The Idol of Me

They called it self-religion — a philosophy of worshiping the self, crowning the ego as god. At first, it felt liberating to Amod.He’d grown up in a world that suffocated him with rules and punishments from a faceless deity. But this was different. Here, he was the deity.

He began simply: daily affirmations, little rituals where he’d light a candle before a mirror and whisper prayers to himself. He found it amusing at first. Then addicting.

He created a small shrine in his apartment — a wall of mirrors, each reflecting him endlessly. He knelt before them every night, praising his own image until dawn, convinced that his devotion would unlock a higher power within him.

It worked, in a way. He felt stronger. Bolder. Voices rose up from the mirrors, sweet and promising. They told him secrets about people he knew. How to charm them. How to break them. He listened.

But one night, as he bowed lower than ever before, the reflections didn’t move with him. He froze, seeing dozens of ‘Amod' standing upright while he knelt, powerless. They grinned. He did not.

He tried to stand but his muscles refused. The reflections stepped closer to the glass, pressing their palms outward. He could feel them pushing from inside the mirror, a pressure building behind the glass until hairline cracks webbed across every surface.

“Devote yourself completely,” they whispered in perfect unison. “You are your own god. But you must become one with your worship.”

Shards burst from the mirrors like shrapnel. He screamed but his own voice mocked him from every corner. He crawled for the door but his hands bled trails across the floor, and each drop reflected a tiny version of him, each more monstrous than the last.

Neighbors found his apartment days later. The walls were covered in crude prayers written in his own blood, circling a hollow husk curled before a broken mirror — skin gray, eyes wide open, staring at an empty frame.

They say at night, if you look in that mirror, you might catch a glimpse of Amod behind your shoulder, bowing to you… waiting for you to kneel back.

---