The face staring back at me is not mine. I don’t recognise the sunken cavities with smokey yellow eyes staring blankly. The red skin is pulled tightly over the skull and where there should be hair, there are two, long horns, like of a minataur or goat.

This demon reflected back at me is not me. My heart beats faster, unsure of the trickery behind this visual illusion. “I am your thoughts,” a voice in my head responded. “Your thoughts are the real you. I am the real you. Look at this image of yourself you see before you. Your dark and twisted thoughts, your melancholy, your sadistic nature. I am the manifestation of your soul.”

Sweat trickled down my back as my fear grew. This was my thoughts? How terrifying. I knew I’d been kept up at night before by my thoughts refusing to rest. Been woken in the middle of the night by cripping anxiety, with thoughts of inflicting harm on my enemies. But, these were jus thoughts. These werent real. Which meant… this demon was not real, just a fignment of my sick and over-reactive imagination. I could dispel it.

I looked the demon in the eyes. My arm slowly rose from where it had been clenched tightly by my side. My hand reached out towards the mirror’s surface, heart beating even faster now. I breathed deeply, and as my fingers touched the cool surface of the mirror, my eyes closed, the thoughts stopped.