Marie was a beautiful teenager and no one knew that more than she did. Every morning, despite the fact that she had four brothers and sisters waiting, she would spend hours in the bathroom admiring her reflection. She would lovingly brush her hair and sing to herself to the angry knocking of everyone in the hallway, uncaring if she made them all late. It was impossible to tear her away from that mirror.
It wasn’t long until even her teachers at school noticed that she was missing class because of her obsession with her own reflection. When Marie was late to class, she was always found in the girl’s bathroom lovingly looking in the mirror, brushing her hair, and singing to herself.
Strange things began to happen not long after that. During the mornings when she would lock the bathroom door to admire herself in peace, her brothers and sisters would hear her sing, but soon began to hear a second voice sing along with her. When she would finally emerge from the bathroom, they would ask her who was in there with her and she would smile and wistfully say, “Only me and my reflection.”
There were other things. On the few occasions that her brothers or sisters could get into the bathroom, they would catch a glimpse of Marie behind them in the mirror peering from behind the shower curtain, but when they turned around to yell at her for spying on them, there would be no one there.
Marie eventually stopped seeing her friends, stopped talking to her family, and spent all of her time in front of the mirror. She had to be dragged from it every night to go to bed and every morning to go to school. She stopped eating, stopped doing homework, and stopped doing anything except admire herself in the mirror. Her parents scolded her, but it seemed like nothing could keep Marie from herself.
One night, Marie locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out. As her parents yelled at her and begged her to come out, she sang happily to herself. Her parents were angry, but became very frightened when they heard another voice come from the other side of the door. Another voice singing along with their daughter! There was someone else in the house!
Marie’s father started to kick down the door, but it was solid wood and would not give so easily. On the third kick, he heard the mirror crash and his daughter scream. He summoned up all of this strength and kicked the door, shattering it into splinters. Marie’s family ran inside to find her smiling. The mirror was undamaged.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Who else was in here?” her father asked.
“No one,” she said with a devilish grin, “No one at all.”
That night was the last night that Marie sang to herself in the mirror. As a matter of fact, after that night, she only gave a quick glance into the mirror every morning to make sure that she looked presentable. She was more considerate and kind and seemed to enjoy every moment with her family and friends. It was as if she had been replaced with a completely different person.
That was not the end of the strange happenings around the house, however. Every now and then, a member of her family would look into a mirror and see Marie standing behind them, partially hidden by the shower curtain or the door. She would look frightened and lost, her face wet with tears, but when they turned around, no one was there.
Jason Gaston 