After my 12-year-old cousin, Amanda,

was murdered by Mira

(eerie music)

everything changed.

Counseling and therapy helped,

but when you witness your cousin

get the life quite literally sucked out of her,

it's hard not to get scarred.

After countless sessions with a therapist,

I was convinced that Amanda's death,

while very real and traumatic,

happened at the hands of a home intruder, not Mira.

(eerie music)

She didn't exist, and I truly believed that.

On my 14th birthday,

my parents got me a wooden dressing table

and a mirror for my room,

so I could get ready for school.

They said it was time to grow up and move on,

and I wanted that too.

But that night, I saw Mira.

Her pale dead eyes were fixed above the wide

gashes strewn across her ghastly face.

She was standing in my new mirror,

holding the severed head of my 12-year-old cousin, Amanda.

She stared at me for a few moments and then vanished.

In the morning, I just wrote it off as a dream.

I mean, I had plenty of those.

I felt more comfortable when my dog,

Jess, was sleeping with me. (dog barks)

I got her about a year after Amanda died,

when I started sleeping in my own room again.

She was a sweet black retriever that never left my side.

(dog panting)

It was the week before Christmas.

My Aunt Sherry was babysitting me

while my parents were out of town.

She used to be the town beauty queen.

I mean, she won a ton of pageants back in her day,

but in her 40s,

Sherry wasn't quite the looker she was in her 20s.

Like her late daughter, Amanda,

she used to be beautiful on the outside.

Used to be.

But eventually,

her outer beauty mirrored what was on the inside.

As I tucked myself under the covers,

Jess circled a small patch of blanket

before finally laying down at the foot of my bed.

I turned out the light and lay there

in the darkness, wide awake.

I couldn't sleep because it was too early

and my Aunt Sherry was watching soaps at full volume.

After a few minutes, I turned my lamp back on

and silently read a scary book

I'd checked out of the library that week.

I was about three pages in when

my bedroom door suddenly flew open.

It was Sherry.

She was lit with anger and covered in Cheeto crumbs.

Her fingertips were bright orange.

She was still licking them as she screamed.

"I thought I said lights out at eight!

"And what the hell are you reading?"

she continued,

snatching the book from my hands.

"Horror?

"You're reading horror?

"after everything that has happened in this house?

"To my daughter,

"to my Amanda?

"After all the lies you told?

"How could you even think about reading this filth,

"devil mark or not?

"It makes me sick to look at you.

"And get that mutt off the bed!"

(Jess whines) "She belongs outside.

"Now!"

My dog obediently stood up

and did as she was told.

Jess stopped just outside my bedroom door

and looked back at me with those sad puppy dog eyes.

Sherry was just about to leave the room

when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror.

She closed my bedroom door, locking Jess out,

and made her way over to my dressing table.

"I thought you were scared of mirrors," she said.

"My, my, my.

"Haven't I aged gracefully,

"like fine wine?" she finished.

She then settled onto the bench in front of the mirror.

Her large frame spilled over.

The wooden bench creaked and groaned

as she situated her weight on top of it.

"Is this where the mirror girl lives,

"the one that you said killed my Amanda?"

She sneered sarcastically

while checking her facial angles in the mirror.

I shook my head no.

Sherry turned around to face me, snickering, and said

"that's because there are no mirror monsters.

"Why didn't you scream for help the night

"my beautiful Amanda was kidnapped?

"Why?

"You devil-marked freak."

It's not a devil's mark.

It's my birthmark, I whimpered.

"What did you just say?" Sherry asked,

turning towards me.

When I looked back up,

Mira was sitting

in the reflection across from Sherry.

She slowly brought her crooked finger up

to her cracked face

and whispered, "shh".

All I could do was inhale loudly.

Before my Aunt Sherry could turn

back around to face the mirror,

two arms reached out of it

and pulled her back towards the mirror

as if trying to pull her in. (Sherry screams)

Sherry and I both screamed in unison.

Jess began to bark wildly from the other side of the door.

Mira struggled, trying to squeeze Sherry

through the mirror in my room.

She was just too fat for the tall, narrow mirror.

Sherry howled in agony as Mira

snapped both her arms in an attempt

to drag her into the mirror world.

My aunt's squeal no longer sounded familiar,

let alone human. (Sherry shrieks)

To this day, I have never heard a person make those sounds.

Breaking Sherry's arms and legs

was not enough to fit her through the wooden frame.

As Sherry fell out of the mirror,

her weight snapped and splintered

the dresser into pieces.

Sherry was on the floor bloodied

and bruised, crying, and broken.

I looked down at her in horror.

"Help me," she whimpered.

Then Mira quickly crawled out of the mirror on all fours.

She climbed on top of Sherry

and positioned herself so that they were face-to-face.

Sherry cried out and begged as Jess snarled,

pawing at the other side of the door to get into the room.

I watched as dark red ooze and globs

dripped out of Mira's mouth and into my Aunt Sherry's.

Mira stuck two fingers inside her own mouth

and pulled out a razor blade.

She began to slowly score deep gashes

all over Sherry's head.

I couldn't breathe.

There wasn't really much of Aunt Sherry's

face left after 30 seconds,

(tense music) but she continued to scream.

My Aunt Sherry coughed up a fountain of blood

before she gasped her final breath.

I was still frozen to my bed, too terrified to move.

Suddenly Mira sank her teeth into Sherry's neck

and began to drag her back towards the mirror

to take her into the other side.

I finally screamed for Jess.

Mira had one foot through the mirror

when Jess bravely charged in through the bedroom door.

Baring all her teeth,

she latched onto Sherry's shirt collar.

There was a tug of war between Jess and Mira

as Aunt Sherry's backside was pulled back and forth

across the splintered dresser.

Jess growled like I'd never heard before

and fought bravely to rescue my aunt.

Mira finally let go of my Aunt Sherry's neck,

hissed at Jess,

and quickly retreated back into the mirror,

knocking it down on top of Sherry's head.

The mirror shattered into a million sharp pieces

and everything was silent.

Sherry was most definitely dead.

I lay there in my bed, holding my dog

until my parents returned a day later.

The cops said I was in shock

again. (camera shutter clicks)

No matter what I said or how much I begged,

no one would believe me.

My Aunt Sherry suffered the same

fate as her daughter, Amanda,

yet their deaths were blamed

on two different things, neither of which were right.

My dog, the hero, was not treated as such.

Jess's mouth was covered in Sherry's blood,

(Jess whimpers)

so they took her from me and put her down

in the name of safety.

They think Jess attacked Sherry thanks

to the bite mark Mira left on my aunt's neck.

They speculate that when Jess attacked,

Sherry must have fell a few times

as she struggled with Jess

just before the mirror was knocked over on her head.

Apparently that inflicted the cut marks

she was found with and caused her to bleed out.

And from there, life got a lot harder.

But that wasn't the last time I saw Mira.

(eerie music)

(Mira hisses)

(cryptic noise)