The Mirror’s Other Side

 Follow-up to “The Whispering Mirror”)

(Filed under: Field Reports Temporal Reflections, Doppelgangers, Mild Existentialism)




When you stare into a mirror long enough, it begins to believe in you.

The trouble starts when it stops.


After the incident at Mrs. Alcott’s house, I brought the whispering mirror back to my lab a converted tool shed behind my flat, equipped with tea facilities and low expectations. I sealed the glass under blackout cloth and tried to ignore the faint sound of someone else breathing.


At ten o’clock, it began again.


“The missing one is seen in three.”


This time, I answered. “Who’s missing?”


The reflection didn’t match my lips. It smiled late — then raised its hand. Mine stayed still.


And on the fogged surface, new words appeared:


“You are.”


The Clues (Revisited)


I compared the recording from Mrs. Alcott’s house to the new one. The whisper’s pitch was identical to my own voice, slowed by exactly three seconds.

The mirror wasn’t haunted. It was delayed.


Somehow, the glass was reflecting not light, but time showing me three minutes ahead, then using that reflection to predict what I’d say.

An elegant trick of physics, or theology pretending to be science.


I ran the numbers (and by “ran,” I mean “stared until I felt clever”):

If the mirror saw three minutes into the future, and both reflections existed simultaneously, then one of them had to be the original.


The question was which?


The Conversation


At precisely 10:03, the reflection spoke again, perfectly synchronised.


“We can’t both exist,” it said.


“Charming,” I replied. “I suppose you’ve drawn up a rota?”


It shook its head mine and reached out. The glass rippled like cold mercury.

For a moment, I felt my fingertips touch something that wasn’t surface but memory.


Behind the mirror I saw flashes three scenes:

  1. The Butcher’s Parish — the altar burning blue.

  2. The Eighth Minute — the brass corridor collapsing into bells.

  3. A dark hallway — my own face vanishing into fog.


All of them moments when I should have died, but didn’t.


“The missing one,” I whispered, “is me.”


The Revelation


Every time I’d escaped death, something on the other side had paid the debt.

The mirror was their ledger. Each reflection was a version of me that hadn’t walked away.

And now they wanted balance.


At exactly 10:04, the glass cracked down the middle forming, yes, the shape of an eye.

A second voice spoke from within:


“Third time pays for all.”


Then the reflection did something unforgivable it winked.


The mirror imploded, shards vanishing into smoke. When the air cleared, I was alone again mostly.


My watch now runs three minutes fast.

I don’t correct it.


The Aftermath


Mrs. Alcott reports her house is quiet. She’s taken up bird-watching, which she describes as “safer than mirrors.”

As for me I catch glimpses. Shop windows. Car doors. A stranger in my coat, walking half a pace behind.


He’s always smiling.

And always exactly three minutes late.


Filed under: Resolved (in theory), Unresolved (in practice).


S. Daark

(Filed: Tuesday, Obviously.)

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