Notes of a Missing Person E-Book

Mara Steinbeck

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 57

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Notes of a missing person While cleaning out the attic, an old leather-bound diary was found. The pages are yellowed, the entries full of confused thoughts, growing fear - and a disturbing obsession with mirrors. The author, a woman named Clara, reports strange changes, memories that no longer belong to her, and a reflection that is not just her own reflection. The last entry ended abruptly. Clara herself? Never seen again.

Leseprobe

Title:Notes of a Missing Person

Author: Mara Steinbeck

Biography:

Mara Steinbeck was born in Hamburg in

1987 and grew up in a small coastal town on the North Sea. After school, she worked in various jobs, including as an editor for a local

newspaper and later in an antiquarian bookshop, where she discovered her fascination for old books and forgotten stories.

She developed her passion for the uncanny early on - inspired by abandoned houses, gloomy coastal mists and the quiet, deserted streets at night. These impressions flow into

her stories, which often deal with psychological depths and loss of identity.

Diary of Clara Hoffmann

Leipzig, February 3rd

I hate moving. Anyone who says that a fresh start is liberating should try fighting their way through a drafty old apartment alone while outside the streets are covered in slush. I'm sitting here between boxes while my back hurts from the heavy boxes. The walls are high, the wooden parquet floor creaks with every movement, and the radiator in the kitchen rattles as if it were complaining about my existence.

I am tired, but not tired enough to sleep. My head is still buzzing from theEffort, and as I sit here on the floor I ask myself why I'm even doing this. Why did I have to restart this goddamn city car? I hardly know anyone here. A few colleagues from the restoration workshop, a fleeting Tinder date three weeks ago that bored me more than excited me, and otherwise? Nothing.

I take a sip of wine straight from the bottle. It's some cheap stuff, but it warms me up. My gaze is drawn to the damn mirror.

It was already here when I moved in. In the corner of the bedroom, huge, with a dark, carved wooden frame, probably 19th century.The previous tenant must have left it there. I wanted to cover it up, but the thing is heavy and I didn't want to ruin my hands. So it's standing there staring at me while I write.

Mirrors are strange things. They show everything, but somehow it always feels wrong. Right now I'm looking at myself, pale, with dark circles under my eyes, my hair disheveled. I'm only wearing a loose T-shirt and panties, and I notice that my gaze is stuck on my own legs.

Sometimes I wonder if I would like myself if I didn't know myself as myself. Or if I could pick myself up at a bar if I didn't know exactly how stupidly I sounded when I climaxed.

Stupid thought. I push the bottle away and turn away from the mirror.

Leipzig, February 4th

Okay, that was weird.

I woke up this morning feeling like something was wrong. I was lying on my side facing the mirror and for a moment I thought my reflection was moving slower than me. Only for a blink of an eye, but it was enough to send me reeling. I sat there staring at myself, trying to convince myself that I just wasn't fully awake yet.

Then I got up and took a shower. But when I dried myself off and looked in the bathroom mirror, I felt like my lips were still moving for a moment, even though I had long since stopped.had to speak.

I didn't even realize I was talking to myself.

“You’re paranoid, Clara,” I said to myself.

My reflection looked at me. I know how stupid that sounds. Of course it looked at me. It's a mirror. And yet it didn't feel right.

Leipzig, February 5th

I woke up today with a strange pressure in my head.

It was as if my skull was pressing against my forehead from the inside, as if something in my consciousness had shifted during the night. Maybe too much wine, too little sleep, too many stupid thoughts about myself, about my own body, about the strange feeling that I haven't been feeling quite like myself lately.

I took an hour off to collect myself. I sat in front of the mirror. I wanted to observe myself.

But I couldn't.

Every time I look at myself for too long I feel sick. It's like my brain is playing tricks on me, expecting me to move at some point and I don't.

I know this is bullshit. I'm tired. I'm stressed. Maybe I need to get fucked properly, maybe I'm just frustrated and my body is finding stupid ways to let me know. Maybe I just need a guy or a woman or anyone to push me hard against a wall until my head stops producing so much shit.

But even that thought doesn't give me as much pleasure as it used to.

I covered the mirror with a sheet for today.

Let's see if that helps.

Leipzig, February 6th

I slept badly. The wind pressed against the window, the heater cracked, and at some point in the middle of the night I woke up drenched in sweat because I thought someone was looking at me.

I was lying in the dark, the covers pulled up to my chin, and I swear I could hear breathing. Very quiet, steady. Not my own. I didn't move, didn't even breathe, just listened. Nothing.

But when I finally dared to sit up, there was this feeling in the back of my neck. As if someone was standing right behind me.

I didn't turn around. I justI got up, went to the kitchen and drank half a liter of water while my heart was pounding so loudly in my ears that I thought it would kill me. I didn't want to go back to the bedroom, so I lay down on the couch. I told myself that I had to calm down. But I still looked at the clock every hour until the alarm clock saved me.

I decided that I was going crazy.

I mean, I put the sheet over the mirror, so what's the point? I haven't even seen it. I can't tell myself there's anything wrong if I don't even use it. And yet.

I feel like I don’tno longer belong.

Today during my lunch break I asked a colleague if she knew who had lived here before. Nadine, who always restores the old church frescoes in the workshop, just shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't matter, does it?"

Maybe she's right. But maybe not.

Leipzig, February 7th

I have made a mistake.

This morning I took the sheet off the mirror. Just like that. Because I was tired, because I wanted to have a clear head, because I wanted to convince myself that I wasn't kidding myself.

I shouldn't have done it.

I sat down and looked at my own face. The dark circles under my eyes, my pale skin. I looked the same as always. And then - I don't know how to describe it.