09/02/2026
For the last six months, my husband, Chinedu, has banned all mirrors in our house in Chevron Drive.
He told me it was a new interior decor trend he saw in Architectural Digest. He replaced our beautiful vanity mirrors with abstract paintings. He covered the sliding wardrobe doors with opaque wallpaper.
He even removed the rearview mirror in his G-Wagon.
"I want to focus on inner beauty, babe," he said, flashing that charming smile that made me fall for him.
I thought he was going through a mid-life crisis.
Maybe he was afraid of getting old. I laughed about it with my friends, telling them my husband was behaving like a drama king.
But last night, the laughter stuck in my thr0at.
I woke up around 2:45 AM because the AC had stopped working, Nepa logic. The heat was unbearable. I turned to wake Chinedu, but his side of the bed was empty. The sheets were cold.
I saw a faint light coming from the master bathroom. The door was slightly ajar.
I assumed he was using the toilet. But then I heard the sounds.
Thud. Crash. Gasp.
It sounded like two men fight!ng.
My heart began to hammer against my ribs. Had thieves entered the house? Was Chinedu fighting an intruder?
I crept out of bed, grabbing a heavy ceramic vase from the side table. I tip-toed to the bathroom door and pushed it open slowly.
What I saw made my brain stop working.
Chinedu was standing in front of the only mirror left in the house, a small shaving mirror he had hidden in the cabinet. But he wasn't shaving.
He was being stranğ|ed.
His hands were clawing at his own throat, gasping for air. But here is the thing that made me almost wēt myself.
His hands were at his sides.
The hands ch0king him were coming out of the mirror.
Inside the glass, Chinedu's reflection looked furious. The reflection's face was twisted in rağe, its eyes reď, its teeth bared like a wilď animal. The reflection had reached out of the glass, its solid gr!p tightening around my real husband's neck.
"Give... it... back!" the reflection hisseď.
It wasn't a whisper. It was a guttural growl that vibrated through the tiles.
The Chinedu standing in the bathroom, the one I s|eep with, the one who buys me diamonds, was strugg|!ng, his eyes rol|!ng back.
"It's... mine... now!" my husband choked out, trying to pry the glass fingers off his neck.
I screamed.
The sound broke the spel|.
The reflection snapped its head toward me. Its eyes met mine.
In that split second, I saw something that chilled my soul. The man in the mirror had the small scar on his left eyebrow. The scar Chinedu got when we were dating in university.
The man standing in my bathroom did not have the scar.
Suddenly, the "Husband" standing in the room grabbed a heavy perfume bottle and smasħeď the the mirror.
Кроаааа!
The glass shattered into a thousand pieces. The hands around his neck vanished instantly.
He stood there, panting, bleeding from where the glass shards had cut him. Then he turned to look at me.
His face was smooth. Too smooth. His expression was blank, like a doll.
"Babe," he said, his voice terrify!ng|y calm. "Go back to bed. It was a bad dream."
"Who are you?" I whispered, backing away. "You don't have the scar."
He touched his eyebrow. He smiled, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.
"The scar is a f|aw," he said, taking a step toward me. "I fixed it. I fixed everything. Do you prefer the old broke Chinedu, or the new rich Chinedu?
Choose wisely, Nne."
I ran.
l locked myself in the children's room with my twins.
It has been four hours. He is outside the door. He is whistling a tune, a tune that sounds like break!ng g|ass. He says if I don't come out, he will g0 and say goodnight to the children.
I realized the truth sitting here in the dark. The man I married is trapped in the broken sharďs of glass on the bathroom flo0r. The thing pacing outside my door is the Reflection that stole his
l!fe.
I have a hammer in my hand.
If l open the door, do I attaćķ him? Or do I try to find a piece of the mirror to see if my rea| husband is still there?
