The Reflection

The Reflection

Eva never liked mirrors.

As a child, she would cover the one in her bedroom with a blanket at night, convinced it watched her while she slept. Her parents brushed it off as childish fear. “It’s just glass,” her father would say. “It can’t hurt you.”

But glass remembers.

At 28, Eva inherited her grandmother’s house after her sudden passing. The old Victorian sat at the edge of town, surrounded by weeping trees and a rotting fence. It had always been a strange place, filled with ticking clocks and dusty corners. But what unsettled Eva most was the mirror in the upstairs hallway.

It was floor-length, framed in blackened gold, and nailed into the wall. Her grandmother had warned her once, long ago: “Never look too long.”

Eva never asked what she meant.

On her first night in the house, Eva passed by the mirror as she climbed the stairs. She didn’t look directly at it, but out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something strange.

Her reflection didn’t move with her.

She stopped. Turned to face it.

There she was—same auburn hair, same tired eyes. But… different. The reflection was just a beat off, like a badly synced video.

Eva inched closer. Her reflection smiled.

She didn’t.

She staggered back, heart racing. When she looked again, the image matched her movements perfectly.

Maybe she was tired. The house had always played tricks on her.

That night, as rain tapped against the windows and the wind howled like a living thing, Eva lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Every creak of the house made her jump. At some point, she drifted into a fitful sleep.

She dreamed of the mirror.

Of her reflection standing outside of it, walking through the house, staring at her with empty, unblinking eyes.

When Eva woke, her bedroom door was open.

She was sure she’d closed it.

Shaking it off, she went downstairs for coffee. On her way, she passed the hallway mirror—and froze.

There was something behind her in the reflection.

A figure.

She spun around.

Nothing.

She looked back. The reflection showed only her.

But it had changed.

The hallway in the mirror was darker. Dimmer than the real one. As if it belonged to another house entirely.

She stared too long.

Her reflection blinked—and didn’t blink back.

Eva stumbled away, breath shallow, skin crawling. She covered the mirror with an old bedsheet and swore to herself she wouldn’t look at it again.

That night, she locked her door.

But the mirror didn’t need doors.

At 3:17 a.m., she awoke to the sound of soft breathing in her room.

Her eyes snapped open. She reached for the lamp.

It flicked on.

No one was there.

But her closet door creaked open by itself.

And on the floor, she saw wet footprints—bare feet. Leading from the hallway to the side of her bed.

Eva ran.

She drove to a motel two towns over and stayed there the night, clutching her keys like a weapon.

In the morning, she called a local contractor and demanded the mirror be removed.

When he arrived, she refused to enter the house with him. She waited on the porch, pacing.

Fifteen minutes passed.

Then twenty.

Then the screaming started.

She ran inside and found him lying on the hallway floor, eyes wide, blood seeping from his ears. The mirror was uncovered, perfectly intact.

The man was alive—but catatonic.

He kept whispering the same phrase over and over:

“She’s not inside anymore.”

Eva moved out the next day.

The house sits empty now.

But the mirror remains.

Waiting.

If you ever see a reflection that smiles before you do—don’t blink.

It’s already too late.