The Man in the Mirror Blinks First

No one ever believes Thomas when he tells them how it started. Maybe because it sounds like a metaphor. Or madness. But for him, it was Tuesday, 7:42 a.m., standing half-asleep in front of his bathroom mirror with a toothbrush drooping from his mouth.

That was the first time the reflection blinked — and he didn’t.

He didn’t notice it at first, just a strange tug in his brain like a missed step on a staircase. He stared at the mirror for a second, eyes foggy, mouth foaming, toothbrush stalled.

Then it blinked again. Deliberately. Slowly.

And he knew, without understanding how, that he hadn't blinked.

“Okay,” he muttered, chuckling nervously. “Weird dream.”

He reached forward, touched the mirror. Cool, smooth glass. The reflection mimicked him.

For a while, it behaved. The rest of the morning unfolded without incident. He showered, shaved, and left for work, blaming sleep-deprivation and maybe a little leftover weed from the night before.

But the next morning, it was back.

This time, the reflection didn’t wait. As soon as Thomas stepped into the bathroom, his mirror self was already looking at him — wide-eyed, grinning just a little too long. Thomas blinked in surprise.

And the mirror self didn’t.

It kept staring.

He backed out slowly, heart hammering. He didn’t brush his teeth that day. Didn't even shower. The idea of turning his back on the mirror terrified him in a way he couldn’t explain.

By Thursday, he had started avoiding mirrors altogether.

He covered the bathroom mirror with a towel. Turned his phone camera around whenever it caught his face. Stopped looking at storefront reflections. He felt ridiculous — but he also felt watched.

Reflections shouldn't watch you.

His coworkers noticed. “You look like hell,” his boss muttered. “Everything okay, Thomas?”

He lied. “Just not sleeping well.”

They didn’t press. People rarely do when you're a quiet, unassuming office guy. They assume sadness, stress, maybe a breakup. But Thomas wasn’t sad. He was unsettled. The world felt off-kilter — mirrored, almost.

Then came Saturday.

Thomas forgot about the hallway mirror. It had been a gift from his aunt, an old ornate thing with a frame shaped like twisting ivy and sharp brass edges. He passed it every day, and that day, arms full of laundry, he saw himself again.

Only the reflection wasn’t carrying anything.

It just stood there, smiling.

Thomas dropped the laundry, his eyes locked on the mirror. “What… the hell are you?” he whispered.

The reflection opened its mouth. Wide. Unnaturally wide.

And then it mouthed the word: “YOU.”

Thomas ran. He left the clothes on the floor and locked himself in the bedroom. He didn’t sleep that night. Every surface became suspicious — glossy wood, black screen, dark windows. Anything reflective felt alive. Watching. Waiting.

When Sunday came, he tried breaking the bathroom mirror.

Took a hammer to it, swung hard. The glass shattered into a thousand crooked teeth.

But each shard still held his reflection.

And each reflection — every tiny piece — moved independently.

Some smiled. Some frowned. One winked.

Thomas screamed, dropped the hammer, and backed away. “What do you want from me?”

The reflections didn't answer. But they didn’t vanish either.

That night, he dreamed he was trapped inside the mirror. Everything was reversed. The air smelled sterile, like Windex. His footsteps echoed wrong. And worst of all — the real Thomas, the one from this side of the mirror, was walking away.

By Monday, the reflections had spread.

The screen of his TV flickered, and when he passed it, his face didn’t match his movements. His phone camera turned on by itself. Even puddles on the sidewalk reflected distorted versions of him — sometimes younger, sometimes older, sometimes dead.

His own face was turning against him.

He tried calling someone. His mother. An old college friend. A priest, even. But every time he tried, his phone glitched — showing his reflection grinning, lips moving like it was mocking him in silence.

He started writing notes instead.

If I disappear, it’s the mirrors.

They aren’t just reflections. They’re doors.

Don’t trust anything with glass.

He taped the notes around the house. On the fridge. The microwave. His laptop. Places he might forget and accidentally look. But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t hide from reflections forever.

The final straw came Wednesday night.

He walked past his closet door — mirrored front, sliding — and saw not one reflection, but three.

All of them smiling.

One raised a hand and waved.

Thomas turned to run — and his real self didn’t move. The reflection stepped forward instead. Toward him.

From the inside.

Glass cracked. A spiderweb ripple danced across the closet mirror as a pale hand pushed through — not real flesh, but a cold, silvered version of it. Then an arm. A face. His face.

But wrong.

Colder. Sharper. And smiling wider than any human mouth could stretch.

Thomas screamed, grabbed the towel rack, and swung it like a club. The mirror fractured again — but the thing didn’t retreat. It laughed. Silent, rippling laughter, like sound underwater.

He ran. Out of the house. Into the night.

Down the street, past windows that flickered with reflections not his own. Car mirrors flashed strange, ghostly versions of him. He reached the gas station and burst inside, shaking, pale.

“Help me,” he whispered to the attendant. “Please. They’re in the mirrors.”

The clerk looked at him. Then behind him.

“…You okay, buddy?”

Thomas turned. Behind him, in the glass door, his reflection stared. It wasn't moving. Wasn't blinking. Just smiling.

Wide. Still. And patient.

The attendant reached for the phone, eyes narrowed. “I think I better call someone.”

But when Thomas looked again, the reflection was gone.

Now he doesn’t know if he escaped. Or if he’s still inside.

He lives in a small motel now. No mirrors. No TV. Just one window, and he keeps it curtained. He writes everything down, trying to make sense of it. He thinks maybe… maybe the real Thomas didn’t survive. Maybe he is the reflection now. Maybe he crossed over.

Sometimes, he forgets which side he’s on.

But when he dares — just for a second — to peek into a spoon, or a glass of water… he sees something looking back.

And sometimes it blinks before he does.

He doesn’t smile anymore.

But his reflection always does.