Mirror Image

Mirror Image is a scary story about a young woman who is sitting in a bus station when she sees someone who looks just like her. It is based on an old episode of The Twilight Zone TV series.

A young woman named Millicent Barnes is sitting on a bench in a station, waiting for her bus to arrive. The bus is more than 30 minutes late and she is getting impatient.

She leaves her bag beside the bench and goes over to the man at the ticket counter to ask him when the bus will arrive.

“It’ll be in when it’ll be in,” he says gruffly. “Same as I told you the last 3 times you asked me.”

Millicent is shocked.

“What do you mean, the last 3 times?” she demands. “This is the first time I asked you anything.”

Just then, she notices a bag sitting behind the man.

“That bag over there,” she says. “It’s exactly like mine. It has the same broken handle and everything.”

“That’s because it IS your bag,” the man growls. “You checked it in half an hour ago!”

When Millicent looks back at the bench she was sitting on, her bag has disappeared.

Feeling a little unsettled, she goes into the bathroom to wash her hands. The cleaning lady tells her that she has been in there before as well.

“Before?” Millicent says. “I’ve never been in this bathroom before.”

“You were just in here a few minutes ago,” the cleaning lady insists.

As Millicent is leaving the bathroom, she happens to glance in the mirror and sees something that horrifies her.

There’s a strange woman sitting on the bench and the woman looks exactly like her. It’s her exact double.

When she goes out, the woman is gone and her suitcase is back where it should be, sitting beside the bench. Millicent can’t understand what’s happening.

“What’s the matter with me?” she whispers. “Maybe I’m sick. Maybe I’m coming down with a cold.”

A man in a raincoat walks into the bus station and sits down beside her. He strikes up a conversation with her and they realize they are waiting for the same bus. The man tells her his name is Paul. He’s friendly and jovial and he makes her feel comfortable.

Millicent begins opening up to him. She tells him about the strange experiences she is having.

“When I looked in the mirror,” she says, “I could see the bench we’re sitting on right now and I saw… I saw… I saw myself sitting here.”

Paul tries to calm her down and tells her she is just letting her imagination run away with her.

“There could be a lot of explanations,” he says. “Maybe it was someone that just looks a bit like you.”

Just then, the bus arrives. The two of them pick up their bags and join the queue of passengers boarding it. Millicent happens to look in the window. Suddenly, her face goes pale and she covers her mouth to stifle a scream.

Her double is already on the bus.

In shock, she runs back into the bus station and faints. The bus pulls away without her.

Millicent lies unconscious on a bench inside the depot while Paul and the cleaning lady take care of her. Paul tells her they will have to wait for the next bus.

While they wait, Millicent slowly sits up and begins talking.

“I was thinking about something,” she mutters. “Something I read a long time ago… about different planes of existence… about two parallel worlds that exist side by side… and each of us has a counterpart in this world… a double… and sometimes, through some freak accident… through something unexplainable… the two worlds converge and the double comes into our world… and in order to survive, they have to replace us so they can take over…”

Millicent’s sanity is beginning to unravel. Her eyes are wild and she’s rocking back and forth. Paul can see that she is losing her mind.

“I have a good friend who lives nearby,” he says. “I’ll call him and ask him if he can give us a lift.”

However, he doesn’t call his friend. Instead, he goes over to the ticket booth and calls the police.

When they arrive, the officers grab Millicent and force her into the back of a police car. She pounds on the window with her fists, demanding to be let out and Paul watches sadly as they drive away.

When he goes back into the station, Paul is shocked to discover that his briefcase is missing. He catches a glimpse of another man running out the door with the briefcase and chases after him. As they run down the street, Paul notices that the man’s clothes look familiar. When he catches a glimpse of the man’s face, Paul stops in his tracks. A sickening realization washes over him.

He is chasing his own double.