THE MIRROR

 

THE MIRROR

CHAPTER ONE: THE PARTY

The Texas summer clung to the air like sweat on skin. It was the last weekend before school resumed, and the teens of Silver Springs were determined to wring every drop of thrill from the dying days of freedom. At the edge of town, where an abandoned oil rig loomed like a skeleton over cracked earth, a party pulsed to the rhythm of cheap speakers and teenage adrenaline.

Jake slid out of his truck, the headlights catching the dust as it spiraled around his boots. He was the kind of boy that magnetized attention: sculpted jaw, tousled blond hair, varsity jacket slung over his shoulder like a badge of conquest. Lisa, his girlfriend, was at his side—radiant, sharp-eyed, and poised like a queen in exile. She was captain of the cheer squad, the girl every other girl measured herself against.

They were late, of course. Intentionally. The party was already in full swing—beer cans crushed underfoot, smoke rising from joints passed hand to hand, music so loud it masked the distant croak of bullfrogs from the nearby pond.

Matt, Jake's best friend, greeted him with a crooked grin and a clink of beer cans. "About time, quarterback. Thought you'd leave your own party to die."

"Our party," Jake replied, cracking the can open with one hand. Lisa accepted a cup of punch from Chelsea—her second-in-command and polar opposite. Chelsea was chaos wrapped in eyeliner and secrets, her laughter always a few shades too wild.

The firepit crackled as the night deepened, shadows stretching long and thin. The air was thick with rebellion and ritual, as if they were invoking something older than their youth.

"We need to do something memorable," Chelsea said, eyes gleaming. She leaned forward, her face lit by firelight. "Something that’ll make the summer unforgettable."

Jake snorted. "Like what? Skinny dipping in the pond?"

"No. Something real. Something daring."

Matt groaned. "God, what now?"

"We go to the Meadows."

A hush fell. Even the music seemed to retreat.

Brian—Chelsea's boyfriend, a boy built more for books than bravado—shook his head. "That place is cursed."

"Urban legend crap," Chelsea said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. "But there’s a house there. And in that house... there’s a mirror. They say it doesn’t reflect—it remembers."

Jake rolled his eyes. "Sounds like a load of bullshit."

"So what, quarterback? You scared?" Chelsea teased.

Lisa folded her arms, daring. "Let’s vote. Or are you all too scared of bedtime stories?"

Hands rose, one by one, against the firelight.

Jake sighed. "Great. Peer pressure it is."

Brian muttered, "You're all gonna regret this."

---

CHAPTER TWO: THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS

The road into the Meadows was little more than a scar through the wilderness—twisting, broken, and flanked by dying trees. Jake’s Ford pickup bounced over potholes as they climbed toward the highest hill, headlights slicing through the mist that clung to the earth like breath on glass.

"Are we sure this is the place?" Jake asked, voice low.

Chelsea nodded. "Top of the hill. It's been abandoned since the sixties. No one goes there anymore. Not since..."

"Since what?" Lisa asked.

"Since they found the mirrors."

The house emerged from the mist like a wound. Gothic and towering, it was a structure that seemed to inhale light rather than reflect it. Stone gargoyles crouched along the roof, mouths open in silent screams. Foreign statues—twisted, unrecognizable—lined the cracked stone path.

They stepped out of the truck, the silence suffocating. No insects. No wind. Just a stillness that pressed against their skin.

"Pull over," Chelsea whispered. As if speaking too loud would wake something.

Jake parked at the edge of the circular driveway. The house loomed above them, every window black. He reached for the door—and a shriek split the air.

It came from nowhere and everywhere. It wasn’t human.

He froze. "Did anyone else—"

"Yeah," Lisa said, her voice trembling. "We all heard it."

The front door creaked open before they even touched it.

Inside, darkness devoured them. The air was thick with mildew and the sickly-sweet scent of rot. They lifted their phones, flashlights cutting narrow tunnels through the dark.

And then they saw them.

Mirrors. Dozens. Hundreds. Covering every wall, every hallway. Some cracked, others pristine, their surfaces rippling like water.

Jake whispered, "I thought it was one mirror."

"Maybe it was a mirror shop," Matt offered weakly.

"Right," Lisa snapped. "Because this screams 'retail store' to you?"

And somewhere, in the distance, a mirror hummed.

---

CHAPTER THREE: REFLECTIONS

"Did you guys hear that?" Lisa whispered.

"Nope," Jake said, though his eyes flicked nervously toward the shadows.

"I swear I heard breathing," she said, clutching his arm.

"Probably a bat," Chelsea said, brushing past them with too much confidence.

The house seemed to pulse with decay. Every corner reeked of death—dead wood, dead vermin, dead time. The mirrors reflected them in strange ways—faces stretching too long, eyes lagging behind movement, smiles not quite syncing with mouths.

Chelsea stopped at the foot of the staircase. "Let’s split up. Brian and I’ll check down here. You two take upstairs."

Jake hesitated. "Isn’t that how people die in horror movies?"

Chelsea winked. "Exactly."

Jake and Lisa moved up the staircase, each step groaning under their weight. The air grew colder the higher they climbed. At the end of the hall, a room with a half-open door beckoned. It was filled with mirrors—ornate, antique, crude, fractured. Some were covered in sheets that moved ever so slightly as if breathing.

The door slammed shut behind them.

"What the—" Jake rushed to the handle, but it was jammed.

"It’s locked!" Lisa shouted.

They banged and twisted the knob. It broke clean off.

---

Meanwhile, in the basement, Chelsea and Brian walked slowly beneath rusted pipes and frayed wiring. The air was dense and wet, like breathing through gauze.

The basement, too, was littered with mirrors—many smashed, others whole but fogged over with a greasy film.

Brian paused. Something in one mirror moved... but he hadn’t.

"Lisa... come look at this."

Chelsea turned.

The mirror showed Brian—but not as he was. His reflection was shirtless, covered in symbols scorched into his skin, his eyes black pits, his smile carved and wide.

The reflection raised a hand.

Brian hadn’t moved.

Chelsea gasped. "What the hell is that?"

And then the reflection stepped forward—through the glass.

---

CHAPTER FOUR: BLOODGLASS

"Run! Go upstairs!" Brian screamed.

Chelsea bolted, leaving him behind. She heard nothing but her own heartbeat and the creak of the house shifting in response. Dust fell from the ceiling as she stumbled up the stairs, calling for Jake and Lisa.

Lisa yanked the door open from the inside. "Where’s Brian?!"

"In the basement—he—he—something came out of the mirror!"

They rushed down together. But when they reached the basement, Brian was no longer whole. He lay in the center of a mirror-ringed room, eyes wide, his mouth frozen in a silent scream. His body was coated in blood and thick, black ichor.

Jake recoiled. "We have to get out. Now."

Lisa turned on Chelsea. "This was your idea! Your goddamn ghost story killed him!"

Chelsea wept. But Lisa grabbed her hand. "Come on. There's no time."

They ducked into a side hallway, searching for a room—any room—without mirrors. But the house had changed. The layout twisted impossibly. Mirrors lined every surface, watching.

Finally, a study—less mirrors. Lisa slammed the door behind them.

"We need to break them," Lisa said. "Break every mirror. It’s how she moves."

Jake hesitated. "What if that traps us in her world?"

Chelsea’s voice was a whisper. "If she’s in the mirror when it breaks... she dies."

They picked up whatever they could—broken wood, crowbars, stones from the fireplace—and started smashing.

With each crash, a laugh echoed from deeper in the house.

They reached the living room. And there she was.

The girl from the mirror.

Pale. Dripping with black blood. Hair like coiled shadow. Eyes like knives.

"Welcome," she said, her voice echoing in their bones. "You came to see me."

---

CHAPTER FIVE: SHATTERED TRUTH

Jake grabbed Lisa’s hand. “We need to go. Now.”

The girl stepped closer, her feet leaving wet, inky footprints that hissed and sizzled on the wood. She smiled, revealing a mouth too wide, too full of teeth, some sharpened into points like broken glass.

Chelsea threw a crowbar, desperate. It hit her square in the chest—and melted into her body, swallowed by the darkness oozing from her pores.

“You think you can break me?” the girl said. Her voice sounded like it had come from inside the mirrors themselves.

Jake pulled Lisa and Chelsea into the nearest hallway. The walls were closing in—or maybe the mirrors were just multiplying. Each one flickered with different images: Brian screaming, Jake’s reflection gouging its own eyes, Lisa being pulled into a dark void by hands that multiplied like spider legs.

“Here!” Lisa said, kicking open a door to a room nearly empty—just one mirror remained, tall and cracked, covered in a filthy tarp.

Chelsea hesitated. “If she’s in that one—”

“We end it,” Lisa said. “If we don’t, she’ll hunt us until we die.”

Jake took the wrench from his belt. “Stand back.”

He yanked off the tarp. The girl’s face stared back at them, but in the mirror she was still, waiting. Her mouth began to move.

“I see you,” she whispered.

Jake roared and smashed the mirror with the wrench. It cracked once, then again—until shards rained down like frozen raindrops. A high-pitched scream filled the room, louder than anything they had heard. The house trembled.

The floor began to fracture. Black tendrils leaked from the walls. The girl was no longer in front of them. But her voice lingered.

“You cannot kill a memory... I am the echo of everything forgotten.”

“Run!” Lisa shouted.

They bolted through the splintering hallway, the house groaning, mirrors bursting behind them in a chain reaction. As they reached the second-floor balcony, the last remaining mirror on the landing cracked—and the girl emerged one last time.

She lunged.

Jake turned, tackled her mid-air, and both crashed to the floor below.

“JAKE!” Lisa screamed.

He lay motionless. The girl, broken and twitching, reached out one last time—then melted into a pool of darkness that soaked into the floor.

Lisa and Chelsea made it to the balcony. Without thinking, Lisa grabbed Chelsea and pushed.

“Jump!”

They fell. Chelsea landed hard, screaming. Lisa hit the ground with a sickening crack in her leg.

But they were outside.

The wind hit them like a scream.

The house behind them creaked—and then went silent. No collapse. No flame. Just stillness.

---

FINAL CHAPTER: ECHOES

Lisa woke in a sterile room under fluorescent lights. Pain pulsed from her leg, wrapped in thick white gauze.

Chelsea sat beside her, eyes red.

“Where’s Jake?” Lisa croaked.

Chelsea said nothing.

Lisa turned her head. The hospital mirror was covered.

A nurse stepped in. “She’ll be fine,” she told Chelsea. “What did you say caused this again?”

Chelsea blinked. “Bike accident. She hit a curb.”

The nurse nodded, skeptical but silent.

Later, as Lisa lay half-dreaming, she heard whispering. Faint, childlike.

She turned her head toward the mirror.

The sheet was gone.

In the reflection, she was alone. Her bed was empty.

And in the corner, the pale girl stood watching.

Smiling.

---

THE END