The Reflection Room

Intro:

Truth hides in the darkest places — and sometimes, the scariest thing you can face is your own reflection. “The Reflection Room” explores what happens when someone dares to uncover what should have stayed hidden.

They called it The Reflection Room at Bellridge Asylum — a locked, windowless cell where patients were sent when they refused to speak. The staff used to whisper it like a threat:

“No windows. No lights. Just you… and yourself.”

After the asylum shut down in the late '80s, the building sat empty, swallowed by trees and ivy, rotting slowly from the inside. Most of the town forgot about it — but the kids didn’t. We turned it into a dare.

If you were stupid or desperate enough to prove something, you snuck in and sat alone in the Reflection Room. That was the challenge. Lights off. Door shut. Ten minutes with your “true self.” Most came out laughing, scared but unharmed.

But not Nathan.

My older brother lived for dares. He was the kind of person who had to be the loudest, the bravest — the most reckless. I think part of him liked the danger. Maybe it made him feel real. More alive.

The night he disappeared, he’d had another fight with our parents. It was always the same script — his grades, his drinking, how he didn’t care about anything except “showing off.” That night, he stormed out, slamming the door so hard it cracked the frame. I should’ve gone after him. I wanted to.

But I didn’t.

His friends said he laughed the whole way to Bellridge. The place had been padlocked for years, but they found a broken window in the east wing. They filmed the whole thing. You can still find clips online — Nathan climbing through a broken frame, brushing off glass, grinning like it was all a joke.

They found his phone on the floor of the Reflection Room the next day. Cracked. The screen stuck on a ten-minute video of static. You can hear him breathing. Then there’s a faint shadow — just behind the grainy gray — that moves.

It looked like him.

Only Nathan never came back.

The official story was “misadventure.” Maybe he slipped, hit his head, wandered out, got lost in the woods. But they never found his body. And no one ever went back inside that room.

Except me.

Two years later, I still couldn't stop thinking about him. Not just about what happened, but about how I let him go. I knew him better than anyone. I should’ve seen what he was carrying. All that pain, all that noise — he used it like armor.

So one cold October night, I broke in.

I didn’t film it. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to prove anything — I just wanted answers.

The asylum felt like it had been waiting. The halls groaned under my weight. Paint peeled in long strips like shed skin. I moved fast, flashlight trembling in my hand. But when I found the Reflection Room, I stopped.

It was just a door. Nothing special. Peeling red paint. Rusted handle. Someone had carved initials into the wood — most were too faded to read. But one caught my eye.

N.M.

I opened the door.

It shut behind me, fast. The noise echoed like a gunshot. I spun around — but there was no handle on the inside.

Total darkness swallowed me.

At first, I thought it was just the dark messing with my head. My breathing felt too loud. I kept hearing the shuffle of feet — mine, I told myself. But then… I heard something else.

Breathing.

Not mine.

Then a voice.

“Why did you leave me?”

Nathan’s voice.

It wasn’t an echo. It was too real. Too close.

I backed up, heart slamming against my ribs — and hit something solid. Not a wall. Cold. Smooth. A mirror.

But I couldn’t see it. Not until I touched it. Suddenly, it was just there, like it had always been.

And in it —

I saw myself.

Sort of.

He looked like me. Same build. Same face. But wrong.

Too still.

Too pale.

Smiling.

His smile stretched too wide, like it hurt. His eyes were hollow — not just in expression, but empty, like someone had scooped him out from the inside.

He raised his hand.

So did I.

Our fingers met the glass.

Then — he moved first.

He pressed harder, smile widening until it split at the edges. His hand began to sink into the glass. Not pass through — like the surface was turning to liquid, rippling. He leaned closer.

“Your turn,” he hissed.

I tried to run, but something grabbed my arms. I screamed — but there was no sound. The glass shattered inward. I felt it cut me, pull me. The mirror yawned open like a mouth.

Then —

Nothing.

They found me the next morning.

Wandering barefoot through the woods behind the asylum. Clothes torn. Blood on my hands.

When they asked my name, I told them:

“Nathan.”

They believed me. My parents cried. Said I looked “different,” but grief changes people.

They never questioned it.

But I see the truth now.

I know what happened in that room.

I didn’t make it out.

He did.

And every time I pass a mirror, I swear I can still see him — my real self — staring back.

Waiting.