The Reflection’s Secret

The Reflection’s Secret
Ethan wasn’t searching for a ghost; he was searching for a bargain.

A struggling artist barely keeping up with rent, Ethan often wandered into cluttered antique shops hoping to discover something rare—something he could sell for enough to survive another week. That’s how he ended up at Old Man Hemlock’s Curios, a narrow shop bursting with forgotten treasures and silent dust.

In a cramped backroom, behind a stack of moldy canvases, he found it.

A tall, old mirror—its wooden frame a tangle of intricate, dark swirls, as though carved by hands haunted by secrets. The glass looked cloudy, like a forgotten pond. Nothing about it seemed valuable. And yet... it pulled him. Not with beauty, but with a strange, cold gravity.

Old Man Hemlock, his eyes like locked doors, sold it with a chuckle and a cryptic warning:

> “It reflects more than just light.”



Ethan thought the man was senile. He paid the absurdly low price, took it home, and leaned the heavy mirror against his studio wall.

That night, he noticed something strange.

Despite its murky glass, his reflection appeared crystal clear—more vivid than any mirror he’d ever seen. Every pore, every blink, every tiny twitch of muscle showed in brutal detail. He found himself returning to it again and again, drawn in, fascinated by how alive his reflection looked.

Then, it changed.

One morning, Ethan caught something strange in the mirror’s eyes. A flicker of fear—not on his own face, but only in the reflection. He blinked. Gone.

Days passed. More anomalies crept in. His reflection began to frown when he smiled. Looked pale when he felt fine. Sometimes it moved just a heartbeat too late—or too soon. And worse, he began to dream of being inside the mirror, his hands pounding against the glass as his own face stared back coldly from the other side.

One night, his reflection did something unforgivable.

It raised a hand.

Ethan didn’t.

Its fingers were wrapped in bloodied bandages, thick with dark fluid. Horrified, Ethan checked his own hand—perfectly intact. But the reflection didn’t vanish. It just stood there, bleeding and smiling faintly.

He began to research. Myths, folklore, cursed mirrors. He found stories of “soul mirrors”—objects that didn’t just reflect but revealed: one’s future, one’s inner self... or glimpses into other worlds.

What he had, though, was something worse.

It didn’t just show alternate outcomes—it was becoming real.

The mirror was feeding. On him. On his attention. Every moment he stared, it grew stronger. His skin paled. Small cuts began to appear on his hands. His body was transforming into the thing in the mirror.

And that thing?
It was alive.

One night, Ethan looked into the glass and the reflection smiled. Not his smile. A chilling grin filled with teeth too sharp, with eyes too deep. A whisper, dry and brittle like glass breaking, whispered:

> “Come closer.”



Terror gripped him. He tried to cover the mirror—cloths slid off as if rejected. He tried to turn it to the wall—impossible to move. It had chosen him.

Then he remembered the inscription on the back, hidden in the dark wood. He had ignored it. Now, he translated it line by line, consulting forbidden books, secret pages on the deep web.

It described a binding ritual. A way to sever the connection. To trap a reflection before it trapped you.

The ritual required blood. A precise pattern. And the moment of cosmic alignment.

The night of the red moon arrived. At exactly midnight, Ethan stood before the mirror. His reflection now entirely the dark entity—its eyes burning with hunger. Its hand reached toward him, nearly touching the glass from inside.

He sliced his palm.

With trembling fingers, he drew the ancient symbols on the mirror’s surface in blood.

The mirror screamed.

No sound—yet his bones vibrated as if the scream were inside him. The glass rippled. Faces—twisted, desperate—pressed against the inside, trying to break free.

> “YOU ARE MINE!” the reflection roared.



But Ethan pressed on. The final stroke. His blood sealed the symbol.

A blinding flash. The air cracked like lightning. The sound of glass shattering—not from the mirror, but from within it. A million reflections shattering.

Then silence.

The glass cleared. Crystal clear. Pristine. And in it, Ethan saw—only himself. No flicker. No delay. Just a pale, exhausted man staring back.

The entity was gone.

The next day, Ethan sold the mirror to a stranger, saying only:

> “Just... don’t stare too long.”



He never told the truth. They wouldn’t believe him.

But he knew.

Some mirrors reflect more than light.

Some mirrors reflect you.

And some?

They wait.