The Boy In The Mirror

CHAPTER 3

I stare at the boy in the mirror. Silence fills the air with a heaviness that I can't quite explain. The beating of my heart grows strong, so strong that it fills my ears desperately searching for any sound to attach to. But a sudden sound breaks that, one of which makes me jump from it cutting through the deafening silence so sharply.

A knock.

My gaze is quickly drawn to my door as it creaks open and my mother emerges from behind it.

"Oh you're up, didn't you hear me calling you?" she asks and I shake my head, "Well dinner's almost ready, are you going to come down and join us?"

I look back to the mirror. Nothing.

"Craig?" My mother asks when I don't respond right away.

"Uh-y-yeah, I'll be right down," I tell her, coming back to my senses and looking over at her again.

"Alright then, it should be done in about five minutes or so," she tells me and pauses, examining me, "is everything ok?"

"Yeah," I nod my head, then glance back over at the mirror, "everything is fine..."

...

After I finish eating, I watch some T.V in the living room and end up falling asleep on the couch that night instead of in my bed.

When morning arrives, I awake to being shaken by my mother.

"Craig. Get up. You're going to be late for school."

Groggily I get up, my eyelids like sandpaper rubbing against my eyes from the little sleep I managed to get last night. With a yawn I walk up stairs, and as I approach my bedroom's door I stop. Sudden images from yesterday flash through my mind and my palms begin to sweat a bit.

I reach for the doorknob and slowly turn it. My door creaks as I open it cautiously. When it's fully opened, I immediately look at the closet mirror. But there's nothing in it, aside from my usual looking room. I relax after a couple seconds and walk into my room to get ready for school.

When I arrive at school, my thoughts are swarmed with a million questions about what happened yesterday and what I saw. They get interrupted however, by a chipper, 'Hello', and I find Butters smiling at me with his usual morning self.

"Hi..." I murmur in response, still somewhat lost in thought.

"You feeling ok there? You seem kind of a bit off today," Butters says.

"I'm fine," I tell him and pause for a moment as a thought arises, "hey, um... do you know why exactly people say that the house I live in is haunted?"

His eyes widen, "Oh golly-did you see something?"

"No, I'm just curious is all," I lie.

"O-oh well, the story tends to change a bit depending on who you ask," he tells me.

"Change?" I repeat.

"Yeah, some say the house was built on an ancient burial ground and that the spirits are upset about that. Another one is that it's possessed by demons or evil spirits from satanists that lived there before."

"Satanists?" I repeat back flatly, corking an eyebrow.

"Mhmm," he nods, "although that's also a rumor. But me personally, I think that it's haunted by the ghost of a victim that was murdered there."

"Were there any reports of a murder taking place there?"

"Err, well no, most of these things are just rumors. But they certainly make things more interesting around here, don't you think?"