The room smelled thick with dust and something unspeakably old — a mildew that clung to the corners like whispered regrets. Amelia sat cross-legged on the floor, her fingers tracing slow circles against the pale wood beneath her. The late afternoon light filtered through the heavy curtains, blotting out the sharp edges of the room and scattering everything into muted shadows. Above her, the ceiling fan spun lazily, its rhythmic creak folding into the silence.
She had been here for almost three days now, in the Victorian house her aunt had left her. The house itself felt like it was breathing—deep, slow inhalations that stirred the motes of dust and settled uneasily in her chest. The air was dense, thickening with each hour she spent unpacking the fragile relics of a life she never knew.
Amelia’s eyes drifted to the old mirror leaning against the far wall, its glass smeared with streaks of grime. Unlike the other antiques scattered around, this mirror felt off. It wasn’t the tarnish or the flaky gilt frame that unsettled her—it was the sense that it watched. Not from the reflection it held, but beyond that ephemeral surface. Her own tired face stared back, pale and drawn, but something deeper lurked just past the thickness of the glass—a shimmer, like a dark gleam shifting beneath water.
She rose and crossed the room, her footsteps muffled by the thick wool carpet. Her hand hovered inches from the mirror before she traced the cool edge of the frame. The glass held no warmth like a living thing should. Instead, it was a void. A blackness that rippled faintly with movement she did not make.
Amelia pulled out her phone and snapped a picture, expecting only to see her reflection. Instead, the screen illuminated a second figure behind her—an indistinct silhouette, blurred and wavering like a mirage. She spun around, heart hammering, but the room was empty. Her breath came in quick bursts, the way you breathe when caught in a nightmare between wakefulness and sleep.
She stepped back. “Hello?” The word felt foolish, hanging fragile in the space between her and the mirror. No answer.
The evening deepened into night. The house moaned with the wind, the creaking boards whispering tales of neglect. She shut all the curtains, trying to seal out the growing emptiness that pressed against the windows. Yet, in the dead of night, the mirror caught stray glimmers of moonlight through cracks—every so often, a gleam flickered beneath the glass, sharp and quick, like something stirring below an icy surface.
Amelia woke then, gasping, as if she had been underwater and finally clawed to the surface. The mirror stood just a few feet away, now glowing faintly with a low silver light no source could explain. The shadow in its depths had multiplied—now many brooding dark shapes shuffled just beyond the glass. Reaching out, she pressed her palm to the cold surface, and the glass rippled like oil disturbed by a sudden breeze.
She heard a voice then, a murmur curling up her spine and twisting her insides. Not a whisper—something older. Older than language. It was the sound of something waiting, deliberate and patient. It filled the room with an abyssal calm yet smothered every other noise.
Amelia pulled away, stumbling back, her skin crawling as if the unseen eyes had opened fully and gazed into her soul. She clenched her fists, fighting the pull to lean closer, to understand. Every instinct screamed to flee. But hers was a stubborn curiosity—a desire shaped long ago, and now impossible to ignore.
When dawn crept in, pale and cautious, she returned to the mirror. This time she brought a rag soaked in vinegar and began cleaning the glass. The grime peeled away slowly, but so too did the darkness within. The shapes in the mirror’s depths faded, replaced by something else.
A thin, hairline crack formed just above the center of the frame. It gleamed faintly, like the silver veins of frost on a windowpane. As the crack spread, Amelia felt a sudden rush of cold from the other side, and voices—no longer whispers but voices, urgent and broken.
She dropped the rag and stepped back.
The mirror was no longer reflecting this room. Instead, it showed another place entirely: a dim corridor lined with countless doors, each carved from blackened wood, all slightly ajar. Pale light spilled from beneath the cracks, but it was no sunlight. It was cold, aching.
Captivated, Amelia reached out once more. This time, the glass was slick and opened beneath her fingertips. Her body struggled as the world around her began to shift—walls dissolved, shadows coiled tight like serpents, and then she fell through.
She landed on cold stone, her breath coming in plumes that crystallized in the air despite no visible source of chill. The corridor stretched endlessly into darkness, the doors on either side murmuring faint names. Amelia dared to step forward, the slowness of her footsteps swallowed by an oppressive silence.
Behind one door she heard laughter—children playing—but when she opened it, the room was empty, save for a single child’s shoe resting on the floor. Another door creaked open on its own, revealing a flickering fireplace and a worn rocking chair that moved—slowly, impossibly—in the draftless air.
Then she heard something else. A faint drip.
Following the sound through the labyrinthine corridor, she found a door shimmering with condensation. Pushing it open, she stepped into a vast hall, water covering the floor to her ankles, lapping with an eerie stillness. The dripping came from the ceiling, where a lock of wet hair clung to the stone above. Amelia reached up, trembling, and touched it.
The hair slipped through her fingers as if underwater, bringing with it a sensation of drowning—not in water, but in memory. The hall twisted, and visions flooded her mind: faces she had never seen, emotions she had no right to feel.
She pulled back, gasping.
Behind her, the doors all slammed shut. The corridor dissolved. She was alone—trapped again in the cold room with the mirror.
The glass now cracked fully, the silver veins forming a web. Something beneath the surface pulsed, hungry and expectant.
Amelia realized: This was no window between worlds. This was a prison.
And she wasn’t the only prisoner.
The mirror didn’t show reflections because it had none to give. It only showed what was trapped inside.
Her own face smiled back at her now—twisted, eyes hollow, lips curved in a secret mocking smile that she did not own.
As she stepped back, the air thickened with whispers, the echo of every trapped soul begging for release.
But when she glanced again, the mirror’s depths gleamed with a new figure: the woman who had lived here before her. The woman who vanished without a trace.
Amelia’s breath caught.
The smile spread wider.
The mirror shattered.
