Shadow of Shame

The mirror murmurs, a subtle weep in the red glow of the digital clock sitting on the bathroom counter. Claire’s reflection leering back at her, a ghostly expression in the unforgiving light. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t escape the hollow gaze that seemed to see straight through her fake confidence. The woman in the mirror was a shattered soul.

A slight smirk escapes Claire’s frown, a quiver of her top lip. How fitting, she says to herself, that the darkness within her had found an outlet in the dead of night. She follows the lines of a hard life chiseled into her face, her pale cold skin accentuated the trials she’d faced. The mask of normalcy was slipping, revealing the raw vulnerability that stirred behind her heavy eyeshadow. She reached out to touch the mirror, seeking some connection to the distorted image before her. She pressed her forehead to the surface, willing herself to find solution in the cold embrace of her own reflection.

All she found was emptiness. The blackness snapping back at her, a gaping hole of despair. Tears fill her eyes, while silent tracks of sorrow draw thick black lines down her cheeks. She closes her eyes, asking the darkness to just consume her, to grant her the freedom she so desperately craved.

In that moment of surrender, a voice whispers in the recesses of her mind. Claire hangs on to that whisper. She straightens, squeezing herself against the anguish that threatens her.

The clock on the countertop read 3:14 a.m. Claire turns away from the mirror, she would not succumb to her darkness. One last glance at her reflection—a promise of survival—she steps back into the hallway, ready to face whatever demons await her in the night.

As Claire steps out of the bathroom, a sense of dread clings to her, a scab she can’t peal away. The a corridor of uncertainty and tentativeness seems to whisper maliciously in the stillness. Each step she takes echos in the empty hall, the only sound that surrounds her.

She hesitates her heart thumping in her chest, a metronome of dread. The faint rustling of fabric reaches her ears, a sound so soft yet so unsettling in the empty house. Claire’s breath stuck in her lungs as she strains to listen.

An unnatural chill sweeps through the hallway, causing goosebumps on her skin. The hairs on the back of her neck freeze as an icy hand squeezes against her shoulder, Panic clawing at her insides and embracing her for inevitable death.

Trembling, Claire reached out for the light switch at the end of the hallway. Flicking it on, bathing the space in a harsh, unforgiving glow. The shadows recoiled, twisting and contorting in the sudden light. There, at the far end of the hallway, she saw it. Glowing eyes gleaming with a sinister light.

A gasp slips as she stumbles back, her heart pounding in her chest. The evil advances slowly, its movements a grotesque parody of a human. Rancid breath, carrying with it the stench of decay that filling her nasal cavity causing her to vomit.

Claire’s mind racing, her thoughts a jumble of fear and desperation. She needs to escape this ungodly nightmare. A primal scream tearing out from her throat, she turns to run. In a symphony of terror, her footsteps echoing in the empty house vibrating her every nerve.

The creature follows, the cadence of its laughter drunk off madness on her heels. Claire’s lungs burned, her body pushed beyond exhaustion. She didn’t dare glimpse the horror that follows her.

Reaching the dimly lit room at the end of the hall, Clair slams the door behind her in a brief sense of relief.

A voice whispers from the darkness—a familiar voice, filled with lunacy. “You can’t escape me,” it cries, “I am you…”

Claire’s blood runs cold as she realizes the truth of the words. It’s her voice, the nightmares that have plagued her— have all been manifestations of herself. Clair is her own worst nightmare, her scandalous life created the demon inside her. No one but herself could exercise it.