THE MIRROR

Some people’s childhoods taste like sugar. Nathan Caulfield’s was like staring into a shattered mirror—no matter how careful you are, it still finds a way to cut you.

It all began when he was fifteen. In the small room beneath the house. Small… and holding only one thing: a mirror.

And today, that mirror had started to crack.

After his mother’s death, Nathan became a quiet boy forced to live in the same house as his father. Quiet… but with something inside him that never stopped screaming.

His mother had hanged herself. That day, Nathan had poured her pills down the drain. He thought she would get better.

But that night, she had a breakdown and took her own life. And his father whispered just one sentence into his ear:

“You killed your mother.”

Over time, that sentence turned into a lullaby. The only thing he heard before falling asleep. The first thought in his head when he woke up.

Nathan grew up. But so did the sentence. It grew with him.

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That day, after school, he didn’t go upstairs. He took off his shoes. Silently made his way toward the door beneath the stairs.

The door creaked open. Inside was a concrete room, small and damp. Set into the far wall, opposite an old wooden chair, was a large mirror embedded in the concrete.

The room was small. Its walls moist, its floor bare. But to Nathan, it was something else entirely.

Everything he suppressed during the day was unleashed here.

He’d sit in front of the mirror, stare for a while, stay silent… and speak. To himself. Though maybe not just to himself.

It had been a habit for years. Maybe a ritual. Maybe just a way to hold onto his mind.

He was there again that night. He sat in the chair. His hands rested on his knees, his head slightly bowed. In the darkness, he locked eyes with his reflection.

It was like looking into a broken mirror again. No matter how cautious he was, he’d bleed from somewhere tonight.

— “I’m back,” Nathan said.

And it felt like his reflection nodded. He must have been hallucinating. But he saw it every night.

— “I can’t do it,” he said. “Sometimes… I want to scream. But even inside me, there’s no sound.”

The reflection said nothing. But sometimes, silence was louder than any answer. Nathan exhaled.

Every day since childhood, he had sat in front of this mirror, trying to hold himself together. What began as a child’s game had slowly turned into a refuge— And then into a nightmare.

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A sound came from upstairs. First, swearing. Then glass shattering. Then the thud of a bottle hitting the floor.

His father’s voice.

Nathan didn’t take his eyes off the mirror.

— “The monster’s awake.”

He wasn’t afraid of his father anymore. But the disgust remained.

He climbed the stairs slowly. At the top, his father’s voice reached him:

— “Back in that crazy little room again? Your mother’s madness wasn’t enough—you had to outdo her, huh?!”

Nathan said nothing. He kept walking down the hallway.

— “If you hadn’t been born, your mother would still be alive.”

That sentence again. Digging in deeper every time. But this time… Nathan stopped.

He turned around slowly. Looked his father in the eye.

— “No,” he said. — “You killed her.”

His father’s eyes widened. A moment of silence. Then rage.

He lunged at Nathan. Grabbed his arm. Pushed him.

They struggled.

Until something happened.

His father’s foot slipped. He lost his balance. And tumbled down the stairs.

His head hit the bottom step with a crack.

“THUD.”

Time froze. Nathan stood above, staring. His father’s body was motionless. Blood began to pool beneath his skull.

He felt nothing. Just… a quiet kind of emptiness. And then came something else:

Peace.

For the first time… he could truly breathe. Deep. Uninterrupted. Free from guilt.

— “I’m breathing for the first time.”

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📍End of Chapter

Nathan will return to the mirror. But this time, he won’t be alone. Because once a reflection starts to crack…. The rest always follows.