Title: Reflections Genre: Horror Word Count: 252 words. Credits: Many thanks to Yvonne for eyeballing this Notes: You can find more of my published fiction, as well as free fiction, here.
Kelsey’s grandma left her a collection of antique items when she passed, including a full-length mirror with a dark ebony frame, one of many artefacts she had unearthed in over sixty years of globetrotting. The wood was etched with intricate scrollwork and strange looping symbols. The glass possessed a slight aged patina and an array of foxing that danced across its surface like fading stars. Among all the things grandma left her, the mirror was the one thing that Kelsey couldn’t stop thinking about.
At night she found herself sitting in front of the mirror, intrigued by how the worn glass’s imperfections changed the details of her own face. Her features seemed to shift in the low light.
Sometimes it looked like her reflection was smirking at her.
By the time reflection-Kelsey reached out with pale, bony fingers, it was too late. Kelsey couldn’t move, rooted to the floor by an unseen force. She glanced down to find misty chains of intricate scrollwork wound around her legs and hands.
Spidery reflection-fingers passed through the glass and clutched at her throat. Kelsey opened her mouth to scream but grew so light-headed she almost blacked out; her energy ebbed away, her body growing tingly, then limp.
When she woke she was in a strange place. Cold. Dark. But with a faint silver mist surrounding her, an array of foxing dancing before her like fading stars.
Through the mirror, in the real world—in her world—her reflection grinned back at her.
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