"Where were you last night?" I asked the haggard figure before me in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair wild, and his face in desperate need of a shave. His clothes were ripped and covered in red mud and something else I could not recognize. This was not the same man I knew, the man who I was. I was younger, taller, stronger. My eyes were a pale blue, giving me a choirboyish look, not bloodshot-looking like a maniac or demon. My clothes were always neat and clean, not in shambles or dirty.

When the man in the mirror didn't answer, I grew frantic. My eyes, wild with anticipation, ransacked the apartment. Finally, they came to rest upon what I feared they would. The knife, clean and glistening, stared back at me from the kitchen counter. The night before, I knew I had put it away after cleaning the kitchen, what was it doing back out.

I left the bathroom, and the man in the mirror, as if drawn toward the knife, as if it was calling to me. Calling for me to come play with him, to be his friend once more. As I grabbed the handle, images flashed through my mind. The images, or memories, were so short that I had a hard time remembering them, but I could recall a woman screaming. Her mouth open in a scream of ecstasy or terror. All I could do was pray it was from pleasure, but somehow deep inside, I knew it was from pain.

I returned to the mirror and the man living there. This time I would not be denied the answer I so desperately desired.

"Where were you last night?" I asked, surprised at the calmness and evenness of my voice.

The man, again, stared at me blankly, as if he were a child not fully understanding why he had been questioned about the missing cookie. As I tried to stare down the man who wouldn't give me the answer I would die without, I felt my anger begin to build.

With a heavier voice I demanded an answer to my question, "Tell me now, where were you last night?"

As before, the reflection refused to confess his dark secret. It was aggravating that this gaunt worthless man before me was getting the better of me. After a few more minutes my temper snapped and I became infuriated with the squalor of the man.

At the top of my lungs, I bellowed, "Where were you last night, damn it?"

Releasing my anger more, I jammed my fist into the mirror watching the man shatter. But instead of going away there seemed to more of him than ever.

Seeing this, I broke down and sobbed, "Where were you last night? Please, please, just tell me."

The hundreds of little men in the mirror seemed to react to this. As I heard the sirens, I noticed the men began to smile with a glint or mischief in their eyes. I could not look at them, him, anymore, so I sat on the floor and lowered my head on my knees and cried. When the knock came at the door, I looked up from my spot of agony and realized they weren't smiling, but sneering, as if to say, "You will soon find out where you were last night." At that moment the door of my apartment crashed open, and I felt a cool calm blackness overtake me. 1