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“Kill her!” it demanded in a voice that sounded very much like Sister Benedicta’s; only it possessed a disturbing tone of cruelty – an insatiable bloodlust driven by pure evil, if you will. “I need blood, and she needs to die. Tonight. There’s plenty of room in the vineyard for one more girl. Don’t turn away from me, bitch, when I’m speaking to you!”
Sister Benedicta’s instincts told her not to look. She felt the urge to flee, to keep on running, and to never look back. But she knew it would follow her. It always did. She recalled the day when it first made its evil presence known to her. It was when she took her Vow of Obedience – the same day that her sister died in a house fire. Naturally, she had feared for her sanity in the beginning, and even considered consulting a psychiatrist or having herself committed, but she soon came to realize that the voice that sounded like hers came not from within her own mind.
It came from the deepest, darkest bowels of Hell.
She reluctantly turned her head back to look at it, as it had instructed her to do. She felt compelled to obey its commands, no matter how diabolical they were. Her stomach swam with queasiness as she made eye contact with it... a face she had come to fear. A face that was but her own reflection in the old mirror that hung on the wall in her cold and sparsely furnished sleeping quarters.
“But, I can’t do it,” the dark-haired nun whimpered softly to her reflected image. Tears welled up in her dark brown eyes. “Please. Not anymore. I just can’t.”
“You must!” the voice that sounded like hers insisted. Its tone had become even more vicious than before. It reverberated inside the nun’s head, instilling within her a sensation of vertigo.
“But, she’s like a daughter to me. So young... so very innocent,” the disconcerted nun pleaded, while trying to maintain her balance. Her hands and lower lip trembled. She knew that her words were in vain; but, nevertheless, clung to a shred of hope that her reflection in the mirror would be merciful this time.
It was not.
“I don’t care one bit about that!” the voice that sounded like hers hissed. “If you choose to disobey me, I’ll burn down this convent. And everyone in it, including you, will die. You know I can make it happen, and there’s not a fucking thing you can do to stop me.”
Sister Benedicta picked up the large wooden crucifix that sat atop her small, beat-up chest-of-drawers beneath the mirror and tenderly caressed it, hoping to garner some comfort from it. “I realize that,” she said, tearfully. “I won’t disobey you. I swear.”
“Good,” commended the voice that sounded like hers. “Then you must carry out your dark deed tonight... and you must kill that girl in the same way that you exterminated the other three. Did I ever tell you how delicious they were? Oh, stop your sobbing, Benedicta. You should be used to killing by now.”
“I’m not,” declared Sister Benedicta. “I will never get used to ending innocent lives and draining their blood for you. It’s wrong. It’s sinful! You’ve made me break one of God’s Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not kill. You’ve corrupted my soul.”
“Enough of that bullshit!” angrily barked the voice that sounded like hers. “I don’t want to hear anymore of this! I need human blood to sustain me. Warm, sweet, fresh human blood. And, like it or not, you are the chosen one to do my bidding.”
The nun’s mirrored image displayed a look of hunger. The pupils of her eyes dilated, turning the irises almost completely black. Her lips grew a deep shade of scarlet-red and stretched into a frightening, demonic grin.
Sister Benedicta shut her eyes. She could no longer bear to gaze upon her own reflection in the mirror. She gripped the crucifix and then began to pray out loud. “Almighty God, I have sinned against you, through my own fault, in thought, and word, and deed.”
“Stop that praying!” the voice that sounded like hers screamed inside her head. It then growled like a dog. Vicious. Rabid. And then it snorted like a sow. “I’m warning you!”
The mirror began to rattle and soon the lower half of its wooden frame pulled away from the wall, as if by invisible hands, and then violently slammed back against it. It pulled away and slammed again and again; each time, causing a grenade of excruciating pain to detonate inside the praying nun’s head.
“Heavenly Father,” Sister Benedicta continued, ignoring the pain and defying the demonic voice and the contorted face that glared at her from the reflective surface of the mirror. “I ask that you hear my prayer and grant me forgiveness of all my sins. I ask that you grant me the grace and comfort of the Holy Spirit.” She then opened her eyes and swung the crucifix at the mirror with all of her might as she cried out, “Amen!”
With a loud smashing sound, the mirror’s glass shattered into thirteen jagged pieces, some of which landed on top of the chest-of-drawers, and some of which landed on the floor. A sudden cold wind rushed through the room and then it was gone.
Sister Benedicta smiled and felt enraptured. She was sure that the demon that willed her to kill had been cast out and no longer exerted any control over her body, mind and soul. She felt in her heart that God had truly answered her prayer and delivered her from evil. She was free, at last.
All at once, she experienced a great tightness in her chest, similar to a fist clenching. She dropped the crucifix, which broke in two upon hitting the floor, and clutched at the left side of her chest with both hands in a feeble attempt to quell the intense pain. She began to stagger like a drunk, knocking into the chest-of-drawers and stepping upon some of the pieces of shattered glass. Her eyes filled with panic. She struggled to call out to God, but her mouth was unable to form words. As a cold sweat poured out of her skin and a feeling of impending doom overpowered her, she let out a loud, horrible gasp and then collapsed onto the floor – dead from cardiac arrest.
The gruesome discovery of Sister Benedicta’s discolored and bloated corpse was made the following morning. Sister Maria and Sister Agnes had been sent to check up on the nun when she failed to appear for breakfast, and were horrified to find her lifeless body on the floor when they entered her room.
From the thirteen pieces of the broken mirror, Sister Maria’s reflection peered up at her, wearing a strange grin that unsettled her. Goosebumps sprung up along her arms. Without knowing why, she was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to pick up one of the shards of glass and slash Sister Agnes’ throat with it. And then a voice that sounded very much like her own, only cruel and bloodthirsty, whispered inside her head, “Kill her!”