(Female Age Regression)

The house was quiet, and because it was Annie could hear the scraping. It was a soft, hushed, delicate. Like someone was trying to hide the offense of their sound. It wouldn’t be a problem, if it wasn’t so late at night. It wouldn’t be a problem if Annie had pets. It wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t coming from Annie’s bathroom.

“It’s just a mouse.” She whispered, setting aside her nerves. “It’ll get what it wants, and then I can go back to sleep.”

The sound didn’t go away. Scratching, scraping, like metal gingerly dragged along a chalkboard. The worst part was how her nails ached in sympathy from the sound. It was so easy to pretend that she was the one scraping, so easy…

Annie couldn’t ignore it. She wanted to. She buried her head in her pillow, but her fingers quaked. Despite her anxiety, curiosity welled within her chest. The longer it went on, the harder it was to think that it was a mouse, and the easier it was to think someone was at her bathroom window.

She rose from her bed slowly, grabbing the hefty flashlight her dad gave her when she left home. “Anyone gives you trouble, you hit them with this. Don’t matter if it’s anything from a bug to a ‘possum to a person,” he’d said with a smile.

She repeated it like a mantra in her head, and she gripped its reassuring warmth in her hands. Then she silently opened the door to her room, feet lightly padding towards her bathroom.

The scraping continued, slow raspy dragging, each sound bringing a shiver to her spine. Annie’s left hand shook as it reached the handle her right gripped her light tighter.

The scraping stopped.

She twisted the handle, tearing open the door and clicking her light on, finding

Nothing.

Nothing at all. The tree by her bathroom window swayed slowly, leaves teasingly mocking her with their muted whispers. Then something tapped to her left, a quiet click. She turned to her mirror, and cried out.

A face hers, yet not-hers looked back. It was wizened in the worst way, pale white eyes hanging from an emaciated skull, mouth spread in a wide toothless grin, white hairs covering her shoulders like cobwebs. Her reflection tapped at the reflection again, mouth forming soundless words.

Its eyes met hers, and it continued that awful, stretched smile. Its chanting stopped, and a jolt passed through Annie’s body. She staggered, turning to run but stopping at the feeling of her nightgown covering her feet.

She looked down, and saw she was smaller. She lifted her hands to find them covered by thick silky sleeves, and the girl whimpered in confusion. Then she poked her fingers from them, and wailed at the sight of stubby, childlike hands attached to her arms.

An awful creaking came from her left, the grinding of glass sending a chill along her neck. She turned back to her reflection and saw its face pressed to her mirror, pushed to the thin pane that divided them. Wrinkles were vanishing from the apparition one at a time, teeth were filling its jaw once more.

Sharp pains in Annie’s mouth marked her own teeth pulling into her skull, and she screamed louder. Her small hands pressed to her face, even as the muscles in her legs gave out. She fell onto her backside, breaking the scream with a huff of discomfort.

On the ground, shrinking into her clothes, she couldn’t see the mirror. It was a small relief, until a hand extended from her counter. Her hand. She recognized her fingers curling around the lip of her sink, dragging something from her mirror.

Her reflection’s face pulled itself into view, and twisted into a rictus grin. Annie wailed louder, her head shaking from side to side in denial, a toothless wail of terror filling her bathroom. It was the shriek of a child, of an infant.

Each shake of her head sent more of her hair falling to the floor as her reflection pulled itself from the mirror. It hunched over the lip of her sink like an animal, knees bent, arms fully extended. Then its flesh slapped wetly against the ground as it fell to the tile beside Annie.

Long, soft fingers lifted Annie from her clothes. They were too human, too warm. She couldn’t reconcile them with what she had seen earlier, and that made her kick and flail all the harder. Tears slipped from her eyes, a meaningless babble of words slipping from her lips.

Annie thought it was fear numbing her mind, until she realized she no longer had a meaning for the word. She no longer had a meaning for any word. She tried to concentrate on thoughts, words, and watched as her reflection mouthed each notion, consuming them.

Its mouth was slowing as Annie’s thoughts slowed. Panic no longer had a reason, it simply was. She looked to a face she didn’t have the intelligence to recognize, and her kicking slowed. Its hands were larger around her, and they lifted her in the air.

Something cold and hard pressed against her back, and a low, crude creaking filled the sound. Then it stopped, and something clear and firm kept Annie from her reflection. She reached an infantine hand towards the barrier, thumping it against the wall, against the glass.

Her reflection smile wider, reaching down and lifting Annie’s flashlight in her hand. Then its expression twisted into a snarl, and it drove the light against the wall, cracking it. Chips fell from the pane, and behind them there was only darkness.

Annie screamed. Too unintelligent to know what was happening, she still screamed with a primal terror. She beat her tiny hands against the glass. Her reflection slammed the light to the mirror again, and again.

Then it shattered, and Annie was left in darkness. She curled slowly, into a ball. Her screams dwindled to sniffles, and then to silence.