The Bathroom Mirror

I'm what you'd call a big shitter. As you've probably guessed by the name, I tend to visit the bathroom a lot. I am a hygienic fellow, so I always wash up afterwards. The bathroom in my house is a well furbished room, with a heated floor, Jacuzzi, and a fine wooden toilet seat. Directly above the sink where I wash my hands is a large mirror, with a view of the whole bathroom behind me. Like everyone, I tend to look at myself in the mirror for a bit, and arrange my hair in a way I deem suitable.

One night in July, there was a great wind howling outside, creating an eerie whistling noise that echoed outside and around my house. Everyone was asleep. I opened the door. It creaked my open and made as I made my way across the dark landing, past my sister's and parent's open bedroom doors. The top of the stairs are right next to the bathroom door, and as one can imagine, are very creepy at night. As I edged closer to the bathroom door, I felt an uneasy tingling at the back of my neck and felt as if something was approaching me, descending the dark stairs.

Now feeling downright scared, I flicked the bathroom light switch, shot into the bathroom, and locked the door, my heart beating fast. Trying to forget about it, I plugged in my iPod headphones, and put them in my ears and began to listen to music.

Near the end of my offloading, the toilet roll on the rack ran out. There is a cupboard where we keep spare toilet roll and towels right outside the door, so I unlocked the door, and opened it slightly and reached out. As I grabbed the packet in my outstretched hands, my eyes darted to the dark staircase. The uneasy feeling that I had experienced at the bathroom door returned to me, but grew worse. It was already dark, but something was wrong. Something was out of place. Among the darkness, at the top of the stairs, there was a black shadowy mass; a sort of human shape, and it seemed to be staring at me. Almost pissing myself, I closed my eyes, and slammed the door shut again.

I finished wiping, and my entire body was sweaty and shaking. I stood up and went over to the sink to wash my hands. After wiping them clean and dry, I looked up into the mirror. There, in the bath, was a black mass. It was roughly the same shape as the one I had seen on the stairs. Too horrified to turn round, I stood there frozen, not daring to move. The mass slowly rose from the bath, into a standing position. Terrified, I closed my eyes. I felt the air temperature drop around me, and felt someone breathing on the back of my neck. Without thinking, I opened my eyes. There, standing right behind me, was an unmistakably human figure, with dripping wet hair, gaunt, sunken eyes, and an eerie smile on its face. I felt its hands brush against my arm, as if it was feeling me. It opened its mouth to reveal a set of rotten, broken yellow teeth, and out of the darkness of its mouth, a tongue emerged, or, what appeared to be left of it. It was long, ripped in parts, and a sickly yellow-green color. With a malicious grin on its face, it moved its head next to mine, and I could almost feel it's tongue against my skin. The smell was unbearable. I wanted to throw up. Without warning, it stuck it's tongue straight into my ear. It felt so horrible that nothing could describe it. Everything around me started to go blurry, and I lost all focus.

I found myself on the bathroom floor, and felt something warm trickling down my head. From the red splatters on the floor I could tell that I was bleeding. From what I could gather, I must have fainted and hit my head on the edge of the toilet seat. It was still night, as I could still see darkness from under the door, so no one yet knew of my injury. I grabbed a tissue paper and wiped my head, not daring to look back in the mirror. I swiftly flushed the chain and sped back across the hallway, to my door. Now my bedroom door is really hard to open from the outside, as the handle is really stiff. Because of this, I never close it from the outside. When I got to my door, I realized to my horror, that it was closed. Then I got that feeling again. The stairs were creaking, as if someone was walking up them slowly. I turned around and saw the figure again.

Now panicking with fear, I desperately scrambled to open my door, but my hands were too sweaty and shaky to open them. The figure was on the landing now, approaching me. I could hear it making a heavy breathing noise that seemed to get faster and faster as it got closer to me. Suddenly my hand slipped on the handle and opened the door, so I ran inside and hid under my covers for the remainder of the night.

I refused to use the bathroom at all after that incident, and rarely left my room. My family tried to talk to me about it, but I refused to divulge the events of the past night. Eventually, due to my lack of eating and using the bathroom, I picked up an illness and was admitted to hospital for treatment. I was placed with a bunch of other people, all who were sleeping in their beds. One patient however, caught my eye. They had long hair, that looked damp and bedraggled, and gaunt sunken eyes. It turned its head and looked at me, putting on an evil smile. Remembering the events of the bathroom, I pulled my cover over my head and tried to sleep. I slept badly that night, but nevertheless, I finally managed to drift to sleep. The next morning, when the nurse was bringing me breakfast, I asked her who the patient in the bed was, that had been looking at me. The nurse gave me a puzzled look and told me that there had been no one in that bed, and people tended to avoid it. When I asked her why, she told me that the last person to occupy that bed had been involved in an unfortunate accident in the ward bathroom, and had drowned in the bath.

Realizing that the figure I had seen in my house and the one in the hospital were the same, my throat sunk. Was I really seeing a dead person? And what did it want with me? After not visiting the bathroom for such a long time, I really had to go. I walked down the empty, dark hallway at the end of the ward to the bathroom, and went in. There was the bath that the figure had drowned in, right next to the toilet. I felt very uneasy as I sat down and did my business, and breathed a sigh of relief when I had finished wiping. I went over to the sink to wash my hands as usual, and glanced into the mirror. The bath seemed to be filling with water, even though the taps were clearly off. I froze on the spot. A dark mass was forming in the bath, and an otherworldly gurgling noise was emitting around the room. Suddenly something big and black emerged from the water, splashing water everywhere, including over me. While wiping the water from my eyes, I saw the very same figure that I had witnessed twice before, now standing before me. It climbed out of the bath and approached me. Not wanting to stay in there any more, I ran, pants still around my ankles, straight through the figure, out of the bathroom, down the hallway past shocked members of staff, and back to the ward.

I went home a week later, still badly shaken. My parents had thrown a welcome home party for me, hoping it would cheer me up. The party went well, though I still didn't feel exactly happy. While meeting and thanking the guests at the end of the party, I felt an odd sensation, as if someone was breathing down my neck. I turned round, and right in my face, was that unforgettable face. Long, dripping hair, and sunken, dark eyes...