The Hollow Eyes

It was supposed to be a fresh start.

Sophia and her brother, Henry, had inherited their childhood home from their late aunt. The grand mansion, long abandoned, stood on a quiet hilltop, isolated from the small town below. Overgrown ivy clung to its stone walls, and the windows, long sealed shut, seemed to watch the world from behind dusty curtains. But the house, with all its years of decay and mystery, was theirs now.

They arrived one crisp autumn afternoon, their car slowly making its way up the narrow, winding road. The mansion loomed ahead, its dark silhouette like a giant lurking in the shadows. Sophia couldn’t help but feel a pang of unease as she stared at the imposing structure, its once majestic exterior now cracked and forgotten.

“Let’s get inside,” Henry said, breaking her reverie. He seemed excited, almost eager to uncover the past that had been hidden behind the mansion's crumbling walls for so many years.

Sophia hesitated, her hand resting on the cold brass doorknob. Her aunt had always been a mysterious figure—eccentric, reclusive, and with an aura of secrecy that had surrounded her entire life. She’d never been able to learn much about her aunt's past, but there were whispers from the townspeople. Whispers that suggested the mansion had a dark history, one that was better left buried.

But it was too late for hesitation. The door creaked open, and the siblings stepped inside.

The interior was just as they’d expected—dusty and aged, with cobwebs hanging from the chandeliers. The air was thick with the smell of old wood and mildew. The floorboards groaned underfoot as they made their way deeper into the house, exploring room after room. It was clear no one had lived here in decades.

They made their way to the basement, where the temperature dropped noticeably, the air growing heavy with a damp chill. Henry had found the entrance, hidden behind an old wooden panel that had clearly been locked for years. The key had been left in the study, in an envelope with the words “For when you’re ready” written on it in their aunt’s delicate handwriting.

"Ready for what?" Sophia whispered as they descended the stairs.

Henry smirked. "Whatever secrets are down here."

The basement was unlike anything they had imagined. The walls were lined with shelves, most of them empty, but a few contained old books and strange, leather-bound journals. The far corner of the room, however, was where their attention was drawn.

There, in the center of the room, stood an old wooden box—neatly tucked away beneath a dusty cloth. Henry approached it without hesitation, his curiosity overpowering any sense of caution. He carefully lifted the cloth, revealing the box beneath. It was ornate, carved with intricate designs of swirling patterns and symbols that seemed to shift in the dim light.

“This must be it,” Henry murmured, his voice trembling with excitement. “The family’s secret.”

Sophia stepped forward, uneasy. “Are we sure we should open it?”

Before Henry could respond, the box creaked open on its own. The sound echoed through the basement, causing Sophia’s heart to skip a beat. Inside the box was an object wrapped in faded cloth. Henry carefully unwrapped it, revealing a large, polished mirror.

Its surface was cracked, the glass stained with dark streaks. But what truly unsettled them were the eyes. At the top of the mirror, the eyes of an unknown figure stared back at them, a hollow, empty gaze that seemed to follow them wherever they moved.

Sophia recoiled, her breath catching in her throat. “That… that’s not right,” she whispered.

But Henry, fascinated by the mirror, brought it closer to his face. The eyes seemed to move, blinking slowly, and Sophia could have sworn she saw them watching her. A sense of dread washed over her, her limbs going cold.

"Look," Henry said, his voice almost hypnotic. "There’s something written on the back."

He turned the mirror over, revealing a strange inscription carved into the wood. The words were in a language neither of them recognized, their meaning lost to time. As Henry traced his fingers over the letters, the ground beneath them began to tremble. The air grew heavier, as though the house itself was waking up from a long slumber.

Then, the eyes in the mirror moved.

Sophia gasped, stepping back. “Did you see that?”

But Henry was too entranced, his gaze fixed on the reflection in the mirror. His face was pale, his eyes wide with something close to terror, but he couldn’t look away.

“Henry,” Sophia said, her voice shaking. “Henry, snap out of it!”

It was too late.

The reflection in the mirror began to change, and Sophia could feel the air shift around her. The house groaned and shifted, the walls seeming to close in. In the mirror, the empty eyes began to fill with a dark, swirling mist. The image of a figure started to form, rising from the depths of the glass—a figure so twisted, so grotesque, that it took everything in Sophia to keep from screaming.

Henry’s voice trembled, barely a whisper. “It’s here. It’s in the mirror.”

The figure in the mirror was now fully formed—its hollow eyes staring directly at Sophia. The dark mist around it swirled, and for a moment, she could see the faint outline of the mansion in the reflection, but it wasn’t the mansion she knew. It was… different. Distorted. The walls were cracked, the floors torn open, and the house seemed to be rotting away from the inside.

Then, the figure spoke.

“Welcome home,” it whispered in a voice that was both familiar and foreign, like the sound of someone calling from the depths of the earth. “It has been so long.”

Sophia’s heart raced. The voice—it sounded like her aunt.

But before she could say anything, the mirror shattered.

Glass flew in every direction, and the room was plunged into complete darkness.

Sophia awoke hours later, her face pressed against the cold stone floor of the basement. She struggled to sit up, her body sore and disoriented. Henry was gone—vanished without a trace. The mirror, the box, the strange figure—everything was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place.

She stumbled through the basement, frantic, calling his name, but there was no answer. It was as though the mansion itself had swallowed him whole.

And then she saw it—at the top of the stairs, in the place where the mirror had once been. A pair of hollow eyes stared back at her from the shadows, their gaze unblinking, empty, and full of an unimaginable terror.

The mansion had claimed them both.

Thank you for reading "The Hollow Eyes." If you’ve felt the chilling embrace of the house, don’t forget to like and share this story. Let others know that some secrets are better left buried, and that some eyes should never be looked into.