The Reflections

 

 

“2:34” was the time on the clock when I heard my doorbell ring. If it had been the same time afternoon, I would have gone out to check who it was, but this time it was in the middle of the night, and I had read enough horror stories to know what goes down when you answer a doorbell in the middle of the night. Also, I lived in the secluded part of the town, so if I were to encounter a burglar, it would take a little longer than usual to get help. With all these thoughts running through my mind, I found myself walking towards the front door unwillingly not to open it but to check on who it was that wanted to meet me at this time of night. I looked through the peephole and saw a strange man standing right in front, holding some kind of letter in his hands. He didn’t look like the postman who normally delivered letters in this neighborhood. His face wasn’t clearly visible, so I tried to take a better look at him. Just when I peeped again, I noticed that he had slipped that letter through the crack under my door. I picked it up and looked back through the peephole, but that man was gone. He was nowhere to be seen; it was as if he had disappeared in thin air.

 

I lived on my own; my parents left me at a very young age. I was told that they met an accident and sadly passed away not many days after I was born. I don’t remember much about them. I have only seen them in pictures. I survived on the money that my relatives gave me from time to time, so life wasn’t that hard. I had never met my grandparents but was told that they would very much like to take me in, but I didn’t want to be a burden to them, so I decided to live alone from a very young age.

 

I held the strange letter in my hands. It was a letter, but something seemed off about it. It wasn’t in an envelope or anything, just a piece of paper with something written on it—no stamp, no signature, or anything.

This letter was already ringing enough bells in my mind to make me get rid of it, but something in the back of my head kept telling me to read it. It was a letter from my grandfather, who wanted to meet me.

 

My grandfather lived on the outskirts of the main city, so it takes a long time to get there, and the transport out there isn’t quite the best. In the letter, my grandfather mentioned that he didn’t have much time and that he wanted to tell me something about my long-lost parents. “What could it be and why now?” were the only thoughts in my mind when I heard the bus driver telling me to get off as I had arrived at my stop. It was a ten-minute walk from the bus stop, so it gave me more time to get lost in my thoughts about the letter and my grandfather. After some time, I had reached my destination. It seemed strange that I was visiting my grandfather for the first time; I had never seen him before. It was an old house but was maintained well. I rang the doorbell and waited, and while I was doing that, I decided to look around. I looked up, and that’s when I noticed a strange shadowy figure looking at me from the first-floor window. I knew that my grandparents lived alone, so I guessed that it might be my grandmother in the window while my grandfather came to get the door. After a while, the door opened, and I was met by my grandmother, who was more than happy to see me after a very long time. I was welcomed in and shown my room, where I would be staying for the night. I hadn’t seen my grandfather yet, so I was getting a little bit curious to know where he was. Later that day, I asked my grandmother about my grandfather. I could notice a sudden shift in air, and she looked a little bit taken back by my question. She then told me that it had been four years since my grandfather had passed away. She also mentioned that he wanted to meet me but couldn’t. I felt a little bit guilty after hearing that, but at that moment the only thought running through my mind was, “Who sent me that letter?” She then proceeded to show me my grandfather’s room. It was on the first floor. “It hadn’t been opened since he passed away,” she said. The room seemed clean; everything was covered and kept in place, quite the opposite of what I pictured it would look like inside my head. Every piece of furniture was covered except for a mirror kept in the corner of the room, which seemed a little bit strange to me, but I dismissed it as just some “cliché horror story element.” She whispered to me from behind, “That mirror was his; during his last few days, he used to just sit in front of it and talk about meeting you.” I felt a shiver run through my spine. She then said that she misses him a lot and wanted to meet him one last time.

 

I decided to stay for the day as it was too late to go back home as the last bus back had already left. I finished dinner and went to my room. I was a little bit tired and decided to go to bed a little early.

I was in deep sleep when I woke up to a loud thud coming from outside my room, followed by the sound of rusty footsteps going up the stairs. My eyes were barely open. I grabbed my phone to check what time it was, and strangely enough, it said “2:34.” My eyes were now open, and I sat up. “Should I go check on what’s making that noise, or should I just go back to sleep?” Out of the two, I decided to go with the first option, as it seemed like the right thing to do. I got up and went to the door. The sound of footsteps had stopped. I quietly opened my door and peeked out, and there it was—that same strange shadowy figure that I had seen previously in the window when I first came to this house. It was now standing outside my grandfather’s room. It then unlocked the door and went in. In my mind, I wanted to let things be and go back to sleep, but we all know how things go down from here. I stepped out of my room and tiptoed my way up the stairs to find out what was going on and to uncover the mysteries behind that strange shadowy figure. I reached the door, and to my surprise it was left open, as if he knew I would follow him and left it open. I felt something was very wrong and shouldn’t go in, but my curiosity got the best of me. I unlocked the door and went in. There in the darkness of the room, all I could see was that strange mirror in the corner of the room.

 

 

 

For some reason I could feel a strange pull; it was like the mirror wanted me to look into it. I then noticed that strange figure walk into the mirror, and that was more than enough for me to make me walk into the room and look into the mirror and find out what is going on. I stood there in front of the mirror. Something was strange about it, and then I looked more closely. Everything the mirror reflected was different from what was there in the room. There were a thousand thoughts running through my mind at that moment, but all of that was set aside when I saw the reflection of my grandfather in the mirror. He looked happy. He said, “I wanted to meet you for a very long time, and now that I have met you, I have something to show you.” He asked me, “Do you want to meet your parents?” and there I saw my parents for the very first time in flesh. It looked so real. He gave me his hand. Tears rolled down my eyes. I can finally be with my parents.

 

I woke up the next day. “Was it all a dream?” I thought to myself. I sat up in my bed, but then I realized it wasn’t my bed. I was in my grandfather’s room, but something was different. Everything was strange. Among all the confusion, I heard something—my grandfather’s voice. It was coming from the garden outside. I looked through the window outside, and there I saw my grandfather watering the plants in the garden with my grandmother.