Whispers of the Forgotten

The village of Eldenmoor had always existed like a half-remembered dream—quiet, fog-draped, and haunting. Time there didn’t move forward like it did elsewhere; it circled slowly, looping through generations, settling dust on old secrets.

Nina Thorne hadn’t been back since she was eight years old. The accident had taken her family and her memory. All she had left was a faded black-and-white photograph of a crumbling house at the edge of the woods—and a single word written in a child's uncertain hand: “Eldenmoor.”

Seventeen years later, she returned—not because she remembered anything, but because she didn’t. The ache of forgetting had grown unbearable. She needed to know what had happened, who she had been, and why the nightmares never stopped.

Eldenmoor hadn’t changed. The trees still leaned over the roads like eavesdropping giants. The villagers watched her with something that felt like recognition—quiet, stiff, and touched with fear. Some nodded politely, but none spoke to her. At the inn, the owner gave her the key with a glance that lingered too long, as if she were a ghost returned to walk the same halls she once haunted.

The house was still standing, barely. Hidden by overgrowth and leaning under the weight of its own decay, it stood at the edge of the Darkling Woods like a monument to something long buried. Nina felt her breath catch when she saw it. Her feet crunched along the stone path, overgrown with moss. The porch creaked beneath her weight. She pushed the door open, and the smell of damp wood and something older—something metallic and bitter—washed over her.

Inside, the house was cold. Not just the temperature, but the feeling of it. Cold like a wound that had never healed. Furniture sat draped in dusty sheets. Cobwebs hung like curtains. And yet, as she wandered, something pulled at her—a thread winding backward through time.

That night at the inn, she couldn’t sleep. Around three in the morning, a voice stirred her from a shallow, uneasy doze. It wasn’t loud. It was like a thought that wasn’t her own, curling in the back of her mind.

“Find the mirror… beneath the floor…”

Her heart pounded. She sat up, disoriented, but alert. The words had come from inside. Not a dream. Not imagined.

At dawn, she returned to the house with a crowbar and a flashlight. The attic seemed the likeliest place—something about the angle of the ceiling in the old photo. She pushed aside a stack of warped boxes, pulled up loose floorboards, and found it.

A mirror.

It was framed in oak, carved with strange symbols that tingled against her skin when she touched them. The glass itself was perfectly clear, untouched by dust. But when she looked into it, she didn’t see her reflection.

She saw a child. Herself.

Eight years old, barefoot and crying, running through the woods. Behind her, flames devoured the sky. Smoke curled. A shadow followed—a man, tall, with firelight dancing on his black coat. His face was a blur. His eyes were not.

Then it vanished.

Nina gasped, stumbling back. The flashlight clattered. She looked again. Only her own pale, wide-eyed face stared back.

The mirror had shown her a memory. A moment locked deep in the part of her mind that had never wanted to be opened.

The next day, she returned, unable to stay away. She touched the runes, and the mirror pulsed faintly—once. Then again. Images flickered like broken film. A woman’s scream. A salt circle on the floor. A name—Marrow—whispered like a curse.

The mirror seemed to awaken the house.

Downstairs, a thump echoed, too deliberate to be an accident. Nina turned, her nerves on edge. Then, laughter. A child’s giggle. Her blood turned cold.

She followed the sound to what must’ve been her old room. The nursery. The rocking horse moved, though the air was still. On the wall, scrawled in a child’s handwriting, were the words:

“You left us, Nina. But we never left you.”

Her hands trembled. She backed away, the mirror’s glow still in her eyes. Something was wrong—not just with the house, but with her past.

That night, she slept beside the mirror.

And dreamt of fire.

She stood in the middle of the woods, holding her mother’s hand. Her father stood inside a chalk circle, chanting in a language she didn’t understand. The ground trembled. A shadow rose behind him, its voice low and hungry.

Then came the betrayal. Her father had opened a door that could not be closed.

The fire had not been an accident.

It had been the only way to seal what he’d summoned.

Nina woke crying, hands clenched into fists. For the first time in seventeen years, she remembered her mother’s lullaby. The warmth of her embrace. The soft promise: “If you ever forget, the mirror will remember.”

The mirror had waited.

Now, the truth was waking.

And it was not done with her yet.