Dichtende Designerin

genre: psychological horror, words: 566, content warnings: depersonalisation, body horror

Sleepily, I stumbled into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I couldn’t shake that habit off, even as I lived alone for a while. The floor tiles felt cold on my naked feet. A yawn escaped my mouth as I turned on the shower. For a moment, I closed my eyes and envisioned my day. My boss needed the project done by today. It’s a strict deadline, he said — emphasis on dead. The hot water burning my skin made me feel a bit more alive. After my morning ritual, I turned the water off and dried myself with a towel. A soft embrace that left me longing for a real hug. Carefully, I rubbed over the fogged-up mirror with the corner of the towel. A glance in the mirror revealed the dark circles under my eyes. I couldn’t go into the office looking like this! Hastily, I grabbed a bottle of concealer to cover them up.

As I stared in the mirror, it stared back at me. That slightly crooked nose, that horrified look in those dark brown eyes, that thin line of a mouth. Brows furrowed, it pulled me in closer. Goosebumps formed while the hot water was still trickling down. A hand reached through the mirror and touched a face — my face? The touch felt familiar, brushing over damp skin that must be mine. A crooked smile split my reflection as the hand grabbed my neck. Quickly, I took a step back to escape getting choked. As I dropped my arms, the outstretched hand vanished. My mirror face mocked me with a silent laugh and moved closer, ears reaching the frame of the mirror. There was a hunger in its eyes, longing for more. My feet dragged me another step back, back to the locked door. Run! With shaking hands, I threw the towel on the mirror and turned to unlock the door. The metal key was slippery beneath my damp and trembling fingers. Clack! It dropped on the tiles. My fluttering heartbeat stopped for a second.

It dawned on me that there were mere seconds left to escape and lock the door from outside. Whoosh! The towel fell to the floor. I turned around to glance and looked at my own face. It wasn’t flat like my reflection; it was a nearly perfect, yet reversed sculpture of my features — my moles were mirrored. The flash of the fluorescent bathroom light bent weirdly around them. It illuminated the right side but reflected more from the left side. A scream tore the silence apart. So gruesome, it almost ripped my throat in half. It echoed in the tiny bathroom between my mouth and the grimace masking as myself. My facial expressions contorted until they were almost unrecognizable. Petrified, I stood before my full-figured doppelgänger. In the mirror, I could only see the still locked door.

My fully fleshed arms grabbed my throat, silencing the scream that was still erupting from it. A force I never possessed pushed me against the mirror. In total shock, I closed my eyes and expected broken mirror shards to cut my skin. Instead, I slipped through the mirror. Like liquid metal, the mirror reformed to bind me into a reflection. A mere mirror image. The last thing I saw was my doppelgänger grinning and waving my hand. When it slipped out the door, I was gone.