Smiling in the dark

It's often the stories we can't fully understand that terrify us the most—those incidents we can't confirm as real or mere fabrications of the mind.

I guess what happened to me that night is an example of that. I cannot even remember the date or what I did that day, but I remember being exhausted and just collapsing on my bed to get some rest. I remember I had just eaten my dinner with my family, my sister and I even drank coffee before heading to bed. It was almost immediately that I fell asleep. From what I can remember it was a deep sleep, because everything was calm and quiet, just as one would want their night after a tiring day would be—until for some reason, I just woke up.

My room was next to my sister's, separated only by a wall with a glass window. My bed didn't face the window; it pointed toward the opposite wall. A large mirror in front of the bed, however, gave me a view of the window's reflection. When I awoke that night, I didn't immediately glance at the mirror. My eyes wandered around the room, as they often did when I woke up in the middle of the night. I didn't have a clock so I remained ignorant of the time, and I kept the lights on, my fear of darkness stemming from childhood tears and night terrors.

But when I did turn my gaze to the mirror, I saw my sister, clear as day, standing just outside the window. Her smile stretched impossibly wide, as if she were waiting for me to notice. I didn't react right away, unable to comprehend what I was seeing. It took nearly a minute for my mind to register the eerie sight. When I finally looked back in the mirror, she was gone.

I was still half-asleep, but the unsettling image began to sink in. The more I thought about it, the less it made sense. My sister's grin, so different from her usual warm smile, seemed oddly lifeless and emotionless. Part of me wanted to dismiss it as a visual illusion, to go back to sleep and pretend nothing had happened. But another part of me knew I couldn't stay in that room—something felt profoundly wrong.

I went to enter my sister’s room and there she was, sleeping soundly on the bed. It was clear that it was not her who had smiled at me from the window a few minutes ago. Goosebumps prickled my skin, and every hair on my body stood on end. My sister shared her room with our mother, and I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone any longer. I approached my mother, who remained undisturbed in her dreams, tapped her leg gently, and asked if I could sleep beside her.

My voice didn't reach my ears, and my mother didn't stir. What frightened me even more was the voice that followed—a delayed echo of my own words, as if mimicking my speech. I frantically scanned the room, searching for the source of the voice. It sounded exactly like me but detached from my body, as though I were watching and hearing myself from the outside.

That's the last memory I have of that night. Nothing made sense from that experience, even to this day. While it would be easier to dismiss it as a bad dream, the fact remains—I woke up next to my mother the following morning. Something happened that night, I just didn’t know what exactly.

Now, every time I lie down in my room, dread washes over me when I look in the mirror. I fear the return of that sinister smile, the presence that haunts me—a chilling reminder that some horrors sometimes refuse to stay confined to the realm of dreams.