Don't sleep in the Dark 🏚️

If you believe in dreams...come closer. For here, a Chilling tale shall begin unfolding over one long, haunted night - becoming a whispered warning, and a flickering truth.

So, Leave the Light On...Please!

Dusk approached as the sun bowed low behind the hill, its amber breath growing cold and still. A house stood quiet, paint peeled thin - no one had dared to live here for a very long time. Everyone knew of its past...but the house beckons who it will.

It called to Ellie in her dreams, she was completely unaware, so she went house hunting on a whim...her small apartment had grown cramped...El needed to expand her horizons.

“It’s charming in a marvelously dark and lovely way”. Crooned Ellie.

The realtor smiled, too quick, too wan:

“Just… leave a light on when you sleep".

And so Ellie bought the house, workers fixed and painters painted.

One fateful night...she moved in...unpacking just the bare necessities, the movers had yet to bring her stuff.

🏠🏚️

The First Flicker came at 9 p.m., the bulbs grew dim, the hallway light began to misbehave, crackling like an angry witch. A shadow passed across the floor, though Ellie’d locked the creaking door.

She checked the fuse, the wires, the switch...The silence answered with a twitch. And from the attic, soft and drawn:

A voice that murmured, “Leave it on…”.

Ellie smiled...she was not afraid. She plugged a nightlight in and went to sleep, pulling her blanket to her cheek.

🏚️

At 3:33, Ellie awakened to a noise. Beneath the floor, she heard the scratching, more and more. A hum arose, in broken tones, maybe sung through teeth and buried bones.

She grabbed her robe, stuck her sleepy feet into bedside slippers, and cautiously went creeping, investigating...Ellie found a hatch, a rusted grate, and something waiting past the gate.

It smiled with eyes like dusk and dawn: "You’re mine now...leave the light on".

Ellie laughed out loud. This was her house...and nothing unseen, undead, dead or unearthly would make her run, shriek or scream. Back to bed she went.

🏚️

At 4 a.m., awakened again...she struck a bargain...made a vow, to never sleep without a light on, to never quarrel.

She lit each lamp, each flame, each spark, to keep the house from growing dark.

Within the great mirror in the hallway, every bulb began to fade, as if the house had never it's bill paid. Ellie stood in front of the curious, mournful thing.

The reflection showed her images of a long time past...pale and drawn: She saw herself say, “Leave it on…”.

How is it possible, Ellie wondered...to be in the mirror, yet also living here in the now. Still, she was not afraid, she must seek the haunting truth. Her memory spirals to a former identity, echoing through the great hall mirror.

🏚️🏚️🏚️

Long ago, before the house was abandoned, it was known as Wetherlin Hall, a manor built on the edge of the moor, where fog clung to the windows. Ellie was not Ellie then - she was Elowena Thorne, a child of strange gifts and stranger silences.

She lived in the house with her reclusive father, who believed reflections could trap time, that a soul could be preserved in glass if the ritual was precise. Elowena, curious and obedient, often stood before the great hall mirror as he whispered incantations behind her.

🔮 Reflection's Chant

"Breath unspoken, name uncalled,

Shadow which linger when light falls.

Silver souls...time forgotten truths hidden.

One becomes two, and two become none

Till glass remembers.

Leave not the light, nor break the gaze.

🪞

It was spoken at twilight, with Elowena standing before the mirror, her father behind her, candlelight flickering. The final line - “Leave not the light, nor break the gaze” - was the key. When uttered, the mirror would shimmer, and everyone vanish from the room, their presence sealed within the reflection.

🪞🪞

One night, during a storm that split the sky like a scream, they both vanished. The house was found empty...except for Elowena’s shoes by the mirror, and a faint handprint on the inside of the glass.

The manor was sealed. Time passed. Names changed. And Ellie, in another life, grew up far from the moor, never knowing why she feared mirrors or why she dreamed of a house with peeling paint and a single glowing window.

When she moved into Wetherlin Hall, the memories began to bleed through. The mirror in the great hall showed her not as she was...but as she had been. A younger her, with wide eyes and a whisper on her lips: “Leave the light on.”

She realized the truth slowly, like frost creeping across glass. She was the echo. The entity. The forgotten girl who had never left. Her soul had been caught in the ritual, fractured and reborn, drawn back to the house like a moth to flame.

🪞The Mirror Room

The great hall was silent, save for the soft hum of the chandelier swaying above. Dust hung in the air, and the mirror - tall as the wall, framed in tarnished silver - waited.

Ellie stepped forward now, robe and slipper discarded...barefoot on the cold wooden floor. Her breath fogged the glass, but the reflection did not mimic her. Instead, it blinked.

A girl stood within the mirror. Pale, with raven-dark hair and a velvet dress. Her eyes were wide, ancient, and familiar.

"Elowena". Ellie whispered.

The girl tilted her head. "You remember".

"I do. I remember the lullabies. The rituals. The storm. I remember being you".

Elowena’s voice was soft, like wind through attic cracks. "I never left. I waited in the glass. I watched you grow, forget, return".

Ellie touched the mirror. It was warm.

"I thought I was haunted,” she said. “But I was the haunting".

Elowena smiled, a sad, knowing curve. "We are both echoes. Half-light and half-shadow. This house is our heart".

💡💡💡

The chandelier flickered. The walls pulsed with quiet recognition.

Ellie stepped closer. "Then let’s live here. Together. Not as ghost and reflection, but as memory and will".

Elowena nodded. "We’ll keep the lights on. Not to ward off fear...but to guide each other home".

The mirror shimmered. The reflection shifted. Ellie saw herself...older, wiser, with Elowena’s eyes. And Elowena saw herself...grown, brave, with Ellie’s voice.

They turned from the mirror, side by side, and walked through the house that now breathed with them.

Now, when Ellie walks the halls, the house responds...not with fear, but recognition. The lights flicker not to scare her, but to guide her. The attic hums with musical notes she once sang. And the mirror? It no longer reflects her, it is her...it remembers her.

🪞🪞🪞

Dawn breaks... and the sun returned, its golden rays beginning to blur.

And every night, the house still hums, bringing haunting strums...distant memories of phantom drums.

If you move in, beware the dawn...

And always, always… leave the light on.