"Ty Drago - Bitter Reflections" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drago Ty)

"I... don't know," he whispered hoarsely. "But wait... there's more.
"When I returned home, he was there again, waiting for me in the bathroom mirror. I froze the
moment I saw him, staring at the image that no longer bothered to even pretend to mimic
me. He was sitting on his sink, hands folded in his lap.

"'You can't get rid of me, Larry. Wherever you go, I'm there.'

"'What are you?' I said softly, fighting a growing sense of despair. 'You're not real!'
"'Oh yes. I'm real.'

"'What do you want?'

"'I want what's mine, Larry. All of it!'
"'No!' I snatched up the ashtray on the sink and hurled it against the glass. The mirror
shattered, casting shards about the room like snowflakes. I fell back against the wall, my
breath coming in fevered gasps. The voice had been silenced, and I felt triumphant.
'Nobody...' I remember saying out loud. 'Nobody gets what's mine.'

"Then I heard the echo of repetitive laughter. I glanced around the room. But the noise
seemed to be coming from everywhere. Then I looked down at my feet, at the jagged shards
that covered my shoes and the surrounding rug. In each, and there were hundreds, I saw
images of myself; bits and pieces: an eye here, a bit of lip there. All were alert with that
same unnatural independence. A thousand partial reflections, each with the impossible
self-awareness of the whole.

"What I was hearing was choral laughter.
"Then there were words, spoken in unison from a hundred sources. 'Very soon, Larry...'

"I fled, screaming at the top of my lungs. I was out of the bathroom room and halfway to my
chamber door, the laughter echoing in my ears, when I fainted."
Benedict placed his plastic cup on the table. His hand shook badly, and he grimaced when
he looked at it. "Dickerson found me and put me to bed. When I came to, he was sweeping
up the broken glass in the bathroom. 'Don't stop there,' I told him. 'I want you to pull every
mirror out of this room.'

"'Mirrors? sir?'

"'Yes, Dickerson. No mirrors! Do you understand me?'
"'Yes, Master Lawrence.'

"I nodded, exhausted, and lay my head back down on the pillow. As he worked about the
room, collecting the small mirror from my desk, and the long dressing mirror that hung inside
the closet door, he glanced over at me. What I saw in his eyes both sickened me and filled
me with new purpose. I saw pity, Doctor, and that is something I CANNOT abide! So from
that moment, I looked at my predicament freshly. This was war. How it had started and what
the nature of my enemy was, I could not know. But it was war nevertheless.
"It took almost a week to secure my fortress. No mirrors were permitted in my bed chamber.
Heavy curtains were hung over the windows. I even had area rugs spread over every square
inch of floor, in case I might catch sight of myself in the smooth marble.