The Mirror That Remembers

The Mirror That Remembers

by[javid khan]

They said the old building was cursed.

Graystone Asylum had been abandoned for nearly four decades, standing like a rotting tooth on the edge of town. Its windows had long since shattered, and ivy crept like veins over the cracked stone walls. No one went near it—until the day it was torn down.

Derek wasn't a ghost hunter or thrill-seeker. He was an antiques dealer. Practical. Skeptical. Unimpressed by campfire stories. So when he heard a demolition crew was hauling out old furniture from Graystone for disposal, he showed up with his van and an envelope of cash. Most of the salvage was junk. Rusted gurneys, rotted doors, files soaked with mildew. But in one corner of a former patient room, he found something… oddly pristine.

A mirror.

It was tall—at least six feet—framed in blackened oak with carved embellishments along the top: serpents, flowers, and strange runes he couldn’t quite decipher. Unlike everything else in the asylum, the mirror had no dust, no cracks. It gleamed like someone had just cleaned it.

He bought it for ten dollars.

That night, Derek stood in his shop and examined the mirror. It was beautiful in a way he didn’t expect. The frame had age, but the glass had a strange clarity—almost too perfect. He moved in front of it, tilting his head.

For a moment, he thought he saw something behind him. A shadow. But when he turned, there was nothing there.

He laughed. “Too many ghost stories.”

He placed the mirror in the corner, turned off the lights, and went home.

The dreams began the next night.

He was in a hallway. Dimly lit, with peeling wallpaper and flickering fluorescent lights. It felt familiar… like the inside of the asylum. He walked, barefoot, the linoleum cold underfoot. And then he saw it: the mirror, at the end of the hall.

Only this time, it wasn’t his reflection looking back.

It was him—yes—but bloodied, bruised, screaming soundlessly as someone—or something—dragged him into the dark. The image burned into his brain.

He woke up soaked in sweat, gasping.

Derek tried to forget it.

He told himself it was stress. Overwork. Too much late-night wine. But every night the dreams returned. Sometimes, he saw a man in a white coat. Sometimes, a pale woman with stitched lips. Always, it ended the same way: he was screaming, trying to escape the fate the mirror showed him.

By the fifth night, he stopped sleeping altogether.

Desperate, he researched the mirror. Graystone’s patient logs were long gone, but old newspaper clippings told stories of inhumane experiments, electroshock treatments, mysterious deaths. One article mentioned “the mirror room,” where patients were shown their own reflections during breakdowns—part of some cruel "treatment" to confront their fears.

Some claimed patients had died of fright just from looking into that mirror.

But how had it remained so untouched? So clean?

One blog post, buried deep in an old forum, claimed the mirror recorded death—that it didn’t just reflect what you were, but what you would become. That if you stared long enough, it would show you how you die.

Derek had had enough.

He decided to destroy it. Took a hammer to the shop, trembling with exhaustion and fear. He stepped in front of the mirror one last time, just to say goodbye to the nightmare.

But what he saw made the hammer fall from his hand.

In the reflection, he stood as he was—but behind him was himself, again. Mouth sewn shut. Eyes black. Reaching out with bloodied fingers. And worst of all—he smiled.

He spun around. Nothing.

But in the mirror, his other self raised a knife… and slashed across the throat.

Blood sprayed across the glass—in the reflection only.

He stumbled back, heart racing. “No. No, this isn’t real.”

But the mirror didn't care. It only showed the truth.

He covered it with a black cloth, locked the shop, and ran.

Three days later, no one could reach Derek. His shop remained locked from the inside. When police broke in, they found his body in front of the mirror—throat slit, blood pooling beneath him. No fingerprints. No signs of struggle.

Just the mirror. Unbroken. Uncovered now.

It had already cleaned itself.

And in the reflection?

Someone else was watching now.

You.