Late one evening, Vanya was getting ready for bed. He had already put on his pajamas and turned off the light in his room when he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to brush his teeth. “Oh, I completely forgot!” he thought and headed to the bathroom. Vanya quietly stepped out of his room and made his way through the dark hallway. It was very quiet in the house, and the faint moonlight barely lit the space around him.

Vanya didn’t mind the dark too much, but sometimes he felt like strange things could be hiding in it. He carefully approached the bathroom but didn’t turn on the light—he knew exactly where his toothbrush was and thought he could manage without it. Vanya entered the bathroom and opened the cabinet where his toothbrush was, but something strange caught his attention.

Vanya froze. In the mirror, he saw a dark figure standing still and staring back at him. Vanya felt his heart begin to pound faster. It even seemed as if the figure in the mirror moved slightly. Vanya took a step back, staring fearfully at the reflection, and thought, “That must be someone else!”

“I need to run away quickly!” flashed through his mind, and Vanya was about to rush out of the bathroom. But something stopped him: he suddenly thought that if he ran, he would only be more afraid. Vanya took a deep breath and decided to do something different. “I need to find out who this is,” he thought, feeling courage building up inside him.

Gathering all his determination, Vanya stepped closer to the mirror and squinted, trying to see the figure more clearly in the dim light. His reflection moved closer as well, and suddenly Vanya realized that this dark figure was just himself! In the dark, with his messy hair and sleepy eyes, he looked completely different than usual.

When he realized that he had been scared of his own reflection the whole time, Vanya first froze in surprise and then started laughing. The thought that he had mistaken himself for someone else was so funny! “Oh, Vanya, you really are something!” he said aloud, smiling at himself. Now, the fear was gone, and the bathroom once again felt familiar and cozy.

After that, he turned on the light to get a better look at himself in the mirror. Vanya raised his hands and made a funny face to scare his “twin” in the mirror, but this time, he wasn’t scared at all. He smiled, realizing that he would no longer be frightened by his own reflection.

When Vanya returned to his room, he couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. He found it so amusing and decided to share the story with his friends. The next day at school, he gathered all his friends and began telling them how he got scared of his own reflection.

“Imagine,” he began, trying to hold back laughter, “I walked into the bathroom and saw… myself! But I thought it was someone else!”

Vanya’s friends looked at him in surprise at first and then burst into laughter with him. They laughed so loudly that even the teacher peeked into the classroom to see what was going on.

“Well, Vanya, you’re really brave!” said one of his friends. “Now you know that no one can scare you, not even yourself!”

Vanya understood that sometimes fears can be funny, and that it’s important to be able to laugh at yourself. He promised himself he would never be afraid of the dark again because now he knew that his reflection was a loyal friend.

From that day on, Vanya was no longer afraid to enter dark rooms, as he knew that laughter and humor could help overcome any fear. His friends teased him for a while, calling him “the brave mirror hero.” But Vanya had learned to laugh at himself and was proud that he had faced his fear.

And so ended the story of how Vanya got scared of his own reflection, but learned to see humor and joy in scary moments. After all, when you can laugh at your fears, they lose their power, and life becomes more fun and exciting.