THE MIRROR ROOM
596 Words
Chapter Five: The Mirror Room
By the time Mira descended from the attic, night had spread itself thick across the windows like spilled ink. The world outside had gone silent — no wind, no passing cars, not even the usual bark of the neighbor’s restless dog.
The house felt… held. Like it was bracing for something.
Mira walked cautiously through the hallway, the floorboards creaking louder than usual under her feet. Her fingertips brushed the edges of the wallpaper as if to ground herself in reality — to remind herself she was still here, still real.
Then she saw it.
The hallway mirror.
It was tall, framed in tarnished silver with floral engravings that had faded over the years. Her mother used to insist it stayed right there — never moved, never touched. "Some mirrors," she used to say, "are more like windows."
Mira had always assumed it was a metaphor.
She looked into it now, expecting her own haggard reflection, but the figure staring back at her seemed... off. Her hair was the same, her face identical, but there was something unnatural about the eyes. Too still. Too focused.
She tilted her head.
The reflection didn’t.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Then, slowly, the reflection tilted its head — but in the opposite direction.
“Stop,” Mira whispered.
Her reflection smiled.
“You look just like her.”
The voice came from inside the mirror.
Mira stumbled back, knocking over a small table. A candle toppled, its flame sputtering out as the room darkened.
When she looked again, the reflection had vanished.
Now, the mirror was empty — showing only the dim hallway, but no Mira. Like she no longer existed in that space.
Shaking, she grabbed a blanket from the couch and threw it over the mirror, as if she could smother the thing like a flame. The cloth clung to the surface, unmoving, but something in her gut told her it hadn’t worked. Whatever that mirror was… it was awake now.
She backed away and collapsed onto the couch, trying to control her breathing. Her thoughts were spiraling — the whispers, the name, the attic journal. Was she descending into madness like her mother?
Her phone buzzed sharply, the sound like a scream in the silence.
She didn’t recognize the number. Hands trembling, she opened the message.
“That mirror shows what you hide. Stop looking, Anmira. It sees you now.”
She dropped the phone like it had burned her.
Anmira. Again with that cursed name.
Who was sending these messages?
Swallowing her fear, Mira returned to the attic, needing answers. The cold hit her as soon as she entered — colder than before. She pulled the journal from her bag and opened to the place where she’d stopped.
Pages of drawings — circles, symbols, something like a language but written sideways and split.
Then a photograph slid out.
A teenage version of her mother stood in front of the mirror. But it wasn’t the same mirror. It was this mirror. The same hallway. The same silver frame.
Behind her stood a shadow — humanoid but wrong. Distorted. Its smile stretched too far. Its hand hovered just above her mother’s shoulder.
Mira flipped the photo over. On the back was a short note in faded ink:
“The mirror is the door. Don’t let it open.”
She didn’t sleep that night.
And the next morning, when she pulled the blanket off the mirror to confront whatever waited inside… she wasn’t in the reflection anymore.
But someone else was.
- Writer
