The Demon in the Mirror

My name is sami kh, 27 years old, a mechanic from a small town in Pennsylvania. I’ve always lived a practical life—wrenches, oil stains, busted engines. Nothing mystical. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a socket wrench and elbow grease.

That changed when I moved into my grandmother’s old house after she passed. The house had been in our family since the late 1800s. My parents refused to sell it out of nostalgia, but nobody wanted to live there. So when I needed a fresh start after my divorce, I figured, why not?

The house was creaky and old, but it had good bones. Except for one thing.

The mirror.

It hung in the hallway, just outside the upstairs bathroom. An ornate, full-length Victorian-style mirror, with a wooden frame carved in twisting vines and what looked like faces. I assumed they were cherubs or some Gothic pattern. But even then, they gave me a strange feeling. I tried to take it down, but the thing wouldn’t budge—bolted deep into the wall.

The first night I noticed something odd, it was just after midnight. I was brushing my teeth when I saw movement in the mirror. I figured it was my own reflection, just the corner of my eye playing tricks. But it wasn’t.

The reflection lagged. As in, I turned my head—and my mirrored self stayed staring at me for a beat too long before slowly mimicking the motion.

I laughed it off, thinking I was just exhausted.

But it kept happening.

By the fourth night, things escalated. I passed the mirror on my way to bed and saw someone else standing behind me in the reflection.

A tall, shadowy figure with hollow eyes.

I spun around—nothing there. But when I turned back to the mirror, the figure was closer.

I didn’t sleep that night. I left the hallway light on. Kept my door cracked, eyeing that mirror from my bed.

The next day, I covered it with a bedsheet. The moment I did, the air got heavier. No breeze. No change in temp. But it felt like the house was holding its breath. Like whatever was behind that mirror didn’t like being hidden.

The weird part is, my grandmother warned me about the mirror when I was a kid. I remembered it only faintly, like a dream half-remembered. She used to whisper things like, “Never look into it at night,” or “It shows more than your reflection.” Back then I thought she was just eccentric.

I decided to ask around. The local librarian, Mrs. Delaney—she remembered my grandmother well. When I mentioned the mirror, her face paled.

“That thing belonged to her husband’s side,” she said. “Came from a mansion in New Orleans, brought up after a fire destroyed most of it. There were rumors... a girl died in front of it. Slit her own throat while staring into it.”

I felt sick.

That night, I dreamt of the mirror. I was inside it, trapped, screaming. But the version of me outside the glass just stared and smiled.

I woke up drenched in sweat—and the sheet had been torn off the mirror.

That's when things got dangerous.

Lights flickered. I heard whispering—low, guttural tones that came from nowhere. Scratches appeared on the wooden floorboards, as though claws had raked them. But there were no animals in the house.

I set up my phone to record the hallway overnight. I had to know I wasn’t losing my mind.

The next morning, I checked the footage.

At 2:47 AM, the mirror began to vibrate. Faintly at first, then violently. A hand—black, jagged, clawed—pressed against the inside of the glass.

Then I saw me walk into frame. Only... I had never left my bed.

The figure looked exactly like me—but its reflection was inverted. It didn’t walk right. It glided. The camera flickered, and for a moment, the “mirror me” turned and looked straight into the lens with a smile so wide it split its cheeks.

Then the video cut to static.

I burned that mirror the next day.

I used an axe, pried it off the wall, dragged it into the backyard, and lit it on fire. As it cracked and hissed in the flames, I swear I heard a scream—high-pitched and human.

But the nightmare didn’t end there.

Every mirror in the house now shows faint smudges. Like fingerprints pressed from the inside.

Sometimes, I see something watching. Waiting.

So I don’t keep mirrors anymore. Not in the house. Not in my car. Not even in my phone camera.

Because the last time I accidentally saw my reflection in a store window... it didn’t blink when I did.

Moral :

Some reflections are best left unseen. And some mirrors are not for looking into—but for keeping things out.