Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Today’s story is brought to life by the following prompt…

This is my submission for Kevin’s No Theme Thursday.

A Shard of Glass in Its Reflection

Each step he takes has more presence than the last. The sea of mirrors that surround him reflects countless angles back and forth into itself. His reflection, shattered and lost in the endlessness. He digs a hand into the pocket of his suit trousers and grips his wispy head of hair with the other. The crack of glass from somewhere in the distance behind him brings his march forward to a stop, and he gently turns himself around, and into the pathway of a figure who stands watching him a few feet away.

“It’s not going to be that easy, I won’t let it,” the figure calls out, resting an object on his shoulder.

He grins a sly, sleazy smile. “You can’t stop what’s already happened. This place, it’s just a corridor now. What’s done is done, so, FUCK OFF!” he slurs, as he turns back around and starts his march once more.

The sound of more glass shattering brings him to another stop. He closes his eyes, lets out a long, winded sigh, and turns back around once more. The figure is now closer; a sledgehammer can be seen clearly in his clutches this time.

“I can still stop you, and if that’s all I can do, well, that would be enough.”

“Fuck!” he grunts, as he takes another deep breath. “Are you really gonna make me kick your arse again?”

“You didn’t kick my arse, you kicked his,” he says, nodding his head back towards the other end of the corridor.

His smile wavers, and a small bead of sweat breaks out on his brow. “W-Who are you then?”

“We both know who I am, so let’s not cheapen the whole ordeal with a round of silly buggers.”

“B-B-But how is this possible?”

“How is this possible? Are you really asking that?” he scoffs as he takes a couple of steps forward, a smile across his lips. “You’re here, why can’t I be here as well?”

“B-But this is MINE! I-I-I, I built this, n-not you!” he says in a panic, as he pulls a small device from his pocket and starts to play with buttons, knobs and switches.

“Why couldn’t I have built one as well? You think you’re the only one of us who had this idea? Surely you’ve seen the sea and felt the tidal wave of the worlds upon worlds when you stepped into the mirror? I know I felt it, so you as SHIT must’ve as well.”

“I-I-I, I felt it, b-but I-I-I, I didn’t think, I-I-I, I didn’t,” he mumbles as his eyes frantically search the world before him, with no real purpose. He looks up into his own eyes with distraught desperation. “H-How many others?”

“How many others? What? How many other us’ are there?”

He nods, a nervous twitch running up the side of his face.

He smiles broadly. “Billions, upon billions. Each time someone thought a different thought, a new world was created, split from the ether, and went about its own path. Billions of people, billions of lives, billions of possibilities. Some so fucking close, you’d think they were the same, and others, completely fucking different.”

He raises a pistol and aims it at him. “T-T-That’s not the question I’m asking.”

He laughs nervously, “I know, I was just buying time for him to get into place.”

“H-H-Him?” he stammers, as he feels the warm breath on the back of his neck.

“Yeah, him, or me, or you, or whatever you want to call what we are.”

He slowly turns around to face the mirror standing behind him and stares at his reflection. Nervously he presses a hand up against the glass. For a few lost moments, he stares at the reflection of his hand as it meets his. Then he locks eyes with his reflection, and it smiles at him, its teeth yellow and rotten. With a trembling hand, he touches his own teeth, his image mirroring his moves.

“W-W-What’s w-w-wrong with y-you…” It’s then that he notices his other hand holding his pistol against his head. “W-WAIT!” he cries as his finger tightens around the trigger, and the bullet explodes out of the barrel, into his head, sending shards of glass in all directions.