On my first day in my new apartment, I found a dust-covered full-length mirror in the corner of my bedroom.
After wiping away the dust, I stood in front of the mirror to adjust my collar. My reflection mirrored my movements perfectly—there was nothing out of the ordinary.
But on the third night, I noticed something was off.
I had clearly turned and walked toward the kitchen, yet out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of my reflection still standing rigidly in place, staring intently at my back.
I spun around abruptly.
My reflection had returned to its normal posture and was now following me toward the kitchen.
I told myself I must have been too tired and was hallucinating.
On the fourth day, I deliberately conducted a test in front of the mirror. I raised my left hand, and my reflection raised its right hand. When I lowered my hand, my reflection was half a beat behind, slowly lowering its own hand.
That half-second delay felt like a needle piercing my nerves.
I began to fear looking in the mirror and covered it tightly with a black cloth.
But in the middle of the night, I was startled awake by a faint scraping sound.
The sound came from the corner of the bedroom.
I fumbled for my phone’s flashlight; the beam swept across the room and finally settled on the mirror.
The black cloth had fallen to the floor at some point.
In the mirror, there was no reflection of me.
In its place stood a “person” who looked exactly like me, standing on the other side of the frame, its mouth stretched into a grin with an arc no human could possibly achieve, laughing silently.
It raised its hand and tapped lightly on the mirror’s surface.
“Thump, thump.”
The sound didn’t come from the mirror, but from behind me.
I turned my head stiffly.
That “me” had, at some point, appeared beside my bed, holding the black cloth.
It leaned close to my ear and whispered in a voice identical to mine:
“Now, it’s your turn to be inside.”
The next day, the landlord came to collect the rent.
“I” opened the door, smiled, and handed over the rent—behaving impeccably, without a single slip-up.
After the landlord left, “I” walked into the bedroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror.
In the mirror, the real me was frantically pounding on the glass, mouth wide open in a silent scream, my face etched with despair.
“I” watched all this with satisfaction and reached out to pull the black cloth over the mirror.
From then on, no one in that apartment ever heard any strange noises again.
Only occasionally, when someone passed by that bedroom, would they hear an extremely faint sound of fingernails scratching against glass coming from beneath the black cloth.
