There goes the tapping again. Well, I guess it’s December. On the first day of December, every year, there’s a strange tapping on my window. I only started noticing the pattern a year ago, which is surprising, since it  started happening after my dad died eight years ago. No one knows how.

I’ve never thought to actually see what the noise could be coming from. I mean, there is a tree right next to my bedroom window. It could just be that. Despite it probably being nothing, I decide to check it out anyway. 

Nothing, just as I expected.

I was just about to think I was hearing things, when another tapping noise comes from the mirror above my vanity. Knitting my eyebrows together, I go to inspect it, seeing probably the strangest thing ever.

A red, lipstick looking substance creates a line along the mirror, eventually creating a word, and then a sentence.

Your dad didn’t die in a plane crash, he died trying to save me.

-Your brother

I widen my eyes at what was just written, putting my hand on the lipstick to see if I’m not going insane. 

Instead of touching the lipstick, my finger goes straight through the mirror, a cold breeze touching my index finger.

I quickly move it out of the strange place that could be beyond it, staring in awe as the words are quickly removed from the glass. I decide to look inside of where my finger went, sticking my head through the mirror into what looks like something out of a fantasy movie.

The ground is a strange grey color that looks like clay, and the trees are as black as my cat, Maxie. I see the silhouette of a person move closer towards me, so I quickly move my head out from the strange place.

“Wait! Come back!” The person shouts, as I hear footsteps come closer to the mirror. I decide that they won't hurt me, and move my head back through the glass. A teenage boy around sixteen or seventeen stops close to my head, out of breath. Was he the one who wrote the sentence?

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I’m your brother.”

Just as I’m about to say something back to him, a strange black figure runs across the mirror, taking the boy with him. I hear his screams in the distance as the thing continues to run further away from me.

I quickly move my head out of the strange place, not sure what to think about what just happened.

Was that my brother?