The Mirror House
Chapter One: The Letter Behind the Glass
Written by Storyora
They say you can’t go home again. I never understood that until I stood on the porch of my mother’s house, five years after walking away for good. The house hadn’t changed, but I had. Or maybe... it had too, in ways I couldn’t yet see.
It was the mirrors. Always the mirrors. They were everywhere in that house—ornate, oval, antique, tall, etched with curling vines and gold leaf. My mother collected them like other women collect teacups. But they never reflected what they should’ve. I remember that even as a child. Sometimes you walked by and the mirror lagged a moment behind your steps. Sometimes you weren’t alone in the reflection, even if no one else was there.
The Key and the Dust
I found the spare key under the third brick—same place it had always been. The lock creaked open like it hadn’t been turned in years. Inside, the air was stale with the scent of closed windows and unspoken words.
The lawyer had said she died in her sleep. Peacefully. Quietly. But nothing about my mother had ever been quiet. She’d whispered to her mirrors. Taped strange symbols on the backs of them. She said they were "watching." I thought it was just part of the madness. But maybe madness has its reasons.
The Letter
I didn’t come back for closure. I came back to empty the house, sell it, and leave. But I found the letter on the dresser of the guest room—my old room. It wasn’t addressed to me by name, just: "To the One Who Sees".
Inside was a single page, handwritten in her sharp, exacting script. It said:
“You see them, don’t you? Not just reflections—but echoes. They show more than light. They remember. Each mirror in this house holds a piece of what happened here. You must not destroy them. You must listen. Start with the one in the east hallway. Look beneath the glass.”
I laughed. Then I shivered. Then I read it again.
The East Hallway
The east hallway had always creeped me out. Narrow, dim, with peeling wallpaper and one long mirror at the end—tall, lean, and silver-framed. I’d avoided it as a kid. It made me feel like I was being watched.
This time, I didn’t avoid it. I stood in front of the mirror and looked. And waited. Nothing happened. I leaned in closer. That’s when I saw it—something folded behind the edge of the frame, tucked just beneath the glass panel. My heart started racing.
I pried the side of the frame open, breaking a piece of the delicate woodwork. Inside was an envelope. Yellowed. Brittle. Unsealed. Another letter, dated 1973.
It wasn’t from my mother. It was addressed to her. From a man named Elias. He spoke of rituals, of “protecting the memory,” of binding things inside the mirrors so “they won’t escape again.”
My Mother Wasn't Crazy
The letter mentioned a name: Dr. A. Corman. I searched online and found a single reference in an old archived journal via Internet Archive—a fringe psychologist in the 1970s who studied “cognitive visual overlap,” the idea that mirrors may hold unconscious impressions.
Was this what she believed? That trauma, fear, memory—could be held in glass?
I Touched the Mirror
I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I was testing myself. Maybe I was just tired of being afraid of things I didn’t understand. But I reached out and pressed my palm flat against the mirror’s surface.
And it was cold. But not like glass. Like ice. Like breath. And the surface rippled—not outward, but inward, like it took something from me.
When I pulled my hand back, the reflection was... different. I was still standing there, but the hallway behind me was wrong. No wallpaper. Just concrete. And in the far corner, a shadow moved.
To Be Continued...
I stumbled back, the image vanished. Everything returned to normal. But nothing felt normal. I ran out of the house. Sat in the car for an hour. Couldn’t stop shaking. But I know I’ll go back in tomorrow. I have to. The mirrors are waiting. And now, so am I.
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