The Reflection Beyond the Glass

When Emma found the antique mirror at the back of Holloway's Thrift Shop, it seemed like a steal for twenty dollars. The frame was a delicate weave of dark, twisted vines carved from old wood, and though the glass was cloudy and cracked in one corner, it still held an eerie kind of beauty. It called to her.

"Careful with that one," Mr. Holloway said as he wrapped it in brown paper. His voice rasped like dry leaves scraping a sidewalk. "That mirror’s seen more than it should."

Emma laughed it off, loading it into the trunk of her car. It was just a mirror. Old things always came with creepy stories to boost their value.

She hung it in her bedroom that night. It fit perfectly between the two windows, catching the moonlight like it was holding a secret. She admired her reflection — how the silvered glass made her look like a ghost herself. She went to bed with a smile, thinking she'd scored the perfect vintage piece.

That night, she woke at 3:07 AM to a soft tapping sound.

At first, she thought it was the wind rattling the windows. Then she realized it was coming from the mirror.

Emma sat up, heart hammering. In the reflection, she could just make out her dark silhouette... and behind it, a second shape. Taller. Grinning.

She spun around.

Nothing.

Just the quiet creak of the house settling.

When she looked back at the mirror, the second figure was gone. But her own reflection smiled at her... even though she wasn't smiling.

Emma didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

Over the next few days, strange things started happening.

She’d catch glimpses of herself moving a half-second out of sync. She’d turn away from the mirror only to feel cold breath on her neck. The worst was when her reflection began to change. Sometimes, the Emma in the glass had dark, bleeding eyes. Sometimes her mouth would stretch into a too-wide grin filled with sharp, needle-like teeth.

Emma stopped looking into the mirror altogether. She threw a blanket over it, hoping that would end the madness.

It didn’t.

One evening, after a restless nap, Emma found the blanket crumpled on the floor. The mirror was exposed.

There was a message written across the glass in something dark and wet:

LET ME OUT.

Her chest tightened. She backed away slowly. The lights flickered and dimmed. A chill filled the room, and from the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the mirror. Her reflection stood there, grinning, while she cowered.

Without thinking, Emma grabbed her phone and snapped a picture. She needed proof she wasn’t crazy. She looked at the screen, hands shaking.

In the photo, her reflection wasn't standing still.

It was pressing against the glass, hands splayed, mouth open in a silent scream.

Emma dropped the phone and ran out of the room.

Desperate, she went back to Holloway's the next morning. The thrift shop was gone.

Not closed — gone.

Just an empty lot filled with weeds and broken concrete.

Emma searched online. No record of Holloway’s Thrift Shop ever existing. No record of Mr. Holloway.

That night, she heard the tapping again.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It grew louder, more insistent, until it was a hammering, rattling the mirror on the wall. She sat frozen on her bed, staring at the blanket-covered shape.

She couldn’t look.

She wouldn’t look.

But the hammering didn’t stop. It got worse. She pressed her hands over her ears, trying to drown it out.

Suddenly, the mirror cracked — a loud, gunshot-like sound that made her flinch. The blanket slid to the floor on its own, revealing the shattered glass.

Her reflection stared at her, broken and distorted.

And then it moved.

It climbed through the cracks.

Emma screamed. She tried to run but found herself rooted to the spot as a cold hand gripped her wrist. She struggled, but the thing — her other self — yanked her hard toward the mirror.

"No! No!" she cried, kicking and flailing.

But the mirror, impossibly, swallowed her up like water. The last thing she felt was the sharp sting of glass slicing into her skin.

The next morning, the mirror hung peacefully on the wall, flawless, not a crack in sight.

If anyone were to look closely, they might see a figure trapped behind the glass. A young woman, pressing her hands against the silvered surface, mouth frozen in a silent, desperate scream.

The mirror waits now.

Patient.

Hungry.

Waiting for the next person to look too long.