It was the winter of my first year in university. This happened when I attended an offline meetup for a local occult forum online, which I had started frequenting after entering college.
Though they called it an offline meetup, the gatherings ranged from casual drinking sessions at izakayas to secretive meetings for the core members. That night, about ten people gathered at a Shirokiya to drink and talk about the occult, and afterwards, only the key members gathered late at night in the room of the female leader.
The leader was a woman named Colo (she changed her handle frequently for some reason, so I'm not even sure if she was really Colo at the time). She was also the girlfriend of my mentor in the occult, so she took a strange liking to me, and as a novice, I was often allowed to mix with the tight-knit core group.
Sometimes these secret meetings involved mock spirit-communication experiments, but that day, we just kept drinking lazily in Colo's room, following the flow of the first party. I remember an older male senior named Yamashita telling a scary story about a strange phenomenon: "When you get tired, human faces start looking like they only fall into four patterns."
When I was shaken awake, there were only three people left in the room. Colo, another woman named Mikacchi, and myself.
"Let's go look at a mirror divination," a remarkably simple sentence slipped into my still-awakening head.
Apparently, a new divination shop had opened in the city, and they offered an unusual kind of fortune-telling "using mirrors." I instinctively checked my watch, and the short hand had passed the 12. But the two women insisted, "It's fine, it's fine, they're still open."
When I borrowed the washroom to wash my face, Colo came up beside me and said, "You have something troubling you, don't you? They say the true nature of your troubles reflects in the mirror at that shop."
Troubles. I certainly did have them. I hadn't told Colo or the other forum members, but around that time, I was right in the middle of a troublesome situation involving a certain woman. Perhaps because I kept running into people with strong spiritual awareness, I frequently encountered psychic phenomena, but abnormal humans were definitely much worse to deal with.
Incredible as it seemed, that woman had once been suspended from a high school in the city after an incident where she "sucked a classmate's blood." Perhaps my curiosity in investigating her had displeased her, because strange events had been happening around me one after another around that time.
Of course, that didn't necessarily mean it had anything to do with her. But for a coward, living while assuming the worst-case scenario was only natural. I even carried a talisman for warding off evil given to me by an acquaintance, keeping it close to my skin at all times.
With a peculiar expression where I couldn't tell what she was thinking, Colo said, "Probably, because it's the real deal."
Colo is sharp-witted. I had told my mentor—who was also an upperclassman in my university club and my occult guide—about the trouble, but to avoid involving his girlfriend, he shouldn't have told Colo. Yet, I had a feeling she had sensed something.
As the three of us left the apartment, it was bitterly cold. I asked "Can't we just go back?" several times, but the two women were all for it and ignored me, walking steadily toward the downtown area.
However, halfway there, Mikacchi's PHS phone rang. After shouting something into the phone, Mikacchi ran off somewhere.
I was taken aback, but felt somewhat relieved. "There's just the two of us now, let's head back," I said. But Colo shook her head and urged me on with an undeniable tone, "Come along."
It was close to 1 AM. We strayed a bit from the glittering, brightly lit street into a gloomy back alley, stopping in front of a small building with a sign that read "Student Loan." There was no sign indicating a fortune-telling shop, but Colo said this was it.
She marched down the stairs leading to the basement. Downstairs was a suspicious door with only the word "Divination" written on it. Colo pushed it open without hesitation and beckoned me in.
The dim shop had no sign of human presence. The moment I caught sight of a human hand behind a counter-like area shielded by heavy black cloth, I instinctively jumped. When Colo spoke to the hand through the cloth, the white hand pointed toward the back of the shop and then smoothly slid away, as if vanishing.
The narrow shop was unified in black, and the ceiling lighting was also covered with black cloth, so until my eyes adjusted, I might not have noticed even if someone pinched my nose.
"This way," Colo grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the back of the shop.
In the back, there was a lone door concealed by black cloth. After parting the thick, slit fabric to peek inside, Colo said, "Here," and urged me forward.
I had been swept along this far, but somehow everything felt eerie. *A mirror that reflects the true nature of your troubles.* I didn't wonder if such a thing could actually exist. Instead, I thought: *Should I even look at something like that?*
I was pushed by Colo through the door. It was even darker inside than before. Behind me, the slit fabric rustled back into place, sealing the entrance.
Even in the dark, I could instinctively tell the room was small. A human shadow was visible at the very back. Trembling, I approached, and sure enough, it was me. I reached out, trying to confirm if it was a mirror surface, but a momentary dizzy sensation made me hesitate. There was some inexplicable sense of wrongness. *The true nature of your troubles.* Is this shop meant to make you realize that? I suddenly thought.
Glancing down at the wristwatch reflected in the large mirror showing my full body, the short hand pointed near the 1. That was when it happened. A muffled, ringing sound in my ears began to faintly echo. This is bad. The sound sent my heart racing like a frantic alarm bell.
Something is happening. Thinking that, I tried to get out of here. And as I tried to turn around to do so, I felt like I saw something black at the edge of my pale face in the mirror. My heart pounded as I turned around, but there was nothing there. Just the dark room spreading out.
I faced the mirror again. This time, the position of my face had shifted slightly, and the black thing hidden behind my face had grown larger. The moment it moved, I almost screamed. I understood clearly. It was a human shadow. Two human shadows in the mirror. One was me, standing in front of the mirror. The other was a figure with long hair standing behind me. It hadn't been there when I turned around just now.
And I had a gut feeling. If I turned around again, wouldn't there be nobody there? I shouldn't have looked at the true nature of my troubles. Regret washed over me.
Inside the mirror, from near the entrance of the room, the long-haired figure crept steadily closer toward me. It was too dark to make out the face. Trembling, I pushed my glasses up. Beyond the mirror, along with my own form and the wall behind me, the outline of that figure blurred as well. It wasn't a hallucination. If it were an illusion created by my brain, it wouldn't blur when I adjusted my glasses. As I stood frozen, the blurred figure wavered and approached behind me. The ringing in my ears grew louder. And the sense of wrongness I felt the moment I entered this room and looked into the mirror seemed to press heavily on me once again.
Should I turn around? If I turn around, there will probably be nothing there. And then I'll run to the entrance of the room and go outside. Should I do that? My heart was pounding as I thought such things, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the mirror.
At that moment, my eyes caught the wristwatch in the mirror again. The short hand was still pointing near the 1. At that instant, I realized the nature of the wrongness. I stared intently at the hand wearing the watch in the mirror. It was wearing the watch on the *right* hand. The me inside the mirror was wearing the watch on his right hand.
I froze, unable to move. Naturally, I usually wear my wristwatch on my *left* hand. When reflected in a mirror, wouldn't it be strange if it weren't on the left hand from my perspective? And the short hand in that mirror should have been pointing near the 11.
What is this? What is this? Those words spun round and round in my head. Every few parts of my body reflected in the mirror that were *not* symmetrical pointed to a single conclusion. I felt my heart beating heavily on the *right* side of my chest. *This side is inside the mirror.*
That couldn't possibly be true. Yet, the me on the other side of the mirror was definitely wearing the watch on the correct hand, pointing to the correct time.
And behind the me on the other side of the mirror, a tall human figure with long hair was closing in. With no time to panic over the impossible situation that this side was the mirror world, and operating under the premise that this side *was* the mirror, I thought about what I needed to do right now.
The ringing in my head, like a swarm of flies, scrambled my confused brain, and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't move. I couldn't turn around. The moment I saw almond-shaped eyes behind the me in the mirror, I involuntarily screamed out. "What should I do?" I don't know why I said that. It was a strange cry for help to throw at Colo, who should be outside. It was as if I was asking someone who knew everything...
Then, without missing a beat, an answer came back. "Aren't you glad you came?" Inside the mirror, the black cloth at the room's entrance rustled, and Colo's voice, devoid of reality, reached me. "What should I do?" I screamed again. The black pupils of the almond-shaped eyes right behind me dilated for a fraction of a second. "Simple. Wake up from this prophetic dream right now, and turn down the invitation to go to mirror divination. That's all."
Those words echoed directly inside my head. I was shaken awake. It was inside Colo's apartment room. Mikacchi was trying to wake Colo, who had slumped over her desk right in front of me.
I grasped the situation with a still-groggy head. Without much thought, it seemed I had been dreaming. I instinctively checked my watch. A little past 12. Of course, it was on my left hand.
What a terrible dream. It seemed to have been set up as all of this being Colo's prophetic dream. I had heard from my mentor before that Colo had an unusually sharp intuition, and that the source of that intuition was prophetic dreams like Edgar Cayce's. Did that conversation cause me to have such a bizarre dream? How ridiculous. Because what just happened wasn't a dream Colo was having; it was *my* dream.
With a groan of "Urrgh," Colo shook her head in refusal. Mikacchi shook Colo's head roughly and said, "Wake up. We're going to mirror divination, right?" Hearing those words sent a chill running down my spine. No, wait. While I was asleep, they must have been talking about just that. It had simply surfaced in the upper layers of my dream while I was in a light sleep. "Ah, right," I said involuntarily, seeing Colo raise her head sleepily. "Nah, I'm going home." Mikacchi said "Aw," expressing her dissatisfaction, but didn't push it. Rubbing her eyelids, Colo stared intently at me. "Something wrong?" I asked nervously. She tilted her head, saying, "What was it again?" "Oh, right." Saying that, Colo whispered something into Mikacchi's ear.
With a snort of laughter, Mikacchi pulled out her PHS phone, stepped out onto the balcony, and started calling someone. After a minute or two, Mikacchi came back in from the balcony, shouting something into the PHS, and hurriedly bolted out of Colo's room. Before me, as I stood there dumbfounded, Colo let out a single yawn with a blank expression.
In the end, I went straight home that day, and the day ended without incident. A few days later, I went to visit my mentor—Colo's boyfriend and my occult guide—to talk about what had happened. I just couldn't get it out of my head. When I finished telling the story, my mentor groaned and said, "You got dragged into it."
I had heard about Colo's condition from my mentor before. Back then, he had said something like, "I want to let you see her when she's asleep. It's terrifying." He said I had been caught up in that exact "terrifying" phenomenon. According to him, when Colo enters a light sleep, she has bizarre dreams that can only be described as prophetic. She doesn't remember these dreams when she wakes up. However, sometimes she "remembers" them during everyday life. And she remembers futures that haven't happened yet. Even if she tries hard to remember, she can't. She doesn't even really understand the criteria for when she remembers. Moreover, rarely, there are duds that you could call static noise. The cause of that is also unknown.
My mentor said that when he slept next to Colo, he had once co-experienced one of Colo's prophetic dreams. He had become a character in the prophetic dream, thinking and acting, and that experience remained connected to his consciousness even after he woke up. And Colo didn't remember any of it.
It was the same. Just like my experience this time. That's what it meant to "get dragged into it." My mentor didn't tell me the details of the dream he saw, but said it was "so terrifying I don't even want to put it into words." "Aside from me, you might be the first person to get dragged into it," my mentor said, strangely impressed. "Still, it's fascinating. You went to see the 'mirror that reflects the true nature of your troubles,' and before you knew it, you were the one inside the mirror?"
It had been a strange sensation. Prophetic dream or whatever, I felt like such a thing shouldn't be possible. Or perhaps it fell under the category of that occasional "noise" that misses the mark.
1. A dangerous shadow is closing in on the "me" on the other side of the mirror. 2. That shadow does not exist on *this* side. 3. The "me" currently thinking is the person inside the mirror. 4. The other side of the mirror is the real world.
My mentor muttered those points to himself. "In other words, that initial terror of *'a shadow that shouldn't be there is reflected only in the mirror'* was converted by your four recognitions into *'a shadow that ought to be there is not reflected in the mirror.'* What on earth your awareness of being inside the mirror in your dream symbolizes—Professor Freud might give you some interesting interpretation. At any rate, at the very least, this contains a very interesting implication."
Grinning, my mentor continued: *Vampires have no reflections in mirrors.*
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