The Mirror That Remembers

The Mirror That Remembers

It was just an old mirror. That’s what I kept telling myself.

I found it at a dusty antique shop downtown, tucked away in the corner behind stacks of broken lamps and chipped china. Its frame was black wood, carved with patterns so intricate they almost looked alive. The glass was cloudy, but something about it pulled me in.

The shopkeeper caught me staring.

“You don’t want that one,” he muttered. His voice was sharp, but his eyes betrayed fear.

“Why not?” I asked.

He hesitated. “Because it doesn’t show what you are. It shows who you really are.”

I laughed, thinking he was trying to spook me into paying more. But I bought it anyway.

The mirror looked ordinary when I hung it in my apartment. Dusty, yes, but harmless. That night, though, I noticed something strange.

When I brushed my teeth and glanced at the mirror, my reflection didn’t move with me. My head tilted left. The reflection tilted right—just a fraction slower, as if catching up.

I told myself I was tired. Shadows and imagination.

But the next evening, it happened again.

By the third night, I stopped brushing it off.

I stood in front of the mirror and smiled. My reflection smiled too—except its teeth weren’t mine. They were sharper, jagged, almost animalistic.

My stomach dropped. I blinked. The reflection was normal again.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Days passed, and the mirror showed me things I didn’t want to see.

Once, I watched myself step away, but my reflection stayed put. It stared directly at me, its eyes darker, hollower. When I leaned closer, it whispered something I couldn’t hear, lips moving silently against the glass.

Another time, I saw myself drenched in blood. My reflection’s hands were red, dripping onto the frame, even though mine were clean.

I tried covering it with a sheet, but every morning the cloth was gone, folded neatly on the floor.

I decided to take the mirror back to the shop. But when I returned, the shop was boarded up, the windows shattered. A sign read Closed Forever.

I asked around. Neighbors said the place had been abandoned for years.

That night, the mirror was waiting for me in my hallway, though I had left it in the bedroom.

The final straw came last Sunday.

I woke to the sound of glass tapping. In the dim light, I saw movement inside the mirror. My reflection wasn’t lying in bed. It was standing at the edge of the frame, grinning.

I sat up, paralyzed. Slowly, it raised its hand, and for the first time, I felt the glass press back against mine, cold and wet.

“Do you remember?” it whispered, but the voice came from inside my own head.

And suddenly I did.

Memories crashed back—things I had buried deep. The fights. The violence. The night I hurt someone so badly I pretended it never happened. My reflection smiled wider, as if satisfied.

Because the mirror didn’t just show who you were. It remembered everything you tried to forget.

This morning, I smashed it with a hammer. Shards scattered across the floor. Relief washed over me—until I realized every single fragment still held my reflection.

Each one smiled back at me, jagged and broken, whispering in unison:

“We remember. And so do you.”

© 2025 by [Talha Maroof]