The Broken Mirror

The mirror hung in the hallway like it had always been there, tall and imposing, reflecting the narrow strip of the old house with unnerving precision. Its frame was carved with delicate patterns, curling like the tendrils of a long-forgotten dream. I had always been told it was special, that it had a story, but I never believed in such things.

That was before it broke.

It happened on a quiet afternoon. I had been dusting the shelves when the vase slipped from my hands. It fell to the floor, shattering into pieces, but somehow, the impact sent a sharp tremor through the mirror’s glass. A thin crack ran diagonally from the top corner, spiderwebbing across the surface.

I stared at it, heart thudding. It was just a mirror, I told myself. Just glass. Yet the reflection… it did not quite match reality anymore.

In the broken sections, the world looked different. The hallway was the same, but the light was colder, shadows sharper. The reflection of myself was familiar, yet somehow wrong. My eyes seemed to glimmer with a story I did not recognize, and my smile was fleeting, haunted.

At night, the mirror whispered.

I heard it first when I walked past it to reach my bedroom. The house was silent, the only sound the creak of floorboards beneath my feet. And then a soft voice, like a sigh carried through the glass:

“Do you see me?”

I froze.

“Who’s there?” I whispered, but the air remained still. Only the broken mirror stared back. And in its fractured panes, I thought I saw movement — a figure shifting behind my reflection.

The next days were worse. Each time I passed the mirror, it showed me moments I could not remember. A childhood birthday I had never had, a conversation with a friend who never existed, a fleeting kiss from someone I had never met. Each shard reflected a different life, a different version of me.

I tried to cover it, drape it with cloth, even consider smashing it entirely. But the mirror would not be silenced. Even under the cloth, I could feel its gaze, cold and patient, waiting for me to acknowledge it.

One evening, I stood before it, compelled. I touched a shard with my fingertip, and suddenly, I was there — in one of the lives it had shown me. I saw myself laughing in a garden that never existed, holding hands with someone whose face was a blur. And then the shard cracked further, and I stumbled back, heart racing.

The mirror was not broken. Not really. It was alive, in its own quiet, terrifying way. It did not reflect what was, but what could have been, and what might still be. Every broken line was a doorway, every fragment a story untold.

I realized that night I could not run from it. The mirror was a companion of sorts, showing me the paths my life could have taken. The loves I had lost, the mistakes I had avoided, the joys I had never known. Each crack was a lesson, a warning, or a gift.

Over time, I stopped fearing it. I learned to stand before it and watch patiently. The fragments whispered secrets I had never heard, whispered truths I had always known but refused to face. They told me that life is not whole, that perfection is an illusion, and that beauty often lies in the pieces.

I do not know if the mirror will ever stop showing me these worlds. Perhaps it will follow me to the end of my days, or perhaps one day, I will finally see my reflection as it truly is — complete, unbroken, and at peace. Until then, I keep it in the hallway, watching, waiting, teaching me the strange and wonderful lessons of the broken.

The cracks no longer frighten me. They remind me that life is fragile, yet infinite. That even broken things can hold entire universes within them. And that sometimes, to understand yourself, you must look through the fragments, not the whole.