mirror's me lunged, passing through the glass and throwing itself towards me with a scream much deeper than any i had ever heard. Blood stained fingers reached over to grab me, but i flung open my bedroom door, and escaped into the hallway, Slamming the door shut behind me 

The next morning, I broke the mirror. I told Grandma that it had been an accident and she believed me. She offered to buy me an new one, and I quickly turned them down. I also switched rooms.

That was 20 years ago. Last week my Grandma died in her sleep. She had moved herself and her stuff into that room because she could no longer sleep in the bed she and Grandpa had shared for 50 years without him beside her. Besides herself, she had moved several of her belongings including her bed covers, her night stand and a mirror that had came with the house.