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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/sum1inatree on 2024-09-10 18:46:06+00:00.

Hi guys, posting this here as I’m hoping someone might be able to help. Given the kind of stuff you talk about, I’m guessing one of you might have had a similar experience.

For context, I’m a 26 year old man and a little under 5 foot 8. I’ve always been a bit heavier than most. “A bit like a ball,” my parents used to say and I still probably do carry a bit too much weight for where I should be in my life right now. I mention this really only because suddenly, I don’t look like this. No-one says I look different in person, and in photos I still look normal – if a bit awkward. But in the past week, my reflection is…different. Like, really different. A different person, and it’s making me do things I do not want to do.

I was out a few days ago, it was nothing more than a couple of drinks. Honestly, I was sober, I could have driven if I had to. I got home, went to splash some water over my face and brush my teeth before bed and it was just there in the mirror. A long man. I caught my first sight of a gaunt face.

I recoiled and threw my hands down. Staring back at me was a different man. Skin clung to his cheek bones. His hair parted naturally and beautifully to the left. But most of all I remember his eyes. They were definitely my eyes, deep and brown and maybe a bit tired, but they framed a pointy nose and stared at me with no emotion. They were a good two inches higher than they should have been. I was looking up at myself but it wasn’t me.

I blinked. I remember blinking a lot. And every time I opened my eyes, I’d see his eyes flickering open again. I raised my hands over my eyes and he would do the same. His hands. They were delicate and bony, longer and thinner than mine but they would move with mine, and like mine do. I broke my little finger when I was a teenager and I still can’t fully extend it. This long man in the mirror couldn’t either. It sat there slightly crooked but otherwise pristine.

The only thing that did not mirror me was his smile. He had one, a slight trace of a smirk, or contentment, or something else like that. It just sat there, never moving, no matter how I contorted my face. If I tilted my head, he would track me, but that smirk just sat there.

At first I thought I had drunk more than I thought so I decided to just write it off. It’s me being silly, or some kind of pre-sleep dream. I turned out the light and went to bed without brushing my teeth. I just wanted to fall unconscious and forget about it; it would be better in the morning. I’d had a few drinks, the mind does strange things.

Of course, I lay awake most of the night. There’s a mirror on a shelf in my room. I tried to sleep with my back to it.

I don’t know if any of you have ever tried to get ready in the morning without seeing your reflection. It’s quite difficult. I decided I didn’t need to shave and I brushed my teeth with my eyes closed. There was curiosity in me but I was just too scared of what I would do if I confirmed that the long man was still there. I was tired, and I wasn’t thinking straight. What would I even say to people if they asked why I looked so hollow that day? I suppose I would have just said I was hungover. In my head, it was just better to pretend that it hadn’t happened.

The only time I saw myself that morning was a quick glance in the mirror that sits on the inside of my wardrobe door when I went to get my coat. I don’t remember it well, but looking back, when my shoulder brushed against the glass, my reflection that touched it was half a foot further up the image.

Luckily I walk to work. I kept my eyes fixed on the pavement for the whole journey. It wasn’t until I needed the loo in the office that I had to come face to face with myself – or this new version of myself. I waited until I thought no-one else was in the toilets – should the worst happen, I didn’t want to seem like a madman.

I washed my hands and there he was again, staring back at me. This long man, with the same eyes but greater height and the same body but leaner. That fixed smile was still there but now the lips were slightly pursed. He looked happier than he had the night before. Even though I had tried to steel myself for the moment, I still flinched slightly, but that smile soothed me enough to regain some composure. For the first time I properly took in the long man’s physique.

Every here and there there was some similarity to me. As I said, he still had my eyes; and he wore my clothes. They hung off him a bit more and a slight sleeve bulge suggested more tone in his arm muscles than mine but they were recognisably the same; the hint of yellow on the inside of the collar from overwearing the shirt. The crooked little finger of the left hand. I remember that in that moment I felt almost reassured. His presence was calming, and he looked like me, but a bit better.

What shocked me was when I looked more closely into his eyes. I brought my face right into the mirror to see how similar our skin was, whether there was the hint of the growing crows feet I had started noticing. And it was there that I saw his mouth more closely.

In that slight crack between the long man’s lips, I could see the edge of a couple of teeth. For the first time there was a tangible difference between us. Each edge was set diagonally. They were jagged and though I couldn’t see the whole of them at that time they looked to all the world like fangs.

My own mouth dropped open. I wish I could say it was deliberate, that I was trying to get the long man to confirm what was in his mouth, but no, I was just dumbstruck. My hands involuntarily jumped up to run fingers over my own teeth. They felt normal but as I glanced back at the mirror, at the long man’s hands trying to feel for his, all I saw was his hands disappear behind those lips – those unmoving lips. It looked like a mistake with greenscreen or something, nothing like anything I’ve seen in real life.

I turned my head and just ran out the door. I leaned on the wall outside the toilets and tried to dry my hands on my trousers. One of my colleagues walked past and asked if the dryer was broken. I heard the words “no, I’m just miles away,” fall out of my mouth. He asked if I was ok and I nodded in silence as he disappeared through the door.

I thought I was going mad and I don’t know if anyone else has ever experienced this but I felt like I just clicked into autopilot. I went straight back to my desk and asked the guy sitting next to me that day to take a picture of me. I made up some rubbish about needing to update my work profile picture. He huffed and agreed. We found a blank wall for me to stand in front of and he snapped a quick, poorly framed image. I didn’t care.

“Do you want several?” he asked in a friendly enough way.

“How does it look now?” I replied quickly, very quickly.

“Well you look like you,” he glanced down at the picture and I exhaled audibly, “are you sure you don’t want to do this a different day, though? You look pretty tired.”

“No, that’s fine thanks, thank you.”  And I did mean it. I looked at the picture and saw myself. No strange teeth, no extra inches, just me. At that point I didn’t know what to feel, but I could sense adrenaline slowly blending back into the background and my mind becoming clearer.

My first thought was one of pure social embarrassment and I made a mental note to change my profile picture immediately. If anyone asks why it was such a bad photo of me, I could say someone had stolen my face online and was posing as me. I simply had to change it immediately. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? And it wasn’t a million miles from what I thought was happening.

My second thought brought back my fear. What was actually happening? I decided I would wait a bit and go back to the bathroom. Maybe the night before I had been drunker than I thought and now I was tired and so worked up about it that I’d seen what I wanted – or rather really did not want – to see. After all, now I had confirmation – a picture no less! – that I was still me. And though I didn’t really know anyone well in the office, no-one had called me out as an imposter.

Well, I’m writing this now for a reason, aren’t I? The fucking long man was there in the mirror, smiling away at me. His two eyes looked down on me with a new frown above them. He didn’t look calming anymore. My blood chilled and though before I felt ill at ease, now all of a sudden I felt genuinely threatened, like a police officer or soldier was looming over me, holding me at gunpoint. I picked up my hand to see if his finger was still crooked before slapping myself, cleanly and loudly, in the cheek, trying to knock some sense into me.

I shook my head before looking back up at the mirror. The frown had gone but the long man remained. I just couldn’t do it any more. I marched straight out the toilets and to my desk to pack my things, muttering to anyone who needed to know that I’d be working from home the rest of the day – I had some plumbers coming to fix some stuff in the bathroom. No-one really minded and I knew one missed afternoon of work would have no ill effects in the long run. Admin jobs right?

I went straight home, shut all the blinds so they wouldn’t start reflecting into the room when the sun set and threw towels or sheets or whatever else I could find over every reflective surface in the flat. I got straight into bed. I didn’t eat anything, didn’t drink anything, just lay there staring at the ceiling for hours before exhaustio…

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