She likes to know, and I hate him.

He's here. When Liz Kekowski was about 15 years old, a strange and terrifying occurrence began frequently afflicting the otherwise ordinary high schooler.

With two siblings, seven and eight years older

than her respectively. She had previously enjoyed being the only kid of the house.

It meant she got the entire second story to herself.

Her own bathroom, the empty bedrooms of her brother and sister kept the same for them in case

they ever came home to visit, and her own room right at the middle of the hall.

Most kids would naturally covet a situation like this and Liz was no different.

She loved the sense of independence.

But eventually a dark strangeness would plague her for an entire year of her life.

Every night as she brushed her teeth in the bathroom, she felt a sense of dread begin to

overcome her.

She would only ever remember this recurring fear right as it came on, so it was

not looming through the rest of the day, as if it was wiped from her mind and then introduced

in that bathroom before bed each evening.

No matter what, she could not look up into the mirror after beginning to brush her teeth.

An overwhelming paranoia in her mind told her that if she did, something would be staring back at her, something

other than her own likeness, something dangerous.

She would quickly spit out her toothpaste and wipe her mouth without taking a single glance at that mirror.

That mirror to her was evil.

As she would shuffle out of the room and head down the hallway, the fear and dread would not leave.

She found herself every night running down the short

...