The Mirror That Screams

I should’ve never opened the attic. But isn’t that how all horror begins—an impulse driven not by curiosity but by disobedience?

My mother used to whisper, "Never go upstairs when the house cries." And I remember how, even as a child, the house sometimes… whimpered. Wooden floors moaned beneath no feet. The chandelier rattled when no breeze passed. But the attic, oh God—the attic sobbed.

And I listened.

I was thirty-two when I returned to that ancestral house, decayed by rain and silence. The neighbors whispered things—they always did. That my mother died screaming, clawing her eyes out. That no priest stayed beyond dusk. That the mirror in the attic—yes, that cursed relic—showed you not your face, but your sin.

I didn’t believe them. I was a rational man then. Professorial. Clinical. I’d spent my life dissecting myths like tumors, reducing demons to disorders, curses to cause and effect.

But I forgot the oldest irony: truth wears the skin of madness, and reason is the most elegant liar.

The attic stank of wet wood and forgotten prayers. Dust blanketed everything like ash after some invisible fire. I stepped slowly, holding my breath, not from fear—but reverence. It was the only place untouched by time or cleaning hands. A tomb above a house of the dead.

Then I saw it.

The mirror stood ten feet tall, encased in a black wooden frame, carved with faces—some weeping, some biting their tongues, others with their eyes gouged. The glass had no dust. It gleamed, inviting, almost too clean. A sheet lay folded beside it, as if someone had just undressed it.

I should’ve walked away.

But some dark consent within me whispered: Look.

So I did.

And the moment I gazed into that glass, I understood what hell might be.

It wasn’t me.

It was my face, yes. My eyes, nose, lips. But wrong. The smile didn’t belong to me. It curled too wide, like it enjoyed something I hadn’t yet done. My eyes blinked slower, like they were in no rush to see. And behind them—I swear—I saw a figure, inside me. Peering through like a child at a window, waiting for the door to open.

Then it spoke. Not aloud—but in thought. I am the truth you buried under titles and textbooks, Simon. I am the reflection of your soul after all lies have burned.

I backed away.

The mirror didn’t.

It followed me—no, not the object, but the image within it. Every room I fled to, every hall I ran down—the nearest mirror showed that same grinning, expectant horror. It was me. It was never me.

I tried smashing it. The attic mirror cracked—but the reflection remained intact, now visible in shards, mocking, multiplied.

I didn’t sleep that night. Nor the next. But the mirror slept inside my thoughts.

Then, things changed.

I began to hear things. Not just creaks or whispers—but accusations. A voice like glass dragged across the soul.

"Tell them about Father. About the bruises. The silence. The piety you wore like perfume."

I had forgotten him—no, buried him. He used to say my mother was mad, that she saw her sins dancing in that mirror. She’d scream at night, crying prayers in Latin. She’d bleed her palms from self-flagellation, convinced she was too wicked to deserve sunlight.

He locked her up.

I helped.

I told the nurses she was delusional. I nodded when they suggested stronger sedatives. I watched her die behind that institution’s pale walls—guilt eaten alive by prescription.

But she was right.

The mirror didn’t lie. It showed all of me.

The day I saw myself laughing over her death, I vomited blood. My stomach twisted in a knot of guilt and horror. I never remembered laughing—but the mirror did.

Then came the nights I forgot to blink. The face in the bathroom would stay still longer than I did. One day, I touched my face—and felt nothing. Numb. Cold. Like my skin was borrowed.

Was I still Simon?

Or was he me?

I started talking to him. To it. Maybe the mirror, maybe the thing inside it. He never answered directly—but I always knew when he was pleased. The smile widened. The face became gentler, more relaxed. He approved when I admitted things—truths I never said aloud.

Like the time I watched that student fail just to prove a point. Or the time I hit my dog for barking too much. Or when I lied to Emily about wanting children. She deserved honesty, but I deserved freedom more.

Each confession—each moment of brutal self-exposure—made the face… closer. Like it wanted to emerge. Or merge.

The day it did, the world shifted.

I remember waking up, feeling oddly refreshed. I looked in the mirror—and it was gone. No grimace. No mockery. Just me.

I wept. A man doesn’t cry at thirty-two unless he’s broken open from within.

I called Emily. I told her everything. I asked her to come over.

She did.

But when she looked at me, she didn’t smile.

She stepped back. Her lips trembled. "Simon?" she asked, voice like a mouse.

I nodded.

She shook her head, eyes wide with recognition—not of me, but of something else. Something deeper.

"You’re not him."

The next part is… blurred. I remember the way her bones felt. How easily a human neck breaks. How silence is the loudest thing in a dying house.

When I looked in the mirror after that, the smile was back.

And I wasn’t scared anymore.

I began to change. Not externally—but deeply. I enjoyed things I once condemned. I mocked at funerals. I lied for pleasure. I sabotaged friendships like art. It wasn’t just a descent—it was a revelation.

I was the mirror.

And the mirror… was justice.

You see, horror isn’t in ghosts or demons. It’s in honesty. In peeling off the skin of societal pleasantries, religion’s illusions, and moral makeup—until only the raw, selfish core remains.

And when you see that—you scream.

But I didn’t.

I laughed.

Because I wasn’t afraid anymore. Not of mirrors. Not of myself.

But you…?

You're still wearing your mask.

Still telling yourself you’re good. Kind. Righteous. That your little injustices are justified. That your abuses were “for their own good.” That your disrespect was earned, your cruelty reactionary, your pity divine.

Look in your mirror. Look long.

Does it blink when you do?

Does it smile… first?

I wrote this not to confess. I feel no guilt now. I wrote this to warn you.

Because someday, the mirror will find you too. And it won’t show your face.

It will show your truth.

And God help you if you like what you see.