Mirror Image

I was finally in, I cracked it. I had hacked his webcam, now I would know what all the noise was about in the middle of the night. Ever since the new guy moved in upstairs, the apartment right above mine, there were noises once every month that I couldn’t figure out. That had been six weeks ago, and the guy just now got signed up for the internet. I knew it was his Wi-Fi because it was the only new one even though the name was vague and meaningless. I hacked into his network, and it wasn’t much from there to hack into his webcam.

I didn’t know for sure when to be watching for what was causing the noise. There was no detectible pattern so far as for which day of the month the noise happened. It was always in the middle of the night but not at a specific hour, not on the full moon, or half moon or new moon, or anything like that. How would I describe the noise? It starts as a dripping sound, like a leaking faucet into a sink full of water. A plunk, plunk, plunk. And then it gets faster and faster, and heavier until it sounds like a waterfall or a roaring river. It’s loud, and then it just… stops. And then a new noise starts, there is a shattering sound and then a whir like a movie reel starting up. Then the worst part, it’s like the sound of something moaning or choking but there is a rhythm to it, almost like it’s a language of some sort. I don’t know what kind of movies that guy is watching up there, but it doesn’t sound normal. I don’t know when the noises will happen again but I’m going to watch and record his webcam until I figure it out.

After a few days of watching this guy get up and work out for several hours and eat cereal when he was home, I was getting downright bored. Then I passed out at my desk one night waiting for something to happen. I was awakened by the sound. Plunk, plunk, plunk. I opened my eyes and groaned. Thinking at first that I had left my own faucet on, I started to stretch and get ready to go shut it off but then I remembered the webcam. I shook my computer mouse to wake up my screen. The webcam footage was on full screen, so I was looking right at the side of this guy. He was naked and staring at the mirror in his living room. Or it had been a mirror, but right now it was… melting. Slowly, in a brain breaking display the glass of the mirror wavered like liquid as it dripped onto a puddle in the floor. It got faster and heavier. The liquid didn’t seem to run out, it just became more like a television screen, like someone was videotaping right at a waterfall or something, water ran down and dripped out onto the floor. I looked up because the corner where the mirror sat was right above where I was sitting. I could hear it coming from upstairs, but I could also hear it through the webcam.

The guy stood there staring at the mirror, frozen. Then he walked toward it until he was stepping into the water. It seemed to wash him of his flesh and expose something else entirely. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what I was seeing but he got smaller, and was blue or silver or some sort of in between color that I hadn’t ever seen before and couldn’t describe in a million years. He was shiny and slick and still naked but he didn’t have the same parts as before. He looked mostly human still except for his color and lack of correct anatomical parts, like a mannequin or a child’s doll.

Then he stepped back out of the mirror and turned back toward it raising his hand, the water stopped. In its place was still not the regular glass of the mirror, but a black glass. It shattered and then the whirring sound started. The mirror was blank but not black somehow, it whirred until it exposed a room like my living room area. Our neighbor Mrs. Tomas was standing there also transformed. The weird choking sound started and I realized they were speaking to one another. She and he spoke a while longer then it switched over to another apartment in our building, he spoke to another of our neighbors in this strange and disturbing language for a while. On like that it went through a few people and then the landlord. Our landlord was one of those… things? Our landlord, Frank, held up a photo and I covered my mouth to muffle a scream. He was holding up a photo of me. The guy nodded and pointed down toward his apartment floor. They were planning something and I was next. I jumped up and my chair turned over.

The things on my screen heard the sound and looked down, the guy upstairs looked over at his webcam and smiled. Then he held up his hand and waved, the mirror in front of him changed and in it I could see my own living room and the back of me that faced the mirror in my own living room. The guy turned and went toward the mirror and then through it. I spun around and he was coming through the mirror in my apartment.