My friends and I went to a local pub to watch a rubbish band play some rubbish music. We only came to the south end when we wanted to get majorly pissed. The private booth was okay though, if you could stand the smell. It was my best mate’s birthday and we endured with the help of a few pints. Never expected my life to change that night. I wished I had stayed home.

“Eddie boy, fancy another or did you downgrade to fizzy drinks?” Jacob had chimed in when the band stopped. We were all enjoying the silence in our drunken stupors.

“Nah, birthday boy, I’m pretty knackered. I think I’m calling it.” I took out my wallet. “And you’ve had enough to get an elephant tanked.”

Some of the boys were getting up to leave when Noah said, “Come on, let’s get you home. It’s getting late.” pulling him by the arm.

Jacob hesitated, “The nights only just begun. Don’t I get to have any fun? Who’s down for another, ah?”

The bartender looked at us in the empty bar and rolled his eyes. He was usually so patient. Jacob started making laser beam noises and pretended to walk like a zombie. The three of us guided him towards the door.

We had finally gotten him out of the pub, by tooth and nail, when Jacob turned toward an old burned out house behind the shops. He gestured towards it but Noah and Ben kept walking. I couldn’t help staring at the house’s broken windows. I imagined a creepy mist coming from the empty doorway and shuttered.

“Don’t be scared Eddie, whatever’s in there is long dead.” Said Jacob with a smile.

Ben pointed to the car and shrugged. I guess it was my turn to take care of the old dog. I didn’t mind getting dirty. It wasn’t the first time I was somewhere I didn’t belong.

“I want to see what’s inside. It’ll only be fifteen minutes.” He had already started toward the fence. I had to jog to catch up to him before he made it to the door. “Just like old times.” He said with a nod.

“Let’s not bring that up. I try hard to forget. Do you know how hard it is to get a date with a record?” I passed under the crumbling wooden frame. It smelled worse than the bar, mostly charcoal and dust.

I could only see what was in front of me which was the back of Jacob’s shirt. It was oddly claustrophobic with the fallen ceiling beams and smokey hallway, as if the house were still on fire. The black wood only made it that much darker. He turned to the kitchen which had the least amount of fire damage. A grim looking sofa sat in the living room, decayed from the elements. I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight. The fire had started somewhere near the back of the house with the darker spots emanating from down the hall.

“Check this out.” Jacob had pulled out an ancient coffee pot and pretended to take a swig.

“Put that down.” I said. My stomach was churning. The bones of the house were exposed and the insulation was spilling out of the walls. “I can’t be in here for long. I can barely breathe.”

“Ah, you’re alright. Let me snap some pics for my feed.” Jacob walked out of the dismal kitchen and quickly stepped under a ceiling beam and into the hallway without hesitation. I followed, taking my time.

He disappeared into a side room. With the phone pointed out I started the camera and came to the master bedroom. The only thing that remained of the bed was the steel frame and a few ashes. I moved the flashlight around the room and noticed a mirror, about a meter in height, attached to a rotted wall. The camera couldn’t record my reflection through the dirty haze but through my own eyes I could see subtle hints of my face. It was distorted; my eyes, cheeks, and chin were misshapen and ugly.

I think Jacob had said something in that moment but something strange drew my attention. In the lower right of the mirror was a blotchy mark left behind in the melted glass. A perfectly oval shape stared back at me, the size of my palm. I could have sworn it had a face. The eyes were represented as two black dots and a triangle in the middle completed the bleak personification. The lower part of the face was smeared like paint.

I stared at it for several seconds becoming haunted by the visage of a bald man in a smudge. Jacob made a sudden rustling sound and jarred me back to reality. He had come out of the side room when I met him at the door.

There was a look of concern but he never spoke, walking quickly back to the front of the house. “What’s wrong?” I said but he didn’t answer.

He plodded down the stairs of the porch when I asked the same question while grabbing for his shoulder. He turned and with his mouth agape and just shook his head. He never did tell me what he saw in that house but judging from his cold expression it definitely ruined his evening. Ben and Noah had left so we had to take a ride-share home.

After three days I didn’t think much of the birthday party, only the stain on the mirror. I kept imagining it looking at me with those blank eyes. Every time I did, I was back in that dark room with the broken windows and the metal bed, coldness giving me chills.

What worried me more was that Jacob stopped answering my texts. It wasn’t abnormal for him to ignore me but something felt off.

The face in the mirror kept flashing in front of me like a fever dream. I’ve heard stories of inanimate objects appearing to embody some human shape, like on a piece of wood or toast, but this felt different. I could almost sense a hostility in the drooping brow. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see it, haunting me with its everlasting gaze, as if expecting something from me.

Several days later I had awoken to my phone ringing. It was the local police department. They had called several times and left messages. I jumped out of bed and was shocked to find that I had slept for 48 hours straight. I grabbed my work clothes and ran to the bathroom where I quickly showered. It was in the shower when my eyes adjusted that I noticed a brown mark below my wrist. I tried to scrub it with soap but it didn’t come off. After drying with a towel, I froze and stared deeply at the smudge and grew lightheaded.

It was instantly recognizable with two sickening circles and a round head. I tried desperately to rub it away with hand soap until it was red but it remained. I held my wrist up and grew nauseous. The image of the man’s face was even clearer against my bruised skin.

A knock at my apartment door startled me. I put on my shirt and went to the door. Two men were standing there with badges on their chests. I concealed my wrist impulsively. They asked me for my name and when I answered they compelled me to step out of the apartment.

I was taken to the police station where they questioned me for hours. The stain on my wrist kept drawing my attention. The conversation turned towards Jacob and the night of his birthday, which to my disgust was his last night alive. I became cold, even with the sweats. My eyes watered when they told me he was found in the same burned out house behind the bar. And that they had found his body by tracking his phone. I could have dry-heaved when they presented fingerprints. They were my own, taken the last time I had been booked. They matched the prints at the crime scene, which had been found on a pocket knife taken, my pocket knife. None of it made sense. I swore he was with me in the car on the way home.

I gasped at the implications and pulled my sleeve back to look at the face. I wanted to scratch it away but it was now a part of me. The officers spoke again but I couldn’t hear them. My heart raced as I stared into the eyes of the stain on my arm. They would follow me everywhere. The face would now follow me everywhere. I was marked and there was no escape.