For years, Daniel hid behind his look—long, tangled hair cascading past his shoulders, a beard so thick it nearly consumed his face. People called him “mountain man,” “wizard,” “the wild guy.” He laughed it off, pretending it didn’t matter. But inside, he felt himself fading.
His reflection had become a stranger—one that stared back with hollow eyes, as though the man he once was had long since vanished beneath the layers of hair and time.
Then came the breakup. After that, Daniel stopped going out altogether. The world shrank to the four walls of his cabin and the faint, static hum of his own thoughts.
Months passed. Silence settled.
Until one morning, while washing his face in icy well water, he saw it—a flicker in the mirror. His reflection blinked a second too late.
He froze. Rubbed his eyes.
It was gone.
But something inside him shifted that day. A restlessness, a pulse of clarity he hadn’t felt in years. “I don’t know who I am anymore,” he whispered to his reflection. “Maybe it’s time to find out.”
That afternoon, Daniel drove into town for the first time in nearly a year. He parked outside a barbershop he’d never noticed before—Reflections, Est. 1972. The lights were soft and warm, and the faint sound of a record player drifted through the air.
A barber with slicked-back gray hair greeted him. “You look like a man ready for change,” the barber said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Daniel laughed. “Yeah. Something like that.”
The barber gestured to the chair. “Let’s get started.”
The first snip was almost surgical. Long locks fell away, each one like a piece of armor hitting the ground. The scissors whispered against the hum of an old jazz tune playing from the back room.
They trimmed twelve inches of hair. Shaved layer after layer of his beard until the man beneath began to emerge. Then came the straight razor, gliding across skin that hadn’t seen daylight in years.
As the transformation unfolded, Daniel closed his eyes. He could feel the weight lifting—physically, yes, but also… something deeper. A strange lightness, like exhaling after years of holding your breath.
Hours later, the barber placed a hand on his shoulder. “You ready?”
Daniel nodded.
The chair spun toward the mirror.
He gasped.
The man staring back wasn’t him.
He had Daniel’s eyes—same shade of steel gray—but everything else was wrong. The jawline sharper. The skin smoother. The faint scar above the eyebrow—gone.
“Wait,” Daniel whispered. “Where’s my scar?”
The barber blinked, expression placid. “Scar?”
“The one here—” Daniel pointed at his brow, but there was nothing. Smooth skin. Untouched. “I’ve had it since I was eight!”
The barber’s voice was calm, unnervingly so. “Sometimes, when you shed the past, it sheds you back.”
Daniel frowned. “What does that mean?”
But the man only smiled, removing the cape with a slow flourish. “New beginnings can be… strange. You’ll get used to it.”
That night, Daniel couldn’t stop staring at his reflection. He ran his hands along his face, tracing unfamiliar lines. The man in the mirror smiled—but Daniel didn’t.
His heart began to race.
He stepped back. The reflection didn’t.
“Okay,” he whispered, forcing a laugh. “I’m tired. That’s all.”
He turned off the light and left the bathroom. But in the darkness behind him, the faint shimmer of movement rippled across the mirror’s surface.
Days passed. Everywhere Daniel went, people stared. Not with curiosity—no, something else. Recognition.
“Hey,” a woman said at the grocery store, her voice trembling. “I thought you were—”
He turned. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
She went pale. “No… no, it’s just—you look exactly like…” She trailed off and hurried away.
That night, Daniel searched online for Reflections, Est. 1972.
No results.
No listings.
No address.
No phone number.
He checked his bank statement—no record of payment.
But the haircut was real. The new face was real.
Wasn’t it?
By the fourth night, the reflection had started… moving differently.
Daniel would lift his hand, and the reflection would lag—just a fraction of a second. But enough to notice. Sometimes it smiled before he did. Once, it whispered something he couldn’t hear.
He covered the bathroom mirror with a towel.
The next morning, the towel was on the floor.
And written in fog across the glass were the words:
“You wanted to find yourself.”
Daniel’s knees buckled. “What do you want from me?”
The reflection tilted its head, mimicking him with eerie precision.
Then, slowly, it lifted a hand—and pointed behind him.
Daniel spun around.
Nothing.
When he turned back, the reflection was gone. The mirror was just glass again, showing an empty bathroom.
Until it wasn’t.
His reflection returned—but this time, it smiled wider.
Too wide.
And as Daniel leaned closer, he saw something that made his blood run cold.
His reflection had the scar again.
He stumbled back, breathing hard. “No—no, that’s not possible!”
The reflection’s lips moved without sound. Then the lights flickered—and it spoke.
“You stole me.”
Daniel screamed. “Who are you?!”
The mirror rippled like water. The reflection reached out from inside—its hand pressing against the glass, fingers long and pale. The surface cracked under the pressure.
“You wanted to change,” it whispered. “Now, it’s my turn.”
The glass shattered.
When police entered Daniel’s cabin three days later, they found shards of mirror scattered across the floor and a trail of blood leading to the bathroom.
The lights still flickered, buzzing faintly.
On the counter sat a barbershop card—clean, untouched, with embossed silver letters:
Reflections, Est. 1972
“See the real you.”
Inside the bathroom mirror—now whole again—stood a man.
Short hair. Trimmed beard. Calm, confident smile.
He looked exactly like Daniel.
But when the officers turned away, the reflection didn’t move.
And somewhere, from behind the glass, a muffled voice began to pound and scream.