"Whispers Beyond the Mirror"

Eleanor had just moved into the crumbling manor her grandmother left her in the will. Tucked away at the edge of Black Hollow Woods, the house was a relic of a forgotten time, filled with dust-covered portraits, ticking grandfather clocks, and candle sconces that hadn’t seen light in decades.

But what intrigued her most was the mirror.

It stood nearly eight feet tall in the upstairs hallway, framed by dark wood carved into vines and thorny roses. No matter how many rooms she cleaned or explored, she always found herself returning to it. The surface was strange—it didn’t reflect quite right. Her reflection would lag behind, blink late, or shift its gaze when she wasn’t moving.

The first whisper was faint. She was standing in front of the mirror, brushing her hair, when she heard it.

"Eleanor..."

She froze. Her brush fell to the wooden floor. Heart pounding, she spun around. No one.

The house was silent.

She leaned in closer to the mirror, squinting. Her reflection did the same—but its lips were moving.

"Don’t be afraid..."

She stumbled back. The whisper was real.

That night, Eleanor couldn’t sleep. She searched every mention of mirrors in the manor’s old journals and books. In a locked drawer of her grandmother’s desk, she found a brittle letter dated 1892. It read:

> The mirror is not just glass. It is a gate. The voices are not madness—they are memories. But beware: not all that whispers wishes you well.

The next evening, drawn by a mix of fear and curiosity, Eleanor returned. The house creaked with the wind, lightning flashing through the hall windows. She stood before the mirror again.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

The mirror fogged over. Then, like frost retreating, the mist cleared to show not her own reflection—but another world.

A twilight forest stretched into the horizon, filled with black trees and a sky lit by two moons. A narrow path wound through the woods toward a towering ruin in the distance. And standing on the other side of the glass… was herself. Or someone who looked just like her—only paler, with silver eyes.

The mirror-woman beckoned silently.

Eleanor reached out. Her fingers met the surface—cold at first, then warm, then like silk—and passed through.

She gasped as she was pulled into the mirror.

The air was thicker here, humming with strange energy. The sky was dim, though no stars shone. She looked behind—no mirror. Only forest. The door had closed.

Voices whispered from the shadows, not in words, but in emotions: sorrow, longing, warning.

As she walked the path, she saw remnants of a fallen kingdom—statues broken in half, rusted swords buried in moss, and paintings hung from tree trunks as if the forest had absorbed the ruins.

Eventually, she came upon a girl sitting by a frozen lake, her back to Eleanor.

“Hello?” Eleanor asked cautiously.

The girl turned. She looked exactly like Eleanor.

But her eyes were hollow.

"You left me here," the girl said. “When you were a child. You dreamed of this place. You came here often. But one day, you stopped believing.”

Eleanor stepped back. “That’s not possible.”

“Oh, but it is. This world feeds on forgotten dreams. Every time a child stops believing, a piece of their imagination is trapped here. I am the part you forgot.”

Suddenly, the forest trembled.

The shadows twisted. Shapes emerged—tall, thin beings with blank faces and long fingers. They circled slowly.

“They’re coming,” her mirror-self whispered. “They want you to forget again. If they trap you, you’ll never leave.”

Eleanor ran. Branches clawed at her arms as the shadows chased her. The ruins loomed closer—maybe there was a way back inside.

She found a broken chamber within the ruins, its walls lined with cracked mirrors. Only one remained intact.

She touched it.

For a moment—nothing.

Then, her reflection appeared. Her real one.

The shadows screamed. One leapt forward, nearly touching her.

She jumped through.

Landing hard on the manor’s wooden floor, she rolled away from the mirror just as a dark shape slammed into the glass. It cracked—deep veins running through it—then stilled.

Eleanor lay on the floor, gasping. The hallway was silent.

The mirror no longer whispered.

Weeks passed.

She covered it with a heavy cloth. But some nights, she would wake to faint humming, like wind behind glass.

She never told anyone about what she saw. But she started writing again—stories she had once imagined as a child.

Because now she knew: forgetting isn’t harmless.

Every dream abandoned, every world left behind—they wait. And sometimes, they whisper back.