The Pallid Room

Mark never gave much thought to legends or haunted places. When he inherited his uncle’s sprawling manor in Ecster, he dismissed the unsettling stories tied to it. Locals murmured about "The Pallid Room" on the second floor, claiming strange things happened there—things they struggled to put into words. Mark scoffed. The tales felt like nothing more than desperate attempts to keep an old, dying town interesting.

He arrived at the manor one chilly October afternoon, the sky choked with dark clouds. The house loomed, its crumbling facade barely visible beneath layers of tangled ivy. Mark found the place oppressively still; only the faint rustling of leaves interrupted the silence. As he stepped inside, the air seemed to grow colder, the space heavy with a quiet that pressed against his skin.

It didn’t take him long to find The Pallid Room. Something in the air seemed to guide him there, an unspoken pull that drew him down a narrow hallway. The door was distinctive—a pale, washed-out color that stood out from the rest. As he opened it, a faint chill seeped out, brushing against his skin.

The room itself was small and sparse, with faded wallpaper peeling away from the walls. There was a single, grimy window letting in what little light managed to break through the gloom. In one corner, a rickety rocking chair sat motionless. The stillness unnerved him, but it was the mirror on the wall that truly caught his attention.

It wasn’t a grand mirror by any means—just a large, oval piece of glass framed in tarnished metal. As Mark glanced into it, something seemed off. He couldn’t quite place it at first, but the reflection felt...wrong. He blinked, then stared. The room appeared exactly as it was, but he wasn’t in the reflection.

An icy unease crept over him. He waved a hand in front of the mirror, but the glass remained still, reflecting only the room itself, as if he didn’t exist at all. Stepping back, he felt a tightening in his chest, and that was when he noticed the subtle swaying of the rocking chair.

The movement was barely noticeable, but it was there—slow, methodical, as though someone had just risen from it moments before. Mark glanced at the door, then back at the chair. His breath hitched. The atmosphere seemed to grow thicker, heavier, the dim light from the window barely able to cut through it. A faint creak echoed in the silence, as though the old house had exhaled.

A buzzing sound came from his pocket. His phone had received a message from an unknown number. It read: "Leave."

Mark’s pulse quickened. He looked around the room again, every shadow now appearing deeper, darker. As he took a step back toward the door, the mirror seemed to shimmer, as though rippling like disturbed water. And in that distorted reflection, he saw a figure—faint and almost transparent, standing behind him.

He spun around, expecting to find nothing. But the air behind him was different now, cooler and somehow denser, as if something unseen had just passed through. The rocking chair creaked louder, now moving at a steady rhythm, though there was no visible source for its motion.

The door was still open, and Mark felt a sudden urge to leave. He backed away slowly, his eyes fixed on the mirror, and just before he stepped out of the room, he saw it—his own reflection had returned, but the expression on its face was not his. It grinned at him, an unnatural, stretched smile that didn’t match the fear twisting inside him.

Mark stumbled back, slamming the door shut and rushing down the stairs. As he exited the manor, he took one last glance up at the window of The Pallid Room. The rocking chair was still, but there was now a faint light flickering inside the room—a light that hadn’t been there before.

He never returned to the manor after that day. The place was left to decay, the stories surrounding it slowly fading into memory. But every so often, locals would speak in hushed tones about a strange light that would appear in that upper window, a pale glow in the dead of night.

No one could explain why, and no one ever dared to go back inside and find out. It was said that the room didn’t just exist in that old house—it could appear anywhere, anytime, wherever it found a curious soul willing to open the door. And if you ever found yourself facing a mirror that didn’t show your reflection, well... it was probably already too late.