The Mirror in Room 213

The Mirror in Room 213

The Ashgrove Inn stood abandoned on the edge of a forgotten highway, its windows boarded, its paint flaking like old scabs. Locals whispered about the place but never lingered. Only one room ever bore a name whispered louder than the rest — Room 213.

Ella was a photographer chasing stories for her “Haunted Highways” series. She arrived at the inn at dusk, dusk bleeding across the horizon like a wound. The air felt too still. No birds. No insects. As if even nature held its breath.

She pried open the rotting front door and stepped inside, flashlight cutting through the darkness like a blade. The lobby was a tomb of dust and silence. Faded wallpaper peeled like dried skin. Her boots crunched over broken glass and long-dead moths.

Room 213 was at the end of the second floor. The door opened easily, almost as if it had been expecting her.

Inside, moonlight filtered through cracked blinds. The furniture was intact — a bed, a nightstand, a wardrobe — but what drew her was the mirror. It was an enormous, ornate thing above the dresser, framed in dark wood crawling with carvings: twisted vines, eyes, and what looked like screaming mouths.

Ella raised her camera. As she snapped a photo, the flash briefly revealed something behind her — a shape. Tall. Pale. Watching. She spun, heart stuttering in her chest.

Nothing.

Just the silence. Just the dust.

She shook it off. Tricks of light. Old buildings always played games.

As she reviewed the photo, her breath caught.

In the mirror’s reflection stood a woman. Barefoot. Dressed in a long hospital gown, her face turned away, hair dripping wet as if she’d just climbed out of a lake.

Ella turned again. The room was empty.

Yet in the mirror, the woman remained — slowly turning.

Ella dropped the camera. Her legs wouldn’t move.

The woman’s face came into view.

It was wrong. Not just inhuman — impossible. Her eyes were too wide, too dark, and her mouth stretched open in a grin that split all the way to her ears. No teeth. Just void.

Ella ran. Down the stairs. Out the door. Into the car. She didn’t stop driving until the inn was a dot in the rearview mirror.

Back in her apartment, she told herself it was a hallucination, stress, sleep deprivation. She deleted the photos. She made tea. She went to bed.

At 3:13 a.m., she woke to the sound of dripping.

In the bathroom, the faucet was dry. Yet the sound grew louder. Drip. Drip. Drip.

She followed it.

To her closet.

Inside, there was no plumbing. Only her coats, shoes — and the mirror from Room 213.

It shouldn’t have been there. She had not brought it with her. She staggered backward, bile rising.

The woman stood within the glass, grinning wider now.

Ella ran again. But every room had a mirror — the hallway, the elevator, the lobby.

And in every reflection, the woman came closer.

She smashed her bathroom mirror. It did no good. The reflection remained, crawling across broken shards like a spider.

Days passed. Ella stopped sleeping. Friends stopped calling. She covered every reflective surface, yet still — in windowpanes, in puddles, in the gloss of her coffee — she appeared.

Not just watching now.

Whispering.

“Let me out.”

The final photo Ella ever posted was a selfie — a terrified, shaking image with the caption:

"It’s behind me. Not in the room. In the mirror."

She vanished the next day.

Her apartment was locked from the inside. No sign of struggle.

Only one thing was left behind: the mirror from Room 213.

Still grinning.

Waiting.