🕯️ The Nightly Storyteller Presents: “The Reflection"

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(A Tale from The Gold Coin Chronicles)


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🎙️ Intro — The Hour of Unraveling

> There’s a reason laundromats stay open all night.
It’s not for convenience.
It’s for the people who can’t sleep — the ones whose thoughts spin like clothes in a dryer, never quite getting clean.



2 AM is when the world thins out.
When fluorescent lights hum lullabies to the lost.
When the space between what’s real and what’s reflected gets... negotiable.

Tonight’s story begins with dirty laundry and a broken change machine.
And ends with a question that lingers long after the spin cycle stops:
Which side of the glass are you really on?


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Hart’s Wash on Route 14 — the kind of place that hasn’t been updated since 1987.
The air smells of detergent and damp concrete, with an undertone of mildew that clings to your tongue.
The walls are paneled in fake wood, warped from years of humidity, and the cracked linoleum curls at the corners like old paper.

A flickering light buzzes overhead, its rhythm slightly offbeat — a heartbeat you can’t sync with.
Outside, the parking lot is empty except for a single streetlamp and the low hiss of sprinklers trying to keep dead grass alive.

Maya pushes through the door at 2:17 AM, a garbage bag of clothes slung over one shoulder.
Three days of insomnia have left her glassy-eyed, moving on autopilot.
Her reflection in the front window doesn’t match her pace — it lags, as though her body and soul are out of sync.

She’s not here for clean clothes.
She’s here because home feels haunted by silence.

Every dryer tumbles except one — stuck mid-cycle, thumping unevenly, the sound echoing like a heartbeat in a metal ribcage.

The change machine looks ancient — more rust than metal, with a handwritten sign taped crookedly above the slot:
“Exact bills only — NO REFUNDS.”

She feeds in a five.
The machine growls, then spits out coins one by one — four quarters… and one gold coin that hits the metal tray with a sound like a church bell echoing through fog.

Maya picks it up.
The metal is hot — feverish. It hums faintly against her skin, almost alive.

When she looks closer, she sees a face engraved on it.
Not a president. Not a monarch.
Someone else entirely. Eyes too deep, smile too sharp.

The face looks familiar. Like someone she’s seen in a dream.
Or a reflection.


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She pockets the coin and starts her wash. The machine fills, water sloshing rhythmically.
The fluorescent lights above flicker — buzz — hum — until the sound becomes a pulse in her skull.

She glances at the washer door. Her reflection looks exhausted, fragile.
But when she looks away and back again… her reflection is still watching her.

Still. Unblinking.

Maya swallows. The reflection blinks after.

The smell of detergent thickens — sweet, cloying, almost chemical.
One of the dryers stops mid-spin, the metal drum creaking as it slows.
The air grows heavy. The hum of the fluorescent light dips low, like the room itself is holding its breath.

And then — condensation forms on the inside of the washer glass.
Not from the outside air, but from within.

Three words smear through the fog, backward but legible:
“GIVE IT BACK.”

Maya stumbles back. The coin in her pocket burns hotter. It thrums against her leg like a trapped wasp.

She turns toward the exit, desperate for air, but the glass door catches her reflection again — only now, it isn’t hers.

The man from the coin looks back at her.
Smiling. Patient. Waiting.


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Some stories echo longer than they should.

—

The Storyteller pauses, his hand hovering above the flickering candle on his desk.
The flame bends toward him, stretching unnaturally long before snapping back into place.
Shadows ripple across the wall like restless ghosts.

> “There’s a theory,” he whispers, “that every mirror is a doorway.
Not to another world — but to the same one, just… slightly rewritten.
The version where you looked too long.”



He turns the gold coin over between his fingers.
It’s warm. The engraved face seems softer now — more expressive.
Its eyes glimmer, as if catching light from somewhere the candle can’t reach.

> “I found this one at Hart’s Wash,” he murmurs. “Or did someone leave it for me? The nights blur together now.”



> “Maya wasn’t the first,” he continues, voice trembling just slightly.
“The coin chooses the sleepless.
The ones who wait for the reflection to move first.”



The air in the room grows thick — like breathing through water.
The flame gutters once, twice, then steadies — weaker now, smaller.

He stares at the reflection in the dark window across from him.
His own face stares back…
but smiles a heartbeat late.

He doesn’t move.
The reflection does.

It lifts a hand — not to mirror, but to wave.

Then, slowly, it turns its palm outward.
In its reflection-hand lies a coin.
It flips it — a glint of gold flashing across the glass — and catches it with impossible precision.

The Storyteller’s candle goes out.

There’s the sound of metal striking wood.
A faint bell tone that echoes into the dark.

And somewhere outside, in the blackness beyond the window, a dryer drum thumps once — twice — then stops.


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🕯️ Outro — The Sound That Lingers

> They say reflections are harmless. That glass keeps our worlds apart.
But glass is only solid until it isn’t.
And some nights… some stories… test its patience.



The coin now rests on my shelf, next to the scarab and the rusted key.
It’s cooler tonight — quiet — but I swear I hear metal shifting when I pass by.

Maybe Maya gave it back.
Maybe it’s just waiting for someone else to look too long.

Or maybe she’s still there — in every reflection at Hart’s Wash,
mouthing warnings no one can hear.
Trapped between the glass and the gaze.
Waiting for someone to trade places.

So if you ever find yourself at a 24-hour laundromat — and a coin drops with a sound like a bell —
don’t pick it up.
Just leave it there.
Let the reflection have it.

Because some nights, I wonder:
Am I still the one telling these stories?
Or am I the reflection, pretending I remember what it felt like to be real?


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And if you dare… drop a comment and tell me your favorite scary movie, urban legend, or horror memory.

We’re just getting started —
and things are about to get dark

thenightlystoryteller.blogspot.com


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