“The Reflection That Stayed Behind: A Horror Story You’ll Never Forget”

By Waqid Ali

The Reflection That Stayed Behind: A Horror Story You’ll Never Forget”

I always thought mirrors were harmless.

Just smooth glass and silver, reflecting the face you put in front of them. Nothing more. Nothing less.

But I was wrong.

Dead wrong.

The night I smashed the bathroom mirror, I expected seven years of bad luck. Instead, I invited something far worse—something that refuses to leave.

It began on an ordinary Thursday.

I had just moved into a small apartment above an antique bookstore, cheap enough to fit my budget and cozy enough to feel like mine. The bathroom mirror was a heavy old thing, oval-shaped with a frame that looked older than the building itself. Its glass was warped, slightly stained, like it had absorbed too many faces over too many decades.

The first night I brushed my teeth in front of it, I noticed something strange. My reflection didn’t move in sync.

At first, I thought it was exhaustion. I blinked—my reflection blinked half a second later. I tilted my head—it lagged behind. The delay was subtle, but once you saw it, you couldn’t unsee it.

I laughed nervously, convincing myself it was just my imagination. But each night, the delay grew longer. And then came the smile.

I never smiled. But my reflection did. A slow, stretched grin that crawled across its face like something savoring a secret.

On the fourth night, I lost control.

I grabbed the nearest thing—my hairdryer—and smashed the mirror. Glass exploded across the floor in glittering shards. My chest heaved with relief, like I had just won a battle.

But the relief didn’t last.

Because in the jagged remains of the mirror, I still saw it—my reflection. Not fractured, not broken. Whole. And smiling wider than ever.

Worse… it didn’t leave when I did.

I taped a sheet over the mirror and avoided the bathroom as much as I could, but reflections have a way of finding you. The windows. The phone screen. Even puddles on the street.

Everywhere I looked, I saw myself—but not me.

The grin. The lag. The wrongness.

I stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. The world around me became a blur of paranoia. Friends stopped visiting when I couldn’t explain why I had covered every reflective surface in rags and blankets. My landlord threatened eviction, but what could I say? “My reflection is trying to take my place”?

It sounded insane.

But insanity became survival.

Last night, everything changed.

I woke to a sound—a crack, like glass breaking. Heart racing, I stumbled into the bathroom. The sheet had fallen. The mirror was bare again, unbroken, whole, as if I had never touched it.

And in it… my reflection was gone.

The glass was empty.

I leaned closer, breath fogging the surface. “Hello?” My voice trembled. No answer. Just darkness, stretching deeper than any mirror had a right to.

Then, from behind me, I heard breathing.

Slow. Heavy. Mine… but not mine.

When I spun around, the bathroom was empty. But in the mirror, I wasn’t.

The reflection that had stayed behind… had finally stepped out.

And I don’t know if I’m the one still standing here writing this—or if I’m the one smiling back from inside the glass.