One of the best feelings in the entire world is waking up naturally, without a blaring alarm or the sun sinking it’s tiny spears of condensed hatred through your eyelids, of waking up late into the day with the sun laying over you softly, bathing you in its glorious presence and warming you from the inside as you lay there lazily for a few moments more, stretching languidly and yawning before curling up around your blanket as you wait for your body to fully wake up. Unfortunately on that night I did not get to experience such a wonderful experience.

Instead, I woke to the sound of… glass shattering? With barely the time for my brain to conceive some half built plot of abduction or robbery I bore witness to a scene that caused a horrified shriek to run throughout my soul, so terrified I was, that my brain, in its attempts to scream amongst so many synapses being fired at once, instead let out a breathless cry. Immobile with terror I watched from the other end of my room as the basic wall mirror at the foot of my bed began cracking and shaking, areas being damaged almost as if something inside was beating against itself, bang, bang bang, bang, fist after fist slammed itself against the mirror with increasing frequency causing more and more cracks to crawl across its surface. I was left with no option other than to stare at my owned terrified visage being split apart, bit by bit. I let out another breathless cry, wishing, praying, doing anything possible to call out, to stop the impending sense of dread pulsing through my heart, filling my blood with its cold bite as I froze from the inside, yet I could get nothing out. In silence I watched, oxygen no longer circulating through my body, as my lungs, like the rest of my body seized. Leaving me with the sick sensation that comes from staying underwater too long, of the gasses in your body building pressure in their attempts to crawl free. Bang. Bang. Bang, Bang Bang Bang BangBangBang. And finally. Crack.

Shards of broken mirror were scattered across the floor in a haphazard fashion and yet still I could see my own face reflected in the pieces, I watched fearfully as the material began to move, crawling over itself with the head splitting sound of glass scraping against itself, creating a jarring cacophony of horror that made my ears want to bleed as if the broken shards had crawled in themselves, tearing through the soft tissue and brain alike. Finally, I felt my mind shut down and all that remained were animalistic instincts, all of which screamed at me to RUN! Desperately I lurched from my sheets, reaching for the door handle, my face lit up as I felt the tips of my fingers graze the door handle, desperately I tried turning it, only to be slammed full force into the door, hearing a crack resound through my head as my skull whipped forward neck breakingly hard, causing me to fall against the door.

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Dazed, I managed to spin around pushing my hands against their chest, however to my horror instead of flinging someone back, my hands were pierced by shards of shattered mirror and I was left staring, completely forgetting my own wounds as the humanoid creature moved closer, pushing the shards in deeper, penetrating so deeply that I could feel the impact scraping across my bones and slicing apart the sensitive nerve endings around them, yet still I barely whimpered, instead entranced by the shimmering reflection of my own face, for a few moments the multitude of random fractures reflected my terrified face, before shifting again to the sounds of scraping glass, my terrified face shifting to a rictus grin of triumph, my teeth replaced by a maw of needles that opened unnaturally wide.

I finally felt a trickle of warmth flow down my forehead and it didn’t take long for my vision to start collapsing into a black mess. I felt my fear finally flee along with my consciousness and I prayed again, this time for my death to be swift. However it appeared my prayers would not be answered. My eyes barely opened again through the shock of my shoulder being impaled, only for a moment as I watched the mirror me transform once again, this time smoothing out and I watched with apathy as a tainted replica of myself formed before me.

Feeling myself being lifted from the back of my sleeping attire I watched as I was carried slowly throughout my own room, breathing slowly through my open mouth since it appeared as though my nose was either broken or clogged with blood, it was hard to tell at this point, the creature yanked me to bear before the empty mirror casing and without the energy to fight back, to resist, to do anything I was thrown through the broken mirror, swallowed alive.

Finally I drifted into complete unconsciousness as I fell deeper and deeper into an impossible space, an equally impossible wind blowing across me in its attempts to stop me, as if my presence revolted it so horribly that I was physically rebuffed.