The game
It’s 23:32, and Adam has been sleeping for three hours. Suddenly, amidst the darkness, a low-tone whispering voice echoes, “Wakey, wakey, Mr.Black. It’s time for tonight’s guessing game.”
As he slowly opens his eyes, Adam takes a moment to let these eerie words echo in his mind and reflect back to the shadows where they came from.
Still half awake, half asleep, Adam slowly stands up from the bed shouting back at the mirror, “Alright, I am coming, alright. Today I am going to beat you, you know.”
“I hope so, Mr.Black. You still have a lot of work to do if you want to beat me in our little game. So please, get up, and come to me. You have to make a new guess tonight.”, the mirror answered, laughing sarcastically.
Adam glances at the beautiful landscape around him. The view is stunning, as always, but it’s the climate he never liked, especially the air. The air is freezing most of the year, and Adam prefers warmer temperatures. Not that it mattered much, considering he couldn’t leave home whenever he wanted.
He could only go out at specific hours of the day and spend time with his friends, but they had to stick strictly to the schedule of the neighborhood so that everyone had fun. He’s been living in this new house for five years. One could say that it’s a lot of time, but he did it to be sure that no one could move him out of this cozy, spacy residence.
He moves towards the sink in the bathroom, right next to where his bed is. As he washes his face, the subtle but creepy and a bit disturbing voice speaks again. This time it is heard through the mirror right above his head.
“I hope you had plenty of sleep, Mr.Black. Today’s reveal is going to be special. I want you to be well-rested and prepared for what’s to come.”
“I am not afraid of you, mirror. I am scared of nothing. I never was.”
“Oh, and how did that work for you? You are stuck with me for the rest of your life, playing ‘Guess who’ every night.”
Adam raises his head and looks straight into the mirror. But he can’t see his reflection. He can only see a floating black shadow, like a mass without form or identity.
“What do you see?” the mirror asked.
“I see a shadow. A big, black shadow inside you.”, Adam answered without hesitating.
“But I am you, and you are I. That shadow is rooted deep inside you. And you are, once more, not ready to face the truth. So, make a guess. Who am I today?”
Adam’s blood went cold for a second. He tried to compose himself and spoke again. “You are Mrs.Barbara Peterson. That old hag lived on the third floor, right above my apartment, back when I was living in London. She and her stupid, lousy cats.”
Suddenly, the black mass inside the mirror starts disappearing, and the beautiful figure of an old woman takes its place. She is holding a few baby cats and smiling at Adam.
After a few seconds of silence, the mirror says, “Ah, yes, Mrs.Barbara. Poor, Mrs.Barbara. I remember her. A day came when all of her children went their ways and left her alone. Noone came back for her; Everyone forgot her. To fight her loneliness, she adopted six little kittens to keep her company till the end of her time. But you couldn’t stand the noise, could you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“She used to love you, remember? She always greeted you with a big, warm smile. But you couldn’t stand her smile, so you killed her.”
“No. No. You are lying. I couldn’t. I am no murderer. Yes, I couldn’t stand her or her stupid cats, but I can’t hurt anyone.
“Yes, you can, and yes, you are a murderer — a cold-blooded killer. You went upstairs to her apartment one day and pretended you wanted to pay the rent.”
“Stop it! Stop, please!”
“She let you in her house. She thought of you as a friend of hers. She felt that you loved her as much as she loved you. But you did not. You can’t love or be loved, Mr.Black, because you are empty!”
“No! Stop!”
“And then you saw the kittens on the couch. Too much noise, you thought and headed straight for the kitchen. You grabbed a knife and stabbed Mrs.Barbara 20 times to her death.”
“There was so much noise! So much noise!”
The mirror pauses for a moment. Now dropped to his knees, Adam is holding his head tightly, trying to silence the voices of hundreds of people inside his head.
“Do you hear them now? Those are the voices of the hundreds of lives you took before Mrs.Barbara. Together, we go through that every night. Meeting them one by one.”
“No! How could I?”
“This is your final lesson. Now admit it.”
Adam still holds his head, trying to make the screams disappear. But they only grow louder.
“Look at me!” the thundering echo of the mirror is enough to make any voice in Adam’s head go away. He rises and looks in the mirror one more time.
“You see, Mrs.Barbara was your last mistake. In your rage and despair, you set her apartment on fire but didn’t disappear. No, you stayed there and watched. That’s how they found you and brought you here, to me. After five years of mindless murders, the police had finally caught the notorious serial killer.”
Adam looks around, and a staggering pain pierces his cold heart.
“That’s right. Nothing is beautiful around here. No landscapes, no friends, no cozy house. This prison cell will be your home till the end of your time. Now tell me. Who are you?”
Adam mumbles and whispers his name as he starts to realize what his true nature is.
“I am Adam Black.”
“What are you?”
“A serial killer.”
“Take a look at me for one last time. And give an end to this. You deserve to be alone, forever, in this cell.”
He looks at the mirror for one last time. But for the first time, he can see his face, crystal clear, reflected on the dirty, ugly piece of glass. And with one swift strike, he punches the mirror and breaks it into hundreds of tiny pieces, like the voices inside his head.
The blood on his fist brings back sad memories of mistakes he will never be able to fix. And with that thought, he returns to his cold bed.
