t was almost two years ago now that my tale began. I had been spending a day in the country with Charlie, she was my girlfriend at that time. We had walked hand in hand along the banks of a fast running river, had had a drink in a quaint little village pub, and had eventually ended up wandering about a tattered old antiques shop. It was in this scarce visited, spider web bedecked emporium that I first set eyes upon the mirror.

Half hidden by a stuffed and mounted stags head, the mirror immediately caught my eye. I cannot say what first drew me to it as it was not particularly decorative or fancy, yet still I could not find anything else which vied for my attention as much as this item seemed to. It had a dark wooden frame with a few oddly proportioned spirals of unconventional style engraved into it, the mirror itself was thick with dust, and the back had some strange shapes scribbled across it as if a child had been let loose with a stick of chalk.

The keeper of the shop could tell me nothing of the mirrors origin or design, but in absence of information about the item itself he told me of the person who had sold it to him. Though it had been in the shop owners possession for some five or more years he could still remember when it had arrived. The man bringing it in had looked as though the worries of the world were weighing down upon him, he seemed intent upon getting rid of the thing. As was his habit, the store keeper started by offering a sum substantially below its actual value, he enjoyed to haggle or barter for objects and was surprised when the price was immediately agreed upon and the man quickly left with nothing more than a last furtive glance towards the mirror. Shrugging slightly he placed the mirror where I had found it, mourning the loss of a potential haggle, but consoling himself with the price at which he had obtained has latest acquisition.

I left the shop with the mirror under one arm and Charlie and I continued our day out, enjoying the sun and fresh air of the local park, and getting a fellow meanderer to take a picture of the two of us stood in front of a crystal clear duck pond holding hands and grinning like idiots.

Until about a month before that fateful night, the night that now weighs on my shoulders like all the worries of the world, the night that has reduced my sleep to almost none, the night that Charlie died, the mirror sat upon the wall of our shared flat. Originally I had given the surface of the mirror and frame an quick clean and placed it in the hallway where it gazed out, quietly duplicating our lives.

My relationship with Charlie was good then, we laughed and held each other close, lived and loved together. The house was a warm, safe and cheery place to be and I always had the impression that the mirror not only mirrored the house, but also the feelings I associated with it. It was silly I know, even Charlie found it humorous to think that an inanimate object could evoke such a reaction, even though I thought I had seen her turning to avoid the mirrors stare, as though she realised something was not right about it, without being able to define what. I once offered to take it down but she dismissed the idea as folly.

As time passed so did the fire between myself and my loved one, I was working longer hours and Charlie worked nights. For a short time the two of us hardly saw each other. We had enough time to exchange kisses and a few fond words before having to leave each others company once more. It seemed to me that as time passed during this period our kisses seemed to linger less and the words lost their intimacy. Indeed after a change of jobs on my part in order to spend more time with Charlie we found that the time we once cherished and lived for had lost its meaning.

The relationship slid painfully downhill until about one month before the hateful night, when Charlie suggested that we end our relationship. We cried ourselves to sleep in each others arms that night, me more than her I suspect, but never the less the next day, after the two of us had sat silently for almost an hour, communicating without saying a word, I started to pack up my things and find a new home.

Finding new lodgings was not difficult and I found myself a small, well kept, sparsely furnished flat on the other side of town, further from the town centre, but closer to my place of employment. Within two days Charlie had ushered me completely out of the flat, which had long since lost the warm cosy embrace which I had so loved. It was still home however and as I departed for the final time I knew that, even though all my possessions were elsewhere, I was still leaving the intangible behind me and it hurt.

I sat in my new house, for it was not yet a home to me, and surveyed the battered boxes about the floor, which carried my still packed belongings. I sighed and began to find places for things, occupying my mind with mundane tasks such as cleaning, arranging, storing and throwing away the contents of the assorted boxes. I came across the mirror, and as memories of a warm happy summers day forced there way into my head I absent mindedly cleaned the mirror front and back, leaning it face towards the wall and quickly going on to the next dusty relic, hoping it would not hold for me as many painful recollections.

Once I had finished with everything else I returned to the mirror and located a suitable hanging position. I turned it and brought it up to face level as I attempted to hang it, but what I saw reflected caused me to drop the demon cursed object and back away in sheer terror.

It is at this point that I ask you not to dismiss my story as that of an unstable mind, or of an over active imagination. I could not possibly create anything as foul and monstrous as that which I will soon relate to you. Even the account which you now read cannot possibly hope to communicate the full horror of the situations with which I have been faced. For the reflection I saw when I raised the mirror was not that of a human, but of some horribly grotesque and tortuously deformed creature the likes of which I would never have believed existed given a thousand years.

My first reaction was to spin about, half expecting to be faced with the hideous monstrosity, but my room was empty and silent bar my heightened breathing. My head buzzed with a rush of fear induced adrenaline, such that I was forced to sit and calm myself. I stared fixedly at the mirror which now lay face upward upon the floor, my brain hastily producing wild and unconvincing reasons for my vision. I edged towards the mirror nudging it with one foot before even thinking about checking the reflection. After chiding myself at this pointless gesture and explaining to myself at length that the object at my toes was just a mirror, plain and simple, I looked again towards my reflection. It was at about this point I lost consciousness. I remember looking eye to eye with the creature I saw before. I froze and could not look away, and it was as my jaw dropped that I noticed my absence from the image. I also subconsciously noted the remarkable similarity between my actions and those of the entity facing me. For a split second I saw the creatures eyes flick back as if it was equally horrified by me as I was of it, and then the world became a blanket of soft black.

Returning to consciousness I found myself sprawled across the rough carpeted floor. The mirror had been flipped over onto its front, presumably the last reaction of a person hoping to save there sanity. There it sat for the next few days, until I had time to come to terms with what I had seen. Finally, once I had calmed myself fully, I let curiosity get the better of me and I once again gazed into the mirror. Forcing myself not to turn away I looked at my apparent alter ego, turning my face from one side to another I became convinced that It was actually still mirroring me in gesture, but had somehow warped me visually. The creature had also changed slightly, now less tortured, the vision had something of a inquisitive leer to it. I shivered. Although the reflection was unpleasant, some kind of perverse fascination took me and I hung the mirror upon the wall anyhow.

As the days passed I grew more accustomed to the mirror and found that the reflection altered with my mood. When angry my double would appear with a red skin tint and huge furrowed brow, when sad the image would be more as I originally saw it, twisted and pained. After a short time I found that when anger, hate, or sadness overtook me, gazing into the mirror would calm me very successfully, it was almost as if seeing my mood visualised drained me of the feelings themselves, and I sometimes sat for some time gazing into this, my strangest of possessions.

My life continued in this vain until the day Charlie was killed. I worked, I was starting to socialise a little, and when I felt down I would sit and gaze into the mirror, until that day.

It was a warm Friday evening and I had been dragged out to the local pub with a few colleagues after work. The bar staff served work wearied customers and the sound of bright laughter cut through the smoky atmosphere. One of the people in my group make a comment about the figure of a woman on the far side of the well frequented establishment and we all turned to look. As I glanced round my eye stopped on a familiar person. Charlie was sat in a booth near the door. She had not seen me and I stood to walk over when a tall slick looking handsome young man slid in beside her. I dropped back down to my seat and watched as they embraced passionately and she welcomed his presence with a kiss. Charlie smiled in such a way as I had not seen in ages, and the other relaxed, sat back, and stretched out.

I turned back quickly and drained my drink. The fellow sat opposite must have followed my line of sight and he looked at me questioningly. I shrugged, made my excuses and left before the tears I felt began to show themselves. Charlie turned as I walked towards to door and for a second our eyes met, she glanced at her companion and then back, offering something resembling an apologetic shrug before returning her full attention to the person sat beside her. I swallowed hard and walked out of the door.

I walked home wishing for rain but it was still warm and quite bright. I gritted my teeth, tried to swallow away the lump in my throat and walked quickly home. Once I had closed the sturdy front door behind me I cried. I grabbed the mirror and sat on the bed gazing at the creature beyond. More tortured than I had seen him in a while, the creature also had a definite red tint to the skin and a prominent green about the eyes. I waited for the calm to come across me as I normally experienced when I looked into the mirror, but this time it did not come. In fact the image started to unnerve me, almost as if the creature was less a reflection but more real somehow. I shook off the curious feeling, gave up waiting for my mood to pass, and hung the picture back on the wall, trusting to sleep to cure the freshly opened wound in my still fragile heart.

At a quarter past three that same night I awoke, screaming and soaked in sweat, from a horrific nightmare. I sat bolt upright in bed as dream images passed through my mind, I was shaking uncontrollably and my breathing was shallow and infrequent. I forced a deep breath and tried to clear my head of the atrocities my mind had played out while I slept. It took me a good few hours before I could return to sleep, I paced the flat and took a cursory look through the late night entertainment offered by the television. I missed Charlie at times like these. Her tender embrace used to banish all the evils of the world. Still I had to stop dwelling on her, so I picked up a book and read until I lapsed back into uneasy unconsciousness.

It was not until two days later that the full significance of my dream was made clear, and with it came the guilt, terror and grief which now burden me so. It came in the form of a brisk knock on the front door by a member of the local police constabulary. Charlie was dead. As I was told ice froze my spine. My face must have paled significantly as the dark haired, young looking policeman suggested I sat. I hesitated, then declined as I did not want anyone else to witness the things I had should they gaze into the mirror. The uniformed man on my doorstep informed me that someone had practically broken through the wall of Charlies flat, caused extensive damage, and killed both her and her boyfriend. He was violently thrown against a wall, whilst Charlies neck had been broken. My mouth was dry and I could not speak in anything more than a croak, yet I asked how I could help. He told me I was not a suspect, neighbours had heard me screaming and wandering about the house, so I had a solid alibi, but he was just checking to see if I had seen her lately, if so, then where and with whom. I said I had seen her in the pub and that it had shaken me, hence the nightmare, but that was all, so he thanked me, expressed his regret concerning my loss, and left me alone with my reflection.

Reading this, as you are, you may consider me crazy to shoulder the blame for the death of the person I once held so dear. Indeed, if I were to say as much publicly I could possibly be committed, ridiculed, or just pitied for my unusual reaction to bereavement. Yet I hope you will believe me when I tell you of my dream, the hellish visualisation that awoke me that fateful night, the reason my eyes have of late become so furtive and uneasy, for it now follows:

I slipped out of the house as soon as the veil of darkness had covered the town. I could feel my body moving, but I seemed to have no control over it. I remember thinking it strange that I should move without forethought, but reasoned that it was just a dream, so I let myself be carried along. All the landmarks in the town looked the same, yet different, as though they were being looked at from a different perspective, almost looked at through different eyes. I walked for some time, still unable to control my movement. Not really taking much notice of my surroundings until they became all to familiar. I was headed towards Charlies flat. I tried to stop, slow, or turn away from my present course but found it impossible. It was at this point that my dream began to take on a more hideous turn. Tired and frustrated by my unsuccessful attempts to halt my progress I slumped and looked down at my feet, or at least where my feet should have been. Below me, slowly and purposefully carrying my on were two gnarled and misshapen feet, covered in an entirely too familiar red tinted skin. I stared at myself and was shocked by the realisation that I was looking out through the mirror creatures eyes. It was almost as if our roles had changed, I was the reflection, forced to mimic unquestioningly the actions of this monstrosity. And still I, or we, walked on.

Presently we came to Charlies house and dread consumed me. I tried with all my might to alter my progress but again met with no success. I was forced to watch as this living reflection stepped up to a window and scanned the room inside. It was the lounge, now empty dark and silent. I expected to be drawn round to one of the other windows, but instead the creature practically walked through the wall. Bricks tumbled about me and I could not think straight. All I could do was watch mindlessly. Orange light from a street lamp pooled into the room and the beast began to swipe at the furniture about it. It made a particularly bad mess of a cabinet which held pictures of Charlie with her new boyfriend. All the while I tried to work against it.

Charlies boyfriend, the person she had seemed so close to at the pub, ran into the room, quickly wrapping Charlies dressing gown about him. He stumbled and fell at the sight of me, or rather at the sight of my reflection. Immediately I was forced to grab the prone figure and slam him against the nearest wall. My stomach knotted at the sound his body made as it hit the wall, fell to the floor, and folded up. His legs and arms were bent into grotesque positions, and his skull was partly caved in. If I'd have had control of my own body I would have been sick, but the creature continued. I strode, against all my will power, into the bedroom where Charlie lay cowering beneath a thin blanket. She screamed as the creature grabbed her and began to shake her violently. The cover fell as she was thrown back and forth in my inhumanly powerful grip. Her beautiful head was being flailed about hideously now, and my stomach shrank as an easily audible snap came from her neck. I tried to cry out but could not make a noise. Charlie slumped, and my maniac reflection threw her back onto the bed. As she lay there naked and devoid of life I tried to scream once more, releasing all the emotion I could command. It was at this point I awoke back in my own little flat, covered in cold clammy sweat.

As soon as the policeman left I ripped the mirror off the wall and threw it down upon the bed. The clear plain backing of the mirror leered back at me. The symbols. The chalk marks on the back of the mirror. I had first seen the creature after cleaning them off. My mind raced, trying desperately to remember the shapes, but it had been so long ago. I tried to think of any time the shapes may have been photographed or copied somehow. I went to the draws and snatched up a set of photographs. I flicked through them until I came to the one I wanted. Two people stood hand in hand in front of a crystal clear duck pond on a hot summers day. One clutching a dusty old mirror, back facing outward, under one arm. I looked closely and sure enough could see the old chalk markings.

Grabbing some chalk from the desk and still clutching the picture I went back to the bed. I hastily scrawled the shape onto the back of the mirror, my hand shaking so much it looked almost as if a child had drawn it. I double checked the picture then took a deep breath and slowly flipped over the mirror. For the first time in ages I recognised the reflection as my own, though far more haggard and nervous than ever I had seen myself before. I let out a deep sigh and put the mirror, facing away, up against the wall.

Some time has now passed since then, and you may think that I no longer have reason to worry. Yet still the thought of the mirror haunts me. Even though it has been wrapped up and left in the back of an old wardrobe for some period of time, I fear the day someone else may come to possess it. I dare not destroy it for fear of what I might let free, and keeping it weights heavily on my mind. I do not even know if the beast that killed my cherished Charlie is still roaming, if it will ever want to return home, or if it just vanished upon my awakening as I would wish.

Lastly, I am going to make a copy of this letter including a sketch of the shapes on the back of the mirror and will wrap them up with the damned object. That way, if someone else should come across it, they will have been forewarned. I myself have a growing need in me to rid myself of the blasted thing, and have already considered trying to find some infrequently visited historians or antiquarians shop where it can be left, gathering dust, to be forgotten. But then I recall how it all began.