I was only five when it first happened. I was in the bathroom getting ready to take my nightly routine bath. I had my action figures and my toy boat and of course, the classic rubber duck. I was always the only child so I received my parents full attention. My mom was watching me making sure I was alright but then she got a phone call. “Hello?” she asked. “Yes of course, I will be right with you in a second.” I didn’t know what she was talking about but it must have been important to leave me alone.
“Sweety, I have to take this call I will come right back up once I am done, it shouldn’t take long,” she explained to me in her soft mother’s voice. “Okay mommy!” I blurted out, she smiled softly and she started to head out of the bathroom when she turned back around and she had a serious look on her face. “Don’t reply to any voices you hear. No matter how much they talk to you. Understand?” Her tone made me nervous and a little frightened. I was only five why would she scare me like that?
I nodded while looking at her very confused. “Thank you sweety. Be back in a minute.” I didn’t feel like playing at all. My mom telling me not to respond to voices in the bathroom when I was the only one there didn’t really comfort me in the slightest. Sure I was only five but I knew that wasn’t normal. I sat there in the tub for what felt like hours and the water was getting cold. I drew the shower curtains so I couldn’t see anything. I felt like it gave me some sort of protection.
“I know you’re behind there kid, shower curtains don’t protect you from monsters,” a voice suddenly spoke. The voice was direct and commanding, it was like he meant business. I was frozen, as a little kid I wanted to talk to whatever was there but I was going to do what my mother instructed. “Kid listen, I know you won’t talk to me and that is fine you will one day. But just know you can’t trust your family. They aren’t who they say they are, goodbye kid.” I was confused by this. My family was trustworthy enough and nice and kind. They can’t possibly be something else. Can they? It was so abrupt like it happened in a flash.
I soon figured out I couldn’t trust them. I never told my parents about the voice, I was too scared to. I didn’t know what they would do if I told them the truth. Fast forward a few years up until I was twelve years old. Up until that point life was normal, I didn’t hear the mirrors ever talk, no strange voices in the bathroom, I do have to admit though, I was scared to take baths until I was ten years old. On a cold evening in November on a Friday, I was having a really bad day. I was getting bullied a lot at school because my parents seemed too weird and they called me awful names. Basically every negative name in the book.
Once I got off the bus ride home from school, I quickly rushed inside with tears streaming down my face and my throat feeling like it had a massive rock in it. My parents yelled to me asking what was wrong but I just ignored them. I was always a sensitive kid for the longest time. I ran to the bathroom and shut the door loudly in front of me. I lied on the bathroom floor for a while. I didn’t want to come out at all and I just wanted to be left alone. Thoughts coursed through my head and of all the memories of me getting bullied and I just wanted it to all stop, for just one day.
“What if I stop existing?” I thought to myself. I quickly shook the thought out of my head. “You gotta be strong, keep going,” I said to myself. Just as I was calming down, I started freaking out again because I heard a familiar voice. “Don’t cry now, today is an important day.” The same direct and commanding voice spoke once again. “It has been seven years since we… well since I last spoke to you.” I sat there in my tears looking for the thing that was talking to me. “Who… who are you and what do you want?” I asked, my voice wasn’t confident instead it was full of fear.
The voice laughed, “I knew you would come around and talk to me, although I thought that was against mothers orders,” the voice said mockingly. “What do you mean? What are you even talking about?” I inquired. “Remember when we first talked?” The voice questioned me. His voice filled the whole entire bathroom. “Vaguely,” I remarked. “Well, your precious so called mom wanted you not to talk to me. Of course your tiny self listened but now here we are!” The voice explained. It was kind of weird how a voice in the bathroom is telling me about what my mom said to me as a young child. “What do you look like?” I asked practically begging for answers. “Come to the mirror and I will show you something,” I did as the voice instructed and my knees felt wobbly as I did so. “What do you see?” The voice asked. “All I see is me man, what are you trying to pu–” suddenly my reflection changed.
I was not smiling, but my reflection was. That made me take a step back out of shock. “That answers my question.” My reflection was talking yet I wasn’t. “You aren’t me! You can’t be me,” I yelled, my parents must have heard me. “You’re right, I am not you. You aren’t ready to see my true form yet, but what I will say is that tonight, your life will change forever. It isn’t going to get any better but you have to trust me.” The voice got a lot more serious than it already was. I didn’t say anything back I just stood looking in the mirror. “Goodbye kid.” My reflection went back to reflecting me and not whatever was in the mirror.
It took me some courage to take my eyes off the mirror and open the bathroom door. Once I closed the door to the bathroom my eyes met with my mom and dad. “Son, who were you talking to in there?” my dad asked angrily. “Yea honey, you can’t talk to the voices you hear in there,” my mom looked to me with her soft green eyes while staring at me with concern. Me already having a rough day, I was getting annoyed with them and my hands curled into fists. “I was talking to myself! You guys scare me and what voices are you talking about? Are you even going to ask how I am? How was school? Any of that! Please!” My parents were taken back at how furious I was and how I raised my voice. I had never really yelled at them like that before.
“Go to your room now,” my dad commanded. “Whatever…” I mumbled under my breath. I went up to my room, shut the door and leapt onto my bed head first. I just acknowledged that there was a skinny mirror in the left hand corner in my room. It was about one foot wide and four feet tall with a golden colored frame. But that wasn’t what made me notice it. One it was because of the voice and two, there was words on it that read, “Thought I was just in the bathroom? Remember what I said kid.” I now knew I wasn’t imagining things. “How could I trust that the voice was telling the truth?” I thought for a moment thinking if I should trust the voice or not.
Soon there was no light coming through my dusty window. I was never called down for supper and to be honest, I was glad. I didn’t really want to talk to my parents. Eventually I fell asleep because of boredom. It must not have been long when I woke back up because I went to sleep around eleven and my clock showed that it was twelve. I sighed out of disappointment and put the covers back over my half asleep body. Some unknown force was keeping me awake, I thought maybe I was trying to hard to go back to sleep but I was hardly trying at all.
I lied there for about thirty more minutes before I heard the familiar voice again. “I can’t stay long but remember what I said kid.” “Wait don’t go!” I begged. I heard no response. It was already too late and the voice was gone. I turned my body towards my room door. That is when I started to hear a faint humming noise coming from outside my room. I didn’t want to investigate but something in the back of my mind told me to anyway. The air in my room was warm and that gave me even more of a reason not to leave, but I proceeded to the door anyway. My steps felt long and heavy, my breathing was accelerating with each cautious step I took. Eventually I reached the door. My palms were sweating and my right hand was shaking as I was slowly reaching out to the golden door knob. I don’t know why I was terrified to open the door, maybe the continuous humming gave me anxiety.
There was light shining underneath the door and I noticed it as soon as it disappeared. A shadow took all the light away and I was frozen in place, my body covered in darkness, my mind racing a thousand miles a second. I couldn’t think straight and I was covered head to toe in fear. A loud, blood curdling, terrifying scream filled the house and I stumbled on my back and I crawled to my bed. I noticed I was breathing very heavily and the air in my room went from warm to extremely frigid. I could see my breath. My teeth started to clatter and the hairs on my body stood up.
I wanted to go back into bed where my warm blankets were but I saw the moon reflecting onto the mirror illuminating the words that were written onto the glass. I didn’t know how it was possible that it was still there but it was. I stood back up, this time I was going to go out of my room and figure out what was going on. I quickly ran to the door and placed my hand onto the door knob and turned it. A loud creak sounded as the rusty door hinges turned. I could still hear the faint humming and it was coming from downstairs. I took a quick notice that the whole entire house was ridiculously cold. I went back into my room to grab my favorite blue and red robe. I tied it tightly around me and I made my way down the houses flight of stairs.
Each step was agonizing and worrisome. I didn’t know why I was doing this I just was. Once I made it downstairs I made my way to the kitchen to check the thermometer. “Thirty degrees?” The humming was getting louder, I must have been getting closer. I walked to the basement stairs still shaking in the freezing temperature. The humming was really loud and it was coming from behind this very door. I inspected the door. A light shone from underneath the door. It always had a sign that read, “Keep out” I never thought about it or questioned it up until now of course. I touched the door knob, wrapped my hands around it and opened it.
I was taken back by what I saw, and now I know the reason I was never allowed in that room.
The room wasn’t being lit by a light bulb or a lamp, the room was being lit by candles. There was a large number of red bricks outlining the room. Spider webs were in each corner of the room. The ground was also brick. I didn’t take full notice at first but once I was done scanning the room I found a giant mirror right dead centered in the middle of the room. I estimated that the mirror was at least ten feet long and fifteen feet wide. Each corner was lit by one waxed candle and it dripped down onto the cold brick floor.
Surprisingly there was no dust or any type of damage on the mirror. To be honest, it looked brand new. There was a notably small change in the air. I knew something was in there with me and I wanted to see what it was. Without warning a voice filled the room, “Sweety go back to bed now, you aren’t supposed to this.” It was my mom I could hear her soft voice and I wanted to say sorry for yelling at her earlier, but I had more pressing matters to deal with. “Mom… why are you in this dark room with a giant mirror and candles all over the place?” I could barely clammer out my own words. A figure started striding closer to me.
Its movements were slow yet smooth and I was getting a bit uneasy. The figure was starting to be shone more as the candle light flickered in the darkness. “Honey, leave now. For your own well being.” Her voice sounded like it got deeper. Like if she was trying to do an impression of someone with a low voice but smoother and much, much deeper. “Mom, where is dad? I’m scared, what are you doing down here?” I was on my knees begging and pleading for her to give me answers but she wouldn’t. By the time I was done asking all my repetitive questions, what I assume the figure to be was her, was completely lit up. She had on a black and brown robe, a hood that covered her face and a rope tying the robe together. It looked like it was from the medieval times.
She was standing right in front of me now. Only a few feet away at the most, to my right another one of these figures started to show, another appeared on my left. Soon they were all around me. I saw that my body was shaking and my bones felt like collapsing inside my own human flesh. Then a loud dark voice broke the silence that surrounded me. “GET HER!” All at once hands form the left and right grabbed me and pulling my head back, I fought back as much as I could but it seemed like it had no effect.
I closed my eyes and told myself it was just a nightmare and I would wake up soon and everything would be ok, but that never happened. Once I realized this was no dream I went limp. I gave up and braced myself for what was coming. I didn’t speak nor move. I was ready for death, I never thought about it before but to me, at this current moment death wasn’t scary. My mind went blank and with all the figures pulling me towards some kind of wooden table I saw stars, and that was it.
I awoke to a familiar voice once again. “Hey kid, thought you might need a hand.” My eyes hurt and my head was throbbing with pain, sweat dripped down my forehead. A bright light shone across my face, as soon as I had my bearings again I noticed where I was laying. I was on the table where I saw myself being dragged to before blacking out, there was a thin white piece of fabric on my head and two candles on the end on each corner. I sat up with my head still throbbing with immense pain.
In a dimly lit corner I could see a shadow. Not the cloaked people like before, it was at least thirteen feet tall and was very skinny, it had to hunch over a bit because the ceiling was too low. It’s back faced towards me. I took all of this in and I guess I was too focused on the pain to be afraid of what was standing in the room with me. I started turning my gaze in every direction to see what was going on. The voice started to utter a whisper that I couldn’t understand. All the while I noticed cloaks on the ground but nobody inside them. The room felt warm and I knew the thing in the corner wasn’t here to hurt me, it was giving off this vibe of calmness and peacefulness.
Then the room was once more filled by the voice. “You weren’t supposed to see this, or even me as a matter a fact. Being here in this realm you call Earth isn’t safe for me to be in. This was my last visit.” Sadness welled up in his voice and I could tell he was suffering a great deal of pain. “I want you to know, these things will not stop trying to find you, the people you called your family were creatures that killed your real family and tried to keep me a secret, they knew I would find them eventually. They raised you and kept you alive to feed off your energy and kill you,” he was explaining while slowly turning around to face me. His bones popped and crackled with every passing second he did so. “You were supposed to leave the house but yet you stayed. Stupidity maybe, but it was more of your curiosity, I know I said I wouldn’t show you my true form but now is the only time you will ever see or speak to me again.” I started to well up with tears as he said this.
“You can’t leave me! You were the only family I really ever had, who will protect me from these things and why save me?” I screamed out of anger and sadness. The creature started to walk forward into the light, his face was half burnt and his eyes were sunken into his skull. His arms were long and his finger nails looked to be like knives. “You aren’t afraid of me?” he inquired. “No, I could never be, you saved me!” I wanted to hug the creature but my mind was still distorted and I couldn’t walk. “Take it easy kid, listen, you can’t trust anyone that is in your family or trusted friends. This will be a long lonely journey for you but I know you can pull through it, for me. I am dying and I need to go.” All at once a bright light flashed and it almost blinded me.
When I finally could see the creature was gone. No trace of anyone was here, the massive mirror was gone, the cloaks, the candles except one that helped me see. Nothing was here, I quickly grabbed the candle and scurried out of the room and shut the door. No way was I ever going back in there. My emotions were put on pause and I felt nothing. I searched for some matches and gasoline, when the fire department shows up, I can say it was an accident. I poured as much as I could and I went outside into the front lawn, I took one last look at the house. So many memories and yet so many lies.
I took a match, lit it and threw it into the house from the front door. Soon the whole house was a blaze, smoke escaped into the night sky and ashes rained down from above. I stood completely still and emotionless as the whole house burnt to the ground. That was ten years ago, I still hear voices in the mirrors just not the one I remember. They warn me about certain people but I still hate it. I would be trying to do something and I would hear them so I would usually shut them up. I hear scratching on the windows at night and I get letters supposedly sent from relatives saying to come to them but I take the letters and burn them. I still think about the creature who protected me that fateful night. He was right, my life did changed forever that night, and I will never forget.