| abstract | - We all get weird feelings right? Is somebody watching me? Many people feel it all the time, when they’re at their most vulnerable, right before we fall asleep, while showering, or even getting home late at night. Most of the time it's just blind fear, not backed up by anything, but just there. Most of the time. But what would we really do if someone, or, something was watching us for real? A friend of mine by the name of Erin knows, and that's where our story starts. The day starts like any other, Erin wakes up, talks to some friends, and goes to work. A shift of five to eleven is usually bad enough, but today halfway through her shift, the air conditioning breaks. In a grocery store of all places. The store is closed 2 hours early and Erin is to still stay and help them try and save some of the produce by moving it to the back room. Hot and tiring work. The shift ends an hour early, but from all the work, she is feeling fatigue. She gets home, exhausted, and upon getting out of her car feels sticky and gross; all she wants is a shower now. She moves into the house and heads up stairs, straight to the bathroom. Strangely the bathroom light is already on, but with the mood Erin was in, she didn’t pay mind to something as simple as light. She closed the door behind her and started the water. While waiting for it to warm up she looks into the mirror. She's a mess, she knows it. Hair out of place from sweating into it, as was expected from moving the likes of watermelons and bags of potatoes to the cold room. What wasn’t expected were the dark circles under her eyes. They weren't there before she left, and she did sleep fairly well the night before. She looks puzzled for a second as she stares on. “Hmm, that's weird, don’t remember that?” wonders Erin, but again, she shrugs it off, not wanting to think too much at the moment. Reaching back to the shower to feel that water, it's warm enough, she peels off the clothes she was wearing and gets in. Normal routine, scrubbing, usual stuff, but she's bothered a bit. A feel of eyes on her. Not like a friend looking her in the face, or even the feel of boys gawking at her, it's something more. Something different. Feels, not violent or cruel, but all the while a slight hint of menace. She stops for a moment and peers out from behind the curtain and scans the room. Nothing out of place, everything as it was before she got in. Well, aside from the mirrors being fogged up, but that is as expected while taking a shower. Nothing to worry about, so she goes back to the water. She looks up into the shower head and lets the water rinse her body. A feeling anyone would love, so standing in the warmth for a couple minutes was a joy that she would indulge in this night. She stands there, thinking, as one does in the shower and got into some notions about TV shows, movies, video games, among other stories. Other worlds to travel to, but then realizes she's been standing in the warmth for about ten minutes. She still needed to wash her hair. Squeezed some shampoo onto her hand and began to lather it through her hair, really taking the chance to cleanse it, wanting to rid all the dirt accumulated from sweating in a humid area. By this time, suds are streaming down her head and face. Suddenly there comes a knock, a gentle tap, not enough to be alarmed, but enough to pose a wonder. Again she pops her head out of the curtain to see and opens her eyes. Fuck. The suds go into her eyes and the burning begins. She stills keeps her eyes open for a second to look out, but with the combination of suds and tears she can’t see out. Shrugged it off and proceeds to rinse the soap out of her hair. Another handful of shampoo and she washes her hair once more, lathers and goes back to rinse again. This time as soon as all the soap flows off, she hears the knock again. She turns off the water. Another knock, she opens the curtain. Well nothing out of the ordinary again as she scans the room. But the mirror. Dots, lines, like someone was writing with the steam. A chill goes up Erin’s spine, Some one must be playing a joke on me. She laughs, more for effect than anything else. Then the feeling of eyes looking at her comes back, someone looking at her fresh out of the shower, getting some sort of sick pleasure from it. Something. She quickly gets out and grabs for a towel, not frantically, but enough for the the presence of alarm to be known. She wraps herself in it, not bothering to dry off the excess water, just as long as she was covered. Then she turns her attention to the mirror. Near the bottom, dots and dashes, small. Not nearly enough to be a message or writing. More of a clawing really. Near the middle of the mirror, four more dots, close together this time. She looks very closely and notices smears, prints. Fingerprints. Finally the top of the mirror. Two sideways diamonds fairly close together, rhombi. A gap between them, the width of the bridge of someones nose. She gets close to the mirror again and looks at the Rhombi closely, no fingerprints, no smudges. No sign of fingers or hands doing this. The Rhombi were familiar though. She thought for a minute but couldn’t place it. Then it hit her. Eyes. The rhombi looked like eyes. Turning her head back to see, it seems that if they were eyes, the gaise would be looking directly at the shower. Erin then looks down, where were her clothes? She scanned the floor for a minute then found them they were pressed up against the door, like someone kicked them into the gap between the floor and the base. Like someone kicked them from the inside. But how could someone do this, and mess with the mirror she thought? She kneeled down to gather her clothes and glance back up to the mirror. Looking back to it she gasped, she didn’t scream, she struggled for air, tears streamed down her face. The eyes, the dots and dashes were gone, and in their place, a streak. Just like someone had wiped their hand down the mirror. Erin was the only one in the room, she didn’t touch the mirror, what did this. She stood up and looked closer, tears still coming as she looked in horror. It looked like the mirror had been...wiped from the other side. Erin closed her eyes for a second to make sure what she was seeing was real, but when she opened them back up, the mirror had a sheet of steam once more. No dots, no dashes, no eyes, and no streak. Erin left the bathroom in a hurry, and went to her room. It was nothing she kept saying to herself as she got dressed, just an eye trick. In her heart she knew what she saw though. She did things to get her mind off of it. Text her boyfriend, Played a video game, messaged me. Called her dogs into her room. But she was disturbed. I knew something was wrong, with the short answers she would send but didn’t question it. She was back to normal a few days later, and when asked what was wrong by anyone she simply replied, “I’m just tired, work.” It wasn’t until weeks later that she recounted this story to me. Shes fine now. But she just doesn’t look at mirrors the same way anymore. Something off about them.
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