There's a somewhat strange intersection near my apartment.

I live in a rural town right now. The road here—a neighborhood access road, I guess you could call it—is so narrow that two cars can barely squeeze past each other, but during the morning and evening rush hours, traffic gets pretty heavy with people commuting to and from the big local factory. The traffic light is the type that just constantly flashes red and yellow.

However, the traffic light isn't the strange part.

It’s the curve mirrors near the intersection that are off. Normally, traffic mirrors—those convex safety mirrors—are meant to let drivers check for oncoming traffic when turning left or right. That means they have to be placed right at the intersection where drivers can actually see them, or else they’re useless.

But these mirrors are bizarre. First off, the location makes no sense. They aren't at the intersection itself, but installed on the edge of an apartment building parking lot facing the nearby road. To be honest, if you just pull your car forward a tiny bit, you can easily see whether any traffic is coming down the road without needing a mirror at all. So what on earth are they even for?

On top of that, you can't even see what's reflected in them from the driver's seat. Why? Because there are two mirrors, mounted unbelievably close together. There’s a trash collection spot at the edge of the apartment parking lot, and the mirrors are set up right there. For some reason, there are two of them. They aren't perfectly parallel, set at a slight angle, but they face each other directly. In other words, they form an infinite mirror setup.

Take a look at the photo I took. You should be able to tell that they're facing each other. (*To the admins: If possible, I’d like to post the photo here. I submitted an inquiry earlier, so please let me know how to do that.) <img src="https://kikikaikai.kusuguru.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/65ba27e983fa5e0df51f12bc9ce73f29-338x450.jpg" alt width="338" height="450" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-18507" srcset="https://kikikaikai.kusuguru.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/65ba27e983fa5e0df51f12bc9ce73f29-338x450.jpg 338w, https://kikikaikai.kusuguru.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/65ba27e983fa5e0df51f12bc9ce73f29-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://kikikaikai.kusuguru.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/65ba27e983fa5e0df51f12bc9ce73f29-113x150.jpg 113w, https://kikikaikai.kusuguru.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/65ba27e983fa5e0df51f12bc9ce73f29-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://kikikaikai.kusuguru.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/65ba27e983fa5e0df51f12bc9ce73f29-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://kikikaikai.kusuguru.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/65ba27e983fa5e0df51f12bc9ce73f29-scaled.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 338px) 100vw, 338px">

(*Editor's Note: The image provided by the submitter has been partially edited prior to publication.)

By the way, I don't know if it's connected, but in the background is the lot of a small commercial building next to the apartment, and there’s a deliberate pile of ritual salt placed there. Sometimes it melts into a gooey slush, which creeps me out.

What's unsettling is that it feels like the angle of the two mirrors was deliberately adjusted to make them reflect each other. How do I know? Because neither of them is set at an angle that would actually be useful for a driver checking before turning left or right. Why is something like that even there? I've lived around here for over five years, but I have no idea. And when I asked the neighbors, maybe because a lot of people here relocate frequently for work, most of them didn't even know the mirrors existed. I just got vague replies like, 'Now that you mention it...' or 'I wonder why...'—nothing that cleared up my questions at all.

Anyway, around here, when people go out drinking, it's standard to drive your own car and call a designated driver service to get home. But I'd rather spend that money on another drink, so I usually just walk to a nearby bar. Which means I pass right by that intersection with the mirrors on my way there and back.

Sorry for the long preamble, but what I want to tell you about is something I saw at that intersection recently. To be honest, it creeped me out so badly that I'm seriously considering moving.

That night, after finishing work, I parked my beat-up mini car in my apartment parking lot and decided to head out for a drink. Like I mentioned earlier, the narrow road outside my apartment and that intersection gets decent traffic in the morning and evening, but I commute about an hour to an hour and a half by car every day. So by the time I get home, it's already late at night.

At that hour, the only people on that road are guys biking home from late shifts at the factory (for some reason, most of them look Chinese) and those designated driver cars (which zoom down the narrow road at crazy speeds, pretty scary when you're walking).

But that night, there wasn't even anyone like that around. It was dead silent.

A cold, unpleasant wind was blowing, and I remember thinking for a second, 'Maybe it’s going to rain, should I go back to my car to grab an umbrella?' But I’d already walked a few hundred yards and didn't feel like turning back, so I decided to just keep going. If it rained, I could always buy a cheap umbrella at a convenience store.

Lost in those thoughts, I approached the intersection.

The yellow light of the signal kept flashing continuously. Since it was a dark road with hardly any streetlights, the harsh white glow from a single vending machine and the rhythmic yellow flashing of the signal stood out intensely. It wasn't exactly terrifying, but it was a strange, eerie sight.

Just before the intersection sat the apartment building. The mirrors in question were on this side. That night, for whatever reason, those facing mirrors caught my attention more than usual. Actually, the photo I shared earlier is the exact picture I snapped with my smartphone camera right then. I don't think it turned out to be a full-blown ghost photo or anything dramatic like that, though.

The unsettling part came right after that.

As I stood there staring into the facing mirrors, something moved inside the reflection. Naturally, I thought someone was coming. Standing around late at night in the parking lot of an apartment complex I didn't even live in, staring at traffic mirrors and taking photos—I wouldn't blame anyone for suspecting me of being a creep. I put my phone away and turned around. What was approaching wasn't a human.

It was a white dog.

A large white dog. I couldn't tell you what breed it was. I don't know much about dogs, but I'm certain it wasn't any famous breed that someone with zero interest in dogs like me would recognize. Maybe a mutt. It was big—maybe not up to my waist, but its head came well above my knees.

I'd never heard of stray dogs around here. Did someone's pet escape? Yet strangely, I wasn't scared. It was huge, but I didn't sense any hostility from it. It wasn't wagging its tail, so it didn't seem particularly friendly either. It just ambled lazily toward me.

When it reached my side, the dog raised its head for just a moment and looked me in the face.

That was it—it kept walking past me and went on its way. It was probably nothing, but I felt as if the dog had been verifying my identity.

I stood there for a while with a knot of anxiety in my chest, but I was dying for a drink that night, so I kept walking. Everything was bathed in the flickering yellow light of the signal. That was when I saw something else coming from further down the road.

This time, someone was walking toward me from the other side of the intersection. Definitely a human, not a dog. They were stumbling heavily, as if very drunk. As the figure drew closer, I could see he was dressed like an office worker in a suit.

He looked to be around forty. He wore a dark, cheap-looking suit that was quite worn out. His hair was slicked back with pomade or hair wax, but a few loose strands gave him an exhausted look. Black round-rimmed glasses. Since there was hardly anyone around, he wasn't wearing a mask. He lurched along like a zombie out of a movie. As he passed me, I noticed mud stains around the knees of his suit trousers, as if he'd fallen somewhere. Illuminated by the yellow light, he stumbled past and slowly walked away into the night.

I stood there shuddering as I watched the slicked-back, round-glasses office worker walk away. Was it because he was staggering like a zombie? ...No.

Because no matter how I looked at him, that man was me.

I don't remember much of what happened after that. Completely terrified, I ducked into my usual bar and slammed down drinks. The bartender mentioned how pale I looked—I remember that much. But after that, I just desperately wanted to forget meeting a man who looked identical to me in that flickering yellow light. I drank so much that my memory is a total blur. Honestly, I can't even recall how I made it back home.

Anyway, when I came to, I was slumped on the sofa in my apartment, still in my suit. It must have been past eleven in the morning. When I woke up, my family seemed to be out, probably for my kid's extracurricular activities or something.

As I sat up, I noticed a stinging pain in my palms and knees.

I gasped, completely speechless. Though I had no memory of it, I must have gotten drunk and tripped on my way home. There were heavy mud stains smeared across my palms and the knees of my suit. Goosebumps broke out all over my body.

That man in the suit I saw in the middle of the night—was he my future self from early this morning?

However, I still have no idea why I saw such a thing, or whether noticing those facing mirrors had anything to do with it.