The Monster in the Mirror

I. THE ENTITY THAT STARES BACK

Evan’s mind felt as if it were being savaged from the inside—a slow, relentless consumption rather than a sudden shattering. It started as a subtle breach, creeping in with an unsettling politeness, as if remorse were its only intent. The first morning in his deceased aunt’s house—a place steeped in the cloying aroma of lilac and the damp, decaying secrets of bygone eras—Evan sensed an unearthly disturbance. In the bathroom, the mirror convulsed with a staccato flicker. This was no simple play of light or a tiny fracture; it was reality stuttering, as if a flawed film frame skipped in mid-scene, pausing before the truth could fully emerge. In a heartbeat, without any warning from Evan himself, the reflection rebelled against the expected. Torn between paralyzing dread and morbid curiosity, he leaned toward it for forbidden answers, while the mirror inched forward in return—almost sentient—wearing a grin that was at once inviting and maliciously knowing. That grin stretched into a grotesque sneer, revealing charred, blackened gums that induced both visceral loathing and an intoxicating hunger for its mystery.

II. THE INSATIABLE CRAVING OF THE MIRROR

Evan abandoned that cursed bathroom, hoping to escape its sinister grasp, yet the unholy presence wormed its way into every reflective surface in the house—gleaming doorknobs, the frosted oven window, even the lifeless face of a turned-off television. Each mirror seemed to pulse with an unyielding appetite. Night after night, his reflection morphed—gradually discarding Evan’s familiar features in favor of a derisive impostor. Its skin began to peel off in scorched, trailing strips like burnt wallpaper, while its eyes ballooned unnaturally, glossy and vacant, as if they could weep torrents of ancient despair. The most unbearable torment was its nightly vigil—it did not simply haunt his dreams. One fateful morning, Evan awoke to the sight of that silent visage standing motionless at the foot of his bed—a grim, statuesque executioner whose sinister grin dripped an unspoken threat. In a desperate bid for control, Evan once smashed a shard of porcelain into the glass, carving a crude cross. But come dawn, his chest was reaped with three savage, identical gashes—deep, crimson, and alarmingly raw—a brutal testament to the internal decay he could neither halt nor escape.

III. THE LIES OF THE REFLECTION

Within two torturous weeks, isolation claimed Evan like a pair of crushing hands. He ceased answering the phone, severing ties with a world that no longer recognized him. Friends came searching, desperate to find the man he used to be. But he merely watched them from behind a peephole, his frame quivering and eyes sunken, raging with an internal tempest.

“There’s something horribly wrong with the mirrors,” he rasped into oppressive silence, trying in vain to convince himself as he succumbed to inner demons. In a frenzied, desperate effort to mute the echoes of his disintegrating identity, he draped every mirror with grim bedsheets and slathered them with thick, black paint. Yet even then, they defied his will, reflecting back not his true self but a monstrous, distorted caricature. In this battle to reclaim what was lost, Evan mutilated his own appearance—shaving his head into barren flesh, gouging out his mole, wrenching a tooth free—only to witness his reflection mimic every excruciating change with scornful precision, its ghastly smirk deepening the chasm within him, as if mocking him for ever having been whole.

IV. INTO THE NIGHTMARE

Desperation drove him to an act of morbid documentation—one night he rigged a camera in a bid to capture the mirror’s unspeakable transformation. The footage shattered all remnants of rationality. At exactly 3:03 a.m., his body, as if manipulated by unseen, malevolent puppeteers, rose from the bed in a stiff, sickening jerking motion. His eyes rolled into the void, his limbs convulsed like the marionette strings of a deranged puppeteer, and he staggered toward the mirror. Slowly he climbed into it—feet first—his body stretching in agonizing, unnatural contortions as the glass warped like molten taffy under the weight of its own horror. And then, in a moment of revolting betrayal, something else emerged from that abyssal depth. Morning brought with it muddy, horrifying footprints etched across the bathroom floor and a scatter of broken teeth in the sink—clearly not his. Every fragment intensified the terror of transformation and irrevocable loss.

V. THE DEVOURING OF SELF

By the third week, Evan was no longer a man but a tormented contradiction—a physical shell haunted by something else entirely. His every movement became spasmodic and disjointed, as if the film of his life were running backwards. His words slithered out in guttural, unrecognizable rhythms, betraying a soul in profound agony. In moments of unspeakable conflict, he laughed maniacally as he methodically dismembered parts of himself, offering each removal as a sacrificial token to the mirror—a grotesque exchange for his appropriated identity. And the mirror, swollen with a repulsive sense of fulfillment, pulsed and throbbed with insanity—a dark, living vessel incubating chaos. Deep beneath its shimmering surface, the real Evan’s anguished screams were trapped, his throat shredded by an insidious force, his silent agony etched in every brutal reflection, a monument to his unspeakable pain.

VI. THE HAUNTING FACE OF THE MIRROR

Today, if you dare approach that forsaken house—a crumbling relic of shattered lives—you might notice one detail that chills the soul: the bathroom still holds that immaculate mirror, suspended like a siren’s call. Sometimes it dares to reflect your image; sometimes it remains a yawning void of nothingness. But if you fix your gaze long enough, you may glimpse Evan: a raw, stripped horror with skin flayed from his face, eyes wide and burning red with terror. With bloodied fingers that bear the endless testament of his internal torment, he presses painfully against the glass, silently mending his eternal plea over and over:

“Let me out. I am being consumed.” It is then, in that sickening moment when his shattered words meet your wide, unfocused stare, that your own reflection begins to smile with a dreadful complicity—and you are forced to confront the harrowing, irreversible truth: you are no longer the person you once were.

Author’s Note 🖋️🪞

“The Monster in the Mirror” was born from a deeply personal place—a reflection, quite literally, on the inner demons we often try to bury or deny. 😔👁️ I wanted to explore the terrifying idea that sometimes, the greatest horrors don’t come from the outside world, but from within ourselves. 🧠💀 The mirror in this story is not just a surface; it’s a symbol of truth, fear, and ultimately, revelation. 🪞🕯️

Writing this tale allowed me to confront the psychological shadows that linger in all of us—the whispers of guilt, regret, rage, or trauma that we pretend not to see. 😱👤 In horror, there's freedom to shine a light into the darkest corners of the human psyche, and this story attempts to do just that. 🔦🕳️ If it made you uncomfortable, or left you thinking long after the final line, then I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. 🎯🩸

Thank you for taking the time to step into the reflection with me. 🙏✨

—Jason Benskin 👻📚