The mirror

Sunday night. And it was raining cats and dogs, here in Hyderabad. I and Atul were returning from ‘The Dark Knight’ movie. The torrential downpour almost reduced our visibility to a few metres on the road.

Atul was driving the car. “Damn it, just glow slow. The car will skid,” I kept warning him.

“Do you think any soul would be walking down the roads in this rain,” he turned towards me. The wipers were sliding along the windshield as the droplets of rain lashed it.

Suddenly I saw someone clad in a white dress obstruct our way. “Atul…watch out,” I shouted. And he rammed into ‘it’. There was a loud bumping sound before he applied the brakes and the car skid for a few meters, coming to a screeching halt.

Both of us were terribly shaken. “Let’s get out of here,” Atul said.

“What about that someone on the road, he or she must have been seriously injured,” I objected. “We’ll call 1098, and inform them. I don’t wanna involve myself in a hit and run case,” his voice quivered.

The next day, I rummaged through all the newspapers for reports on yesterday’s accident.

‘… a woman clad in a white dress, was run over by a car. The woman later succumbed to injuries in a local hospital. Nobody came forward to claim her body yet…’

I was telling him; drive slow, drive slow…

I decided to pay a visit to the hospital. “You’ve gone crazy, you will spill the beans, infront of the police,” Atul was furious. “I will pay my last rites. Atleast we can do this much for her,” I said and hung up the call.

Another friend of ours, Aniket worked in the same hospital. He took me to the mortuary where her body was preserved.

“Last evening, I was the duty doctor, when they brought her in. She had a fractured shin bone and I thought she would recover soon. Later that night, she developed complications. She suffered from some internal hemorrhage and she bled to death. But before she died, she wrote something with her blood, on the floor,” he said.

“What…” and I had gooseflesh.

“Who’s next?”

What in the hell, does that mean?

I thanked him and left for Atul. “Atul, we should immediately contact some seer, or a witch. I know you would believe this. Neither do I, but circumstances are forcing me to,” Atul read my worried face.

But he dismissed it all. And I dropped him at his house. A lot of persuasion fell into deaf ears. He wouldn’t listen to me. I reached home still thinking about the girl. I couldn’t get her image outta my head. With those bruises and scratches on her face, and her eyes which were still and blank and they haunted me.

In a few minutes, I received a call from Atul. He sounded as if he were freaked out.

“Aniket’s dead”, he said, “His wife just called me. He slipped from the first floor and fell onto a glass dining table when he died instantly. And...” he hung up. I tried calling him back, but of no avail. I immediately rushed to his home. He lived all alone. Observing that the door was open, I slowly pushed it open.

The whole place was so eerie and dark. I could only hear the sound of blood gushing through the inner canals of my ear. I suddenly heard a sound from upstairs and slowly climbed the stairs. His bedroom door was open and through the door I saw him.

He was sitting in a corner of his bedroom constantly staring at the mirror affixed to the dressing table. I walked closely to the mirror and was aghast to see these words.

“Who’s next?”

And I rushed to him. “Atul… Atul… let’s see the seer,” I said. And we started immediately. He still kept looking at the bedroom as we reached his car.

“I will drive,” I told him and he handed me over the keys. “The windshield looks pretty new,” I asked him.

“Yes, remember, that day when we hit that girl, a portion of this windshield was damaged and so I got that one replaced,” he said.

The seer’s place is a 30 minute drive from Atul’s. And we reached his place in no time.

We spoke to his disciple who led us to him. The seer was sitting cross legged and meditating when he suddenly opened his eyes as we approached him.

“I know the reason, why you guys are here,” he said. He closed his eyes once again and started to talk.

“Mirrors are a medium between the real world and trance. A mirror or a glass may be the manifestation of one’s own soul or can be holding another’s soul also. The girl was nearly killed in the accident, and her soul slowly moved into the trance via the windshield.”

“But soul can’t be at two different places at the same time. I mean, how can the windshield trap the soul when she still walked on the road?” Atul asked.

“Death isn’t a sudden process. It’s gradual. It is the process in which the soul moves from the mortal state, I mean the body, into some medium, where it will remain immortal forever.”

“The girl was destined to die at that point when your car hit her. But her soul cannot jump into this immortal medium immediately. The soul searched for a glass medium which can lead it into the trance. And then it found your windshield.”

“And when the windshield got destroyed, her soul was liberated. Else, she would have been trapped in it.”

“Then, what about this?” I interrupted, “The girl wrote ‘Who’s next’ in blood. Also, on this mirror at Atul’s home, ‘Who’s next’ was written on it, in blood.”

“I can’t see that far. Some soul trapped in a mirror is trying to contact you, you either have to help it, or help yourselevs” he said as we slowly got onto our feet when I looked at Atul. He was vomiting blood, spurting all over the place. He was coughing heavily and blood started to ooze through the fine pores of his skin.

“You’ve seen something written in blood on a mirror? Hi soul already started making a transition to the mirror. He’s gonna die soon,” the seer finished as I pulled Atul’s body close to the car and placed him on the rear. “Try to destroy the mirror as soon as possible, so that his soul is not trapped in that,” the seer gave one final piece of advice.

Let me take him to a hospital first, I thought. I drove his car at break neck speed with thousands of thoughts racing through my mind. I rushed him to the nearest hospital when he was pronounced dead.

The girl’s soul transitioned into the mirror and then she’s dead and she says, who’s next. And it was seen by Aniket. He’s crashed onto his dining table and then, he’s dead. Then it was again seen by Atul at his home whose soul transitioned into the mirror before he died. This is a vicious cycle. Who’s next?

And as I walked across the corridor which was almost deserted. The lights flickered as I walked. I was looking around when my eye caught the glimpse of something colored in red and dripping.

I peeped into the adjacent room through a small opening in the door. I slightly pushed the door. ‘Creak’, it opened. I saw a mirror right infront of me. And there were words written on it, dripping blood.

“No, I am not gonna allow my soul to move into the mirror,” I shouted and flung a flower vase onto the mirror. It shattered into pieces.

And I looked at myself. I am fine. Nothing’s wrong with me. My soul wouldn’t leave me cos I broke the mirror. So the transition is not gonna happen.

And I kneeled before the broken pieces. I could see something move. A dark silhouette. I slowly bent down and started to arrange the broken pieces when I saw a reflection. It was dark and hooded and the eyes were burning like red ambers. A chill ran down my spine. And when I looked behind, it slashed the broken glass pane across my neck when blood gushed through....