HORROR
Nightmare Reflection — The End
Welcome back, the nightmare continues below, if you dare!
Read part one here
The door to my grandmother’s Victorian-style bedroom closed in my world. I sank to my knees within the mirror dimension. Tears for the loss of my body soaked my cheeks. I knew, freedom from the curse which now held me in this hellish purgatory was impossible. I’d read stories of this happening but never believed it until it happened to me.
Grief tore sobs from me as I realized, I shared my last kiss with Rikki, my boyfriend. My mother and father could never hug me anymore. I’d never eat her shepherd’s pie in front of the TV again. Everything I had and all that I was, gone in an instant. All because I’d challenged whatever haunted my home.
At some point, hours after the horrifying event, the effort of producing tears and the anguish I felt at my now moribund existence lulled me to sleep. I awoke with a start and felt numb to the bone. I had no aches and pains from lying on the hard surface. No residue of sleep leaving me dazed and pulling me back to comfort … nothing.
I looked down at myself hoping to find the soft duvet of my bed. Instead, I saw my apparitional state. My whole nightdress was translucent and I could see right through my trembling hands. It was all true, I was no longer a human. I was a ghost, trapped within a mirror — my mirror.
A beam of light filtering through my mirror peaked my interest. I rose to my invisible feet and looked back into my home. Nothing had changed for now — except it was morning there.
Fresh tears welled, ice cold and fell like individual ghosts through my face. I couldn’t open my curtains and feel the sun on my skin anymore. As the numbness returned, I turned my back on my old life and peered into the gloom.
The world behind the mirror was a vacuous, desolate space measuring a few feet wide. The floor and ceiling were as black and fathomless as crude oil. The walls were an eerie, smooth grey that seemed to pulse with light and dark as if unseen shadows moved within.
I felt so very alone.
There was light in the mysterious corridor-like space. It beamed in through windows along the walls — no, those were not windows at all! If I had a heart, I imagined it’d be racing with adrenaline. The light was emanating from further mirrors, just like the one I was pulled through.
I ran to the nearest and peered inside. The room beyond was a lounge. I smiled as I recognized a kid’s TV show on the LCD screen. A girl and boy, no more than five, sat in pajamas.
They were building houses with Lego and enjoying the cartoon. Their mother came in with bowls in hand and smiled. She crouched, put the bowls in her children’s laps, and watched them begin eating breakfast for a while.
Tears flowed spectrally through my face again. I remembered eating breakfast on the lounge mat like that when I was little. Back in the room, the lady rose to her feet. Her green eyes fell upon the mirror — looking right at me.
I grinned and waved but she didn’t return my gesture. My spirits sank lower than the floor. Of course, she was seeing her reflection in the mirror, never realizing I was imprisoned behind it.
As much as it pained me, I watched until the happy family left the room to begin their day. With no more to see, I gathered myself and approached the next mirror. This one provided a window into a posh conservatory gym. Through its windows, a beautiful garden of bright summer flowers bloomed.
A young gentleman wearing only a pair of gym shorts entered and stretched his arms. He sat on his weight bench and began bicep curls, showing me his rippling muscles. For a few long moments, I forgot my predicament as I imagined spending a night in bed with such a hulking figure of masculinity. If only I could escape through this mirror and be with him. Then his session ended and he left me alone in my solitary confinement once more.
Moving on again, I found the next mirror was pretty dark. With my nose pressed to the cold surface, I was able to peer inside. I could tell wherever this one resided, it was night time by the darkness at the single window.
This was a bedroom, lit by a single bedside lamp. A lady’s room judging by the toiletries on the dressing table and the underwear on the pink bedspread.
Nothing seemed to be happening, I made to move on and flinched away as the bedroom door flew open. My attention snapped back to the dully lit bedroom beyond the mirror. I was in time to see the owner of the room stagger inside.
She was a lady with long blonde hair and judging by her form-fitting evening dress, she’d been out for the night. A tall man entered behind her, he seized her by the neck and hurled her across the bed. Not stopping there, he grabbed her shoulder and slapped her face. She recoiled back onto the bed and cowered from him.
“NO! Leave her alone!” I screamed.
My words never made it into that room of course. There was nothing I could do but watch him attack her until he grew tired. My last view was of the poor woman lying motionless on the bed as he turned out the light.
Full of emotion, I turned away and slumped against the wall. I couldn’t spend eternity watching horrible things like that every time I peered through a mirror into my old world. I knew then, I had to either get out of the world behind the mirrors or properly kill myself. But how? Not even a compass could lead the way out of this mirror dimension of hell!
Was there even a way to accomplish the latter. I mean how does a ghost commit suicide? Clueless, I approached the mirror I was dragged through and peered inside once more.
A smile flickered upon my moribund face as I remembered my grandmother living in that room with the Victorian wardrobes and bedstead. She died a few years ago, yet my parents hadn’t the heart or energy to remove her old furniture or redecorate the room.
I placed a hand on my side of the mirror and found it frigid and solid. Anger welled from my spectral stomach and I screamed as I punched and kicked at it. I felt no pain being devoid of flesh and yet the wall felt as hard as impenetrable stone.
How odd, I thought. I’m a ghost and yet I can’t get through the wall. Ghosts can pass through anything, right? I knew that was right and it pissed me off because I couldn’t get out!
“Damn you! I demand you get back here and free me!” My scream echoed around my prison, deafening and numbing in its way of increasing the feeling of being trapped. “Let me out!”
“Screaming won’t do you any good,” answered an old, dry voice from some distance away.
I heard echoing footsteps drawing closer. They were coming from nowhere. No that was silly, they had to be coming from somewhere. Moving toward them, I realized my corridor curved around to somewhere unseen.
An old man in an old fashioned grey suit came into view. He was bent below the neck and was in need of a barber. His white beard reached the black belt at his waist, his tangled hair tumbled below his shoulder. What skin of his face I could see, was full of wrinkles like the valleys of a fleshy mountain range. Despite his age, his hazel eyes seemed bright and young although filled with hopelessness.
“You — you aren’t dead!” I stammered, realizing I couldn’t see through him.
Astute, aren’t you,” he said, still walking toward me.
“Don’t patronize me. I’m having a very bad day!”
“Hmm, I noticed.”
“Shut up!” I stomped back to my mirror and peered through, wondering if I was being missed yet — I wasn’t.
The old man had stopped a few yards away. He stood watching me with great patience.
“What the hell is this place? Who are you?” I demanded to know.
“When I lived out there, I was Alfred. In here, I’m a nobody as you are now.” He reached out a bony hand, gave a flourish, and to my astonishment produced two silver, chintz chairs from thin air. “Here, sit a while,”
“Thanks. I refuse to be nobody, I’m Claire Yates and I always will be.” My ghostly body fell right through the chair and I thumped onto the apparently impenetrable floor. “Err! This could get seriously annoying!”
He chuckled, “Very well. You keep being Claire then. She obviously liked you. I watched her take your body and life when she transposed herself,”
“I do wish you’d stop being so cryptic.” I climbed out of and glared at the useless chair. Returning to the wall, I slumped under my mirror instead.
“Sorry, been alone a long time. Difficult to articulate properly.” Alfred yawned and his head lulled.
“Don’t you dare go to sleep! What is this place?
“Sorry … erm, what year was it when you came in?” Alfred shook himself and looked hopeful for an answer.
“It’s April 2019.”
“No wonder I’m tired. I was thirty-four when I came in here in 1899. That’s one-hundred-and-twenty years ago now.” Alfred rubbed his face and became saddened.
“So, you’re telling me, you’re one-hundred-and-fifty-four years old?” I couldn’t believe my ears, yet my eyes told me this man wasn’t lying by his appearance alone.
“Indeed, I am. What a pity. Poor Mable must have been terribly lonely in the shop without me.” Alfred shook his head. “I used to sell all kinds of furniture you know. I especially enjoyed selling mirrors. Always knew they had a mystery about them. Never intended to become part of that mystery though, of course.”
“Very nice story, I’m sure.” I sighed, feeling more frustrated at my situation by the minute. “What is this place and how do we get out?”
“This is an infinity mirror dimension.”
“Not very infinite is it?” I felt myself scoff at the suggestion, this place was tiny, not infinite like a galaxy.
“Get up and start walking that way.” Alfred pointed a bony hand back the way he came. “If you keep going and don’t deviate you’ll come back here from that direction.” Alfred pointed the other way.
“Really? So this is a circular room?”
“No, Claire. It’s shaped like a figure eight, a lemniscate, an infinity symbol. A dimension of that shape goes on forever along with those unfortunate to live within.”
I got up and ran down the curving corridor, flashing passed mirror window after window. Then I noticed a crossroads in the corridor but swept by keeping in one direction as I was told to. Around another sweeping bend, I found myself at the crossroads once more. Then I rushed passing what must have been the fiftieth window and arrived back at my own mirror and the old man reclined in his chair.
“See?” he said with a wan smile.
“Yes, I bloody well see!” I felt so mad. Not with him specifically but with my situation. It was so bloody unfair to be trapped in here. “How do the mirrors fit in?” I asked, wanting to know everything. To see if I could find a way out.
“A single mirror can never be connected to an infinity dimension. Only when several identical mirrors are cast does the dimension appear — connecting them all together. This one had one hundred and fifty such mirrors. Only forty-three remain, I counted them myself dozens of times.”
“What happened to the others?” I asked although I felt sure I knew.
“All mirrors break or get broken over time. Once the mirror no longer exists, its portal to the dimension is lost as well.”
“When they’re all broken?”
“A glorious event indeed! Only then can we finally leave this eternal nightmare and pass on to heaven or the next life. So long as mirrors exist, we live here for infinity, never dying, never truly alive.”
“Speak for your bloody self. I’m a sodding ghost!” I pointed out my translucent hands.
“I had noticed.” Alfred chuckled. “Feisty aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“Anyway. You see, a mirror dimension is nothing without souls. Some witches and warlocks over time possessed the ability to open mirror dimensions and banish demons and even human souls within. When that happens the infinity dimension forms a space such as this one.”
“Right, so that thing which came out of my mirror and dragged me in — was the demon of this dimension?”
“Her name is Peggy. She was the daughter of a witch when our mirrors were being made in Victorian times. Her mother’s coven did terrible things to Peggy, torturing and performing curses upon her to practice their powers. At some point, as she grew up they acquired their mirror to this dimension.
“During one of their horrendous rituals, Peggy took on a demonic presence and began to kill the coven of witches. Her own mother used a banishing spell and locked her in the mirror.”
“For many years she lived here alone as a wraith, growing further insane the whole time. Yet she was still very powerful. As the years passed she learned to manipulate the mirrors. One day she reached out and pulled me inside.”
“She failed to escape that time but I knew she could set me free. I asked daily to be released. She ignored my pleas and left me trapped in here.”
Alfred wiped his eyes. “That was how it was until she rediscovered the way to manipulate the mirrors. She had watched you for years until the day she grabbed you. As I say, she seemed to love the way you look. You see, she is now Claire in your world and you are nobody in here with me.”
I was shocked by the revelations as to what was happening to me. If I had a body, I was sure I’d be spinning and nauseous. Without one, I was still stunned but I felt empty. “So, will Peggy return?”
“Would you, if you got your body back with a whole new world to monopolize out there, my dear?” Alfred rose and caused the chairs to disappear.
“No. I guess not.” I felt tears falling through my face and failed to wipe them away.
“Cheer up, we’re going to be here for a long while yet. I’ll be sleeping by my mirror if you need me.” Alfred nodded his head causing his beard to flutter and walked away.
I laid myself out on the floor for uncountable minutes, trying desperately to cling on to the memories of my life. My job at the hair salon and my love of gossiping with the clients. Those romantic dinner dates with Rikki, I felt sure he was on the cusp of proposing to me. That thought alone made me smile, if only for a second.
Of course, he’d never be able to propose to me now. We were going on holiday to Costa Rica in September. I wouldn’t be on that plane either. In this mirror dimension, I felt time would be immeasurable and my memories would cease to exist. I certainly wouldn’t be making any new ones.
It was a flash of light that brought me back to the moment again. Rising to my translucent feet, I realized the light was coming from my mirror. I peered into my grandmother’s Victorian bedroom and gasped.
There was Rikki with his handsome bob of blonde hair, dimpled cheeks. He had on tight-fitting jeans and a tribal print T-shirt. He looked scared and concerned as he entered the room. I watched him pass the bed and stop before the mirror.
“Rikki! I’m in here!” I banged on the glass, tears flowing through my face again. I knew I would have been breathless if I had lungs. I felt breathless without them. “Rikki!”
He could neither hear nor see me. His eyes roamed the room and fell on my silver necklace upon the floor. With intrigue written on his features, he bent to retrieve it. Then I walked into the room — at least Peggy did in my body.
Seeing her impersonating me was the most horrible thing I’d ever witnessed. What she’d done to me made me feel sick to my non-existent stomach. She’d dressed my body in a horrendous green miniskirt and vest.
Worse… my face was caked in way too much makeup. She was making me look like a right tart in front of Rikki. He turned and flinched away from her. I could tell he knew something was wrong with the ‘me’ he was seeing.
I turned and pressed my ear to the glass but could hear nothing. Rikki was yelling something, he held up my necklace and looked terrified.
Peggy replied with a swinging fist and advanced on him. She forced herself on and kissed him in the vilest mouthy way I’ve ever seen. It went deeper than tonsil tennis and was almost a full-on lung lock.
Ugh! Get off my damned boyfriend!” I screamed banging on the mirror again.
I was pleased to see Rikki push her off. He was not happy. He seemed reviled by her.
Peggy was lucky I couldn’t get out. I’d have murdered her myself even if it would mean killing my own body. “Leave him alone!” I screamed uselessly as she shoved him down on the bed and mounted him.
Peggy tore at his T-shirt and belt buckle as she thrust her lips on his again.
Rikki wrestled with her like his life depended on it. Somehow he got his feet beneath and thrust her off the bed. She stumbled off the bed straight at the mirror.
Her head crashed into and went right through the mirror.
I was stunned at seeing my own head appear through the glass and disappear into my spectral face.
“Shit!” I yelled, shaking from the shock.
I grabbed my body and hauled it and Peggy back inside the mirror. Everything flashed silver and Peggy screamed like a banshee. She began swinging at me but couldn’t hit a ghost. I on the other hand could touch her for some unknown but fortuitous reason.
It felt good to slam her into the wall and yet terrifying to stare into my own eyes, demented by the demon wraith occupying them. “I demand you return my body and free me!”
Peggy let out a mortal scream.
It hurt my ghost ears and forced me to retreat. I hit the wall where my mirror was and felt my arm pass through. I could get out now. Hiding a smile, I understood Peggy wouldn’t let me leave.
Already she was conjuring a way to trap me again. Eerie green light pulsed within her fingers — my corporeal hands. I ran at and shouldered her into the wall, driving the air from her lungs and dumping her on the ground. Not waiting, I spun, ran and leapt at my mirror.
Rikki was stood staring at the mirror in disbelief. I reappeared out of nowhere like an Olympic high-jumper. He screamed as I slammed into his chest and knocked him flat on the bed.
“Oof, what in the hell is going on in here?” he gasped, his sexy, deep voice shaking with shock.
I rolled off him and the bed, landing on the floor with a thud. I smiled at my hands. I had my body back and I was wearing my nightie from last night. I regained my feet and ran, laughing, from the room. In my bedroom, I grabbed my hockey stick and returned to my grandmother’s old room.
“Claire? What the hell — ” Rikki covered his head and ducked.
I swung the hockey stick with all the venom I could muster, “This time seven years bad luck is well-bloody-worth it!” I slammed the stick into the mirror.
The glass smashed, flying across the room with every strike. I didn’t stop my assault until the mirror was lying on the carpet in a million shards of glass and wood. I thought I heard Peggy scream as I annihilated the evil artifact but I’d never know for sure now the portal was gone.
“Claire, what happened?” Rikki asked again having taken the stick from my shaking hands. His clothes twinkled with mirror fragments as he looked into my eyes and smiled. “At least you’re you again now.”
I found myself laughing, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, sweetheart.” I looked at the debris around my toes. “My reflection really was a nightmare though.”
Now we’ve reached …
The End
I hope you enjoyed my fiendish horror story Nightmare Reflection. Why not find something else to read within my menagerie. This story was originally published there October 26, 2021.
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