My Reflection Started Blinking First

The first time it happened, I blamed exhaustion.

I’d been working late for weeks, sleeping in fragments, living on coffee and half-remembered dreams. When I stood in the bathroom at 2:11 AM, staring at my own face under the harsh yellow light, it didn’t feel strange that my eyes burned or that the reflection looked slightly off. Fatigue plays tricks, everyone says that.

I blinked.

My reflection blinked a moment later.

I frowned, leaning closer to the mirror. The delay was subtle—barely a heartbeat—but once I noticed it, my stomach tightened. I raised my hand slowly. The reflection followed, but again, not quite in sync. Like a video buffering.

I laughed nervously and turned away.

The mirror laughed back.

I froze.

The sound was wrong—too close, too intimate. I spun around. The reflection had stopped laughing, mouth settling back into a neutral line, eyes watching me carefully. Studying me.

“You’re tired,” I whispered.

The reflection smiled.

I didn’t.

I stumbled backward, heart slamming against my ribs. The smile lingered too long, stretching wider than my face would allow, teeth pressing together as if holding something back. Then, slowly, it relaxed, and the reflection returned to copying me perfectly.

When I moved, it moved. When I blinked, it blinked.

In sync.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Over the next few days, I avoided mirrors. I brushed my teeth staring at the sink, shaved by touch alone, covered reflective surfaces with towels and old shirts. I told myself that if I didn’t look, it couldn’t happen again.

But reflections are everywhere.

Windows. Phone screens. Puddles on the street after rain.

On the fourth day, I caught my reflection in the dark screen of my laptop. It tilted its head slightly before I did.

I slammed the laptop shut.

That night, I dreamed of mirrors lining a long hallway, each one showing a different version of me. Some were smiling. Some were screaming. One stood completely still while I moved, watching with patient anticipation.

When I woke up, there were fingerprints on my bathroom mirror.

On the inside.

I tried to tell someone. My sister laughed it off, told me to get rest, maybe see a doctor. My friend suggested stress-induced hallucinations. The word psychosis hovered unspoken between us.

I almost believed them.

Until the reflection started blinking first.

I stood in front of the mirror, counting silently. One. Two. Three.

The reflection blinked.

I hadn’t.

A slow, deliberate blink, like a signal.

“What do you want?” I asked.

The reflection’s lips moved.

No sound came out of my mouth.

You’re tired, it mouthed. Let me help.

I staggered back, knocking into the counter. The reflection stayed calm, eyes soft, reassuring in a way that made my skin crawl.

You don’t need to do this anymore, it continued silently. I can take over.

“No,” I said aloud. “You’re not real.”

The reflection frowned.

For the first time, it looked confused.

Then angry.

The glass rippled like disturbed water. My reflection pressed its palm against the mirror, and I felt it—pressure against my own hand, though I hadn’t moved.

The bathroom light flickered.

“I won’t let you out,” I said, though my voice shook.

The reflection leaned closer, its breath fogging the glass from the other side.

You already are.

That was when I noticed the cracks.

Hairline fractures spiderwebbing across the mirror, spreading outward from where it touched. Each crack pulsed faintly, like veins beneath skin.

I smashed the mirror that night.

Glass exploded across the bathroom, shards scattering like ice. I stood panting amid the wreckage, hands bleeding, reflection fractured into a thousand distorted pieces.

Each shard smiled.

I screamed and backed away, slipping on the tiles. One shard slid closer to my foot, reflecting an eye that blinked slowly, deliberately.

The landlord replaced the mirror the next day.

I didn’t ask for one.

Things escalated after that.

Reflections started appearing where they shouldn’t. In the dark window of the bus, my reflection waved before I noticed it. In the spoon at a café, it mouthed words I couldn’t hear. In my phone camera, it stared straight into me, unblinking, while I blinked again and again.

I began to lose time.