Someone Else in the Reflection

The first time, Demon Decaprio saw someone else in his reflection; he was shaving in his apartment in Montmartre, Paris. It was 7.13 on a chilly November morning. Rain tapped against the tall window, and the smell of coffee drifted from the kitchen, where his wife, Victoria, was preparing breakfast for their 3-year-old son Aron. Demon leaned towards the bathroom mirror, spreading shaving cream across his jaw. He raised his right hand. The reflection raised its left. That was normal. Then Demon lowered his hand. The reflection did not. For three terrible seconds, the man in the mirror continued shaving an invisible face. He had Damon’s dark eyes, his narrow nose, and the small scars around his eyebrows. But his expression was unfamiliar. He was smiling. Damon stumbled backward. The reflection slowly lifted his head and whispered something. Damon could not hear the words, but he understood them. You took my place. He blinked. The mirror showed only his pale, frightened face. From the kitchen, Victoria called, “ Damon, are you alright”? Yes, he answered, though his trembling hand said otherwise. He blamed exhaustion. He had been working late as a software engineer, restoring a few old data, and his office was near the Seine. Perhaps the long hours and poor sleep had caught up with him. But as he left the bathroom, he glanced at the mirror once more. Someone stood behind him. When he turned around, the room was empty. That evening, Demon’s mother, Nichole, called from New Zealand. Have you been sleeping properly? She asked, You sound strange. I am fine, Mom. Your father used to say the same thing before he became ill. Damon’s father, Liam Decario, died twelve years earlier. Damon remembered him as a quiet man who loved old books, black tea, and the little garden behind their New Zealand house. There was one memory Damon rarely discussed. When Damon was eleven, he fell into a pond behind his grandparents' house. His cousin had pulled him out, but he had stopped breathing. The adults had worked desperately to revive him. Eventually, he coughed up water and opened his eyes. Everyone had called it a miracle. His father, however, had never looked at him the same way afterward. A week before Liam died, he had taken Damon’s aside and said If you ever see something strange in a mirror, don’t speak to it. Young Damon had laughed. His father had gripped his shoulders. Promise me this. Now, twelve years after his father’s death, Damon wonders why those words have suddenly returned to him. That night, he searched for an old suitcase in the cupboard. Beneath his father’s letter, he found a photograph of their family taken in New Zealand. Liam, Nichole, Damon, and his younger brother Michael. Behind the photograph was a handwritten note. He came back, but something came back with him. Damon read it repeatedly. Then, he noticed something in the photograph. Every family member is smiling at the camera. Except Damon. His eleven-year-old self was staring at a window behind the photograph. And in the window stood a second boy. He had Damon’s face. But his eyes were completely black. The following morning, Damon visited the office near Seine for another few restorations. After a few times he visit an old building of nineteenth century townhouse that had been converted into a private residence now. He starts to inspect the thing as one of his friend who was an architecture was absent and ask him to work for him that day although Damon was not an architecture. While inspecting a damaged wall, he discovered a narrow compartment containing several dusty objects, including a small oval mirror with a silver frame. The moment he touched it, a sharp pain shot through his head. He saw a dark pond. A little boy struggling beneath the water. And the second boy standing on the bank, smiling. Damon dropped the mirror. His friend’s colleague, David, hurried out. Are you hurt? No, what was this mirror doing here? According to the record, it belongs to the original owner. One drowned when they were young. The other survived, but the family claimed he became a completely different person afterward. Damon felt the blood drain from his face. Where are the records? The city archives had some documents. Why? Because I think this mirror knows me. David gave him a worried look but told him where to go. At the Paris archives, Damon found a newspaper clipping dated more than a century earlier. It described a family tragedy involving twin boys, one of whom had drowned in a pond. An old handwritten account accompanied it. The dead do not always return as ghosts. Sometimes they returned as reflections, waiting for someone to give them a life. Beneath the sentence was a drawing of an oval mirror. Damon recognised its silver frame. It was the same mirror he had found in the wall. That night Damon told Victoria everything. She listened without interrupting, though worry creased her forehead. You are exhausted, she said gently; we will see a doctor. Whatever is happening, we will face it together. He wanted to believe her. At midnight, he woke up to find their bedroom door open. A thin line of light spilled from the bathroom.Someone was humming inside. It was a lullaby his mother used to sing when he was a child. Damon walked towards the bathroom. In the mirror stood the other man. This time, he looked older, perhaps in his thirties, with his hair clinging to his forehead. His clothes were soaked, and dark water dripped from his sleeves. Who are you? Damon whispered. The man’s smile disappeared. You know who I am. No. You were supposed to die. Damon’s chest tightened. I survived. You took my life. The bathroom light flickered. The reflection placed its palm against the glass. When you drowned, I was waiting. You were frightened, and I was alone. The water opened a door, and I followed you back. Damon shook his head. You are not real. Then, when can I remember your father’s face? Why do I remember your mother’s face? I know what it felt like to hold your son. Damon stepped back. The reflection leaned closer. I have watched you live my life for twenty-seven years. Now, I want it back. A crack appeared across the mirror. From the bedroom, Aron screamed. Damon rushed to him. He sat upright in bed, pointing to the wardrobe mirror. Dadda, he sobbed. There is a man inside it. In the glass, the man stood behind Damon. And he was holding Aron’s hand. Damon called his mother before dawn. Mom, tell me what happened when I drowned. Silence followed. Then Nichole began to cry. You were eleven, she said. Your cousin found you in the pool. The doctor said you had been without a heartbeat for several seconds. What happened after I woke up? You weren’t the same at first. You stared at mirrors. You spoke to someone who wasn’t there. Your father searched for answers everywhere. Did he find something? He found an old manuscript belonging to your grandfather. It describes a belief that water could become a doorway when someone stood between life and death. Your father thought something had followed you back. Damon closed his eyes. Why don’t you tell me? Because your father believed that naming it would make it stronger. Before he died, He told me that if I ever saw another face in the mirror, I should tell you to break the glass. A sound crushed behind Damon. He turned. The bathroom mirror had shattered without being touched. But every broken fragment still reflected the same face. His own. And the stranger’s. Both were smiling. Damon carried the silver-framed mirror from the restoration site into the courtyard behind his apartment building. Victoria stood with Aron near the doorway, holding her son tightly. Are you sure this will work? She said. No. Damon admitted. But I can’t let it near you. He placed the mirror on the stone ground. Rain began falling, turning the courtyard into a maze of shimmering reflections. Damon raised a hammer. In the mirror, the stranger was no longer smiling. He looked frightened. Please. He said I was alone in the dark. For the first time, the voice sounded human. Not monstrous. Not angry. Just desperately lonely. What are you? Danon asked. The stranger's eyes filled with tears. I don’t know anymore. For one impossible moment. Damon saw the boy from the old photograph, a child standing beside a pond, reaching towards someone who had vanished beneath the water. Perhaps the stranger was a ghost. Perhaps he was a fragment of Damon’s own mind, shaped by a childhood trauma he had never understood. Or perhaps something had truly followed him back from the edge of death. Damon could not know. But he knew one thing: whatever stood behind the glass wanted his son. He struck the mirror. The silver frame split with a deafening crack. Every fragment went black. A scream tore through the courtyard, rising above the rain before halting. Damon dropped the hammer and fell to his knees. Victoria ran to him. Aron wrapped his arm around Damon’s neck. For the first time in weeks, the surrounding rainwater reflected only the three of them. Damon wept with relief. It was over. Or so he believed. Three weeks later, the family returned to a quieter routine. Damon took time off work and began speaking to a therapist about the frightening experiences, the childhood accident, and his father’s warning. Some days, he wondered whether exhaustion and buried trauma had turned ordinary mirrors into something terrifying. Another day, he remembered the wet footprints in the bathroom. One Sunday morning, Nichole arrived in Paris to stay with them. She brought some food from New Zealand and an old photograph of Liam. That evening, Aron placed the photograph on the living room shelf. Dadda, he said, Grandpa looks sad. Damon smiled faintly. He was thinking about something. No, Aron tilted his head. He was looking at someone. Damon’s smile vanished. He lifted the photograph and examined its glasses. Behind his father’s reflected face stood a dark figure. A man with Damon’s features. But the figure looked directly at Aron. Damon dropped the photograph. The glasses remained intact. In the reflection of the window beside him, the stranger slowly raised one finger to his lips. Then he mouthed three words. You broke the wrong mirror. Damon turned towards the window. Outside, Paris glittered beneath the evening rain. There was no one there. No one looked back at the glass. His own reflection stared at him. And this time, when Damon raised his hand, the reflection did not move at all. It simply smiled.