The Reflection Game
It started as a sleepover game, something we found on a creepy pasta forum during the summer of 2015. My cousin Chloe and I were fifteen, bored, and looking for thrills. The post described "The Reflection Game"—a ritual to see into another version of reality using mirrors.
The Reflection Game Rules
- Play between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM
- Use two mirrors facing each other
- Light exactly 13 candles in the room
- Stare into the mirror tunnel for 13 minutes
- Don't break eye contact with your reflection
- If your reflection smiles first, end the game immediately
We set up in my grandmother's guest bathroom—the only room in the house with two large mirrors facing each other. The infinite reflection tunnel they created already gave me chills before we even started. At 2:55 AM, we lit the candles and waited for the witching hour.
At exactly 3:00 AM, we began staring into the mirror tunnel. The first few minutes were boring. Then around minute seven, I noticed something strange. My reflection seemed to be blinking out of sync with me. I dismissed it as tired eyes playing tricks.
By minute ten, Chloe's breathing had become shallow. "My reflection just moved its hand," she whispered, not breaking eye contact. "I didn't move my hand."
At minute twelve, the temperature in the room dropped suddenly. Our breath misted in the candlelight. That's when I saw it—my reflection was smiling. A slow, deliberate smile that didn't reach its eyes.
"It smiled!" I gasped, breaking the rules and looking away from the mirror.
When I looked back, my reflection was still smiling. And then it spoke. Not out loud, but in my mind: "I've been waiting for you."
We blew out the candles and ran from the room, laughing nervously and trying to convince ourselves it was just our imaginations. But that night, I had the first dream—a vivid nightmare where I was trapped in the mirror world, watching my doppelgänger live my life.
The next morning, small things started going wrong. My reflection would sometimes be in a different position than I was. Photos of me showed subtle differences—a different shirt, hair parted on the opposite side. Chloe called me, her voice shaking. She was experiencing the same things.
Over the next week, the phenomena escalated. I'd wake up with strange bruises. Objects in my room would be moved overnight. The reflection in my phone screen would sometimes show me with black eyes or a distorted face.
The breaking point came when my mother asked why I'd been so rude to her at the grocery store the previous day. I hadn't left my room. When we checked the security footage, there I was—or something that looked exactly like me—being deliberately cruel to my mother before walking out of the store.
We tried everything to reverse whatever we'd done. Salt circles, sage smudging, even contacting a local paranormal investigator. Nothing worked. The entity wearing my face was becoming more solid, more real, while I felt like I was fading.
The final confrontation happened three weeks after we played the game. I woke up in the middle of the night to see my reflection standing at the foot of my bed—not in a mirror, but in my room. Solid. Real.
"We're switching places," it said with my voice. "You had your turn. Now it's mine."
I did the only thing I could think of—I smashed every mirror in the house. As each one shattered, the doppelgänger screamed in pain. When I broke the bathroom mirrors where we'd played the game, it vanished with an ear-splitting shriek.
The next morning, all the mirrors were intact again. No evidence they'd ever been broken. But the doppelgänger was gone.
Chloe and I never spoke about it again. We both transferred to different schools the following semester. To this day, I avoid looking at mirrors for too long, especially between 3:00 and 4:00 AM.
But sometimes, when I catch my reflection in a store window or a dark screen, I see it smile just a little too quickly. And I know it's still waiting for another chance to switch places.