The Shadow in the Mirror

Lila had always been fascinated by antiques, so when she stumbled upon an ornate, full-length mirror at a dusty little shop, she couldn’t resist buying it. The gilded frame was etched with intricate designs, and the glass, though aged, seemed to shimmer in the dim light.

“Be careful with this one,” the shopkeeper warned as he wrapped it. “Mirrors hold reflections, but sometimes, they hold more than that.”

Lila dismissed his cryptic words with a chuckle and took the mirror home. She placed it in her bedroom, admiring how it seemed to make the room feel larger, brighter.

That night, as she got ready for bed, something odd happened. The reflection in the mirror didn’t quite match the room. It was subtle at first—an odd shadow in the corner that didn’t exist in real life, a flicker of movement when everything was still.

She shook it off as fatigue and went to sleep.

But over the next few days, the anomalies grew stranger. She began to notice her reflection didn’t always move in sync with her. When she raised her hand, the figure in the mirror hesitated, just a fraction of a second too long. Once, she could have sworn she saw it smile, even though her face remained neutral.

One night, unable to sleep, she stared at the mirror, the room bathed in pale moonlight. That’s when she saw it.

Her reflection stepped back—farther than the confines of the mirror should have allowed. The shadowy corner in the reflection expanded, revealing a dark, endless void. From the void emerged a figure. It looked like her but wasn’t. Its eyes were sunken, its smile too wide, its movements jerky and unnatural.

Frozen in fear, Lila watched as the figure leaned close to the glass, its hand pressing against the inside of the mirror. Then, it spoke in a voice that was hers but distorted:

"Let me out."

Lila screamed and covered the mirror with a sheet, but the voice didn’t stop. Night after night, it whispered to her, begged her, taunted her.

Desperate, she returned to the antique shop, but it was abandoned, as if it had never existed. She tried smashing the mirror, but no matter how hard she hit it, the glass wouldn’t break.

One night, the whispers grew louder. The mirror began to shake violently, the sheet slipping to the floor. The reflection—her doppelgänger—was pounding on the glass from the inside, cracks forming with each blow.

"You can’t stop me," it hissed, its voice echoing in her head. With one final strike, the mirror shattered, and the room plunged into darkness.

When Lila woke up, she was lying on the cold floor. The mirror was gone. But when she looked around, she realized something was wrong. The room wasn’t hers anymore. The walls seemed to pulse, the shadows deeper and alive.

Then she saw it—a new mirror on the wall, its surface smooth and gleaming. In its reflection stood her doppelgänger, smiling.

She reached for the glass, but her hand met a cold, invisible barrier.

From the other side, her reflection whispered:

"Enjoy my life. I’ll take good care of it."

And Lila could only scream as the shadowed void swallowed her whole.