The Mirror Game

Prologue: The Rules

Stand facing a mirror in a dark room.

Light a single candle between you and the glass.

Stare into your own eyes without blinking.

Whisper: "Show me what you see."

We were drunk when Lanie suggested it. Just another stupid sleepover dare. None of us expected it to work.

Then again, none of us expected Lanie to disappear either.

Chapter 1: The First Blink

The candle flickered, casting monstrous shadows across my thirteen-year-old face.

"This is dumb," I whispered, but my reflection’s lips kept moving a second longer.

Lanie giggled behind me. "Keep going!"

I repeated the words.

For three breathless minutes, nothing happened. Then my eyes watered—I blinked—

—and in that split second of darkness, the reflection smiled.

Not at me.

At something behind me.

When I spun around, Lanie was gone. The only evidence she’d ever been there? Three parallel scratches down the length of my bedroom mirror.

Chapter 2: The Whispering Glass

Fifteen years later, I still dream about that night.

The police searched for months. They found Lanie’s hair ribbon in the woods behind my house, crusted with something black and sticky that wasn’t blood. The case went cold.

Now a psychology professor, I study the effects of mirror-gazing on the human brain. Academic curiosity, I tell myself. Not guilt.

But last night, my bathroom mirror fogged up while I showered—except the water was ice cold.

When the steam cleared, two words were scrawled across the glass:

"PLAY AGAIN?"

Chapter 3: The Reflection Collectors

The archives held answers I wasn’t ready for.

Dozens of reports spanning centuries:

1692: A Salem girl claims her reflection "stepped out" of a pond and took her place.

1923: An asylum patient scribbles "they wear our faces like coats" before clawing his eyes out.

2011: A Reddit thread documents 37 missing persons cases linked to "mirror games."

The most chilling find? A faded photograph of a Victorian family—with Lanie standing among them, wearing a lace-collared dress, her eyes black pits.

Dated 1897.

Chapter 4: The Last Game

I knew what I had to do.

My old bedroom looked smaller now. The same mirror hung on the wall, the scratches from that night still visible.

Candle lit. Lights off.

"Show me what you see," I whispered.

This time, I didn’t blink.

Minutes passed. Then—

—my reflection tilted its head. Without me.

Behind it, shapes moved in the glass-world version of my room. Dozens of them. All staring at me with my face.

Lanie appeared last, pressing her hands against the glass from the other side. Her mouth formed two words:

"LET IN."

The candle went out.

Epilogue: The New Tenant

They found my apartment empty.

No signs of struggle. Just a cold cup of coffee on the counter.

And every mirror in the house—shattered from the inside out.

Neighbors report strange things now.

Footsteps in my old unit when no one’s there.

Fogged-up windows writing messages at dawn.

And sometimes, if you pass the building at night, you’ll see a face peering from my former bedroom window.

It looks like me.

But it smiles too much.