I knew something was wrong the moment I stood in front of the mirror.
I’d always felt it, as a child, when I’d catch myself staring into it too long. My mother would scold me, tell me to stop lingering like that. But I couldn’t help it. There was something… off. The reflection was always just a little too perfect, too still. The edges of the room seemed to bend in ways that didn’t quite match what I saw with my eyes.
Tonight, though, it was different.
I stood there, staring at myself, and everything was the same as always. My brown hair fell around my shoulders. My eyes were sharp, too sharp, like I’d been awake for far too long. I studied my face, the way the light hit it just right. But something in the room behind me didn’t feel right.
That’s when I saw it.
In the reflection, standing behind me—was my mother.
Her face was pale, her eyes wide and unblinking, locked on me through the glass. She stood there, still, in that eerie, vacant way she always did when she sleepwalked. I recognized the expression instantly—the same expression I’d seen every time she wandered the house in the dead of night, lost in her trance, her eyes empty like she wasn’t even there.
But she wasn’t there.
She was in the mirror.
My breath caught in my throat. The reflection didn’t move. My mother just stood there, frozen behind me, her lips curling into that strange, empty smile she always wore when sleepwalking.
I reached out a hand, almost as if it was drawn by some invisible force. My fingers brushed the glass.
Cold. So cold.
“Mom?” I whispered, my voice shaking.
No response. Of course, there wasn’t. The reflection didn’t even blink.
That’s when I heard it. A voice, low and distant, like a shadow whispering just at the edge of my mind.
“You know where she’s gone.”
I froze. My heart pounded in my chest, too fast. Too loud. I turned around to look behind me, expecting to see my mother there in the room with me.
But she wasn’t.
The room was empty, except for the darkened corners and the strange, shifting shadows.
“You know where she is.” The voice echoed, louder this time, almost like it was inside my head.
I turned back to the mirror, my legs heavy, my breath quickening. The reflection of my mother didn’t move. She just stood there, smiling, unblinking. The glass shimmered for a moment, rippling as if it was trying to escape something.
“You know where she is,” the voice repeated.
I shook my head, dizzy. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.
But I did.
The shuffle of bare feet on the floor behind me made my skin crawl.
I spun around.
There, in the corner of the room, was my mother. Her nightgown was wrinkled, soaked in sweat, but her face was the same—blank, unseeing. Her eyes didn’t focus on anything, not even me. She just stood there, her mouth pulling into that grotesque smile, her lips stretching wider, stretching like they couldn’t go back.
I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
“Mom…?” My voice was a whisper, a broken thing.
The shadow behind her shifted, just for a second. It twisted, long and thin, like something stretching. But when I blinked, it was gone.
I turned back to my mother. She took a step forward.
“You know,” the voice hissed, right in my ear. “You’ve always known.”
My legs shook. I couldn’t move. The words were too heavy.
You’ve always known.
Her smile widened, that horrible grin that shouldn’t have been possible. I wanted to turn away, to run, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I felt trapped, cornered, like the walls of the room were closing in on me.
Another step. Another.
My mother’s eyes locked onto mine. There was nothing in them. Nothing but that empty, distant look.
You know where she is.
I stumbled backward, my heart crashing in my chest. But I didn’t look away from the mirror. Even though I didn’t want to, even though I knew what was coming.
Her reflection—still smiling, still frozen—wasn’t moving. But the air around me grew cold, the room colder than it had ever been. My body trembled, the hairs on my neck standing on end.
I couldn’t look away.
I couldn’t escape it.
“You know where she is.” The voice was louder now, more insistent, until it became a chorus of whispers, echoing from every corner of the room.
And then I understood.
The reflection wasn’t just showing me my mother. It was showing me myself.
I wasn’t afraid of her. I wasn’t afraid of what I saw in the mirror. I was afraid of what I had become. Of what I was capable of doing.
The truth settled over me, heavy and suffocating.
I wasn’t just watching her. I was becoming her.
