When the Mirror Lies

It was past midnight. Maryam sat hunched over her medical notes, fighting sleep. The house was unusually silent—her parents were away, leaving her alone with her frail grandmother, who slept in the adjacent room.

Outside, rain splashed against the windows. Maryam closed her book for a moment, letting her eyes rest. That was when she heard it—the faint sound of footsteps echoing through the corridor.

Her heart skipped. No one else should have been in the house. Perhaps it was just a stray cat, she told herself.

But as she walked toward the kitchen, she froze. On the floor, glistening in the faint light, were wet footprints. They trailed from the veranda all the way inside.

Maryam’s pulse raced.

She followed the footprints cautiously. They led straight to her grandmother’s room. The door creaked as she pushed it open.

Her grandmother was still asleep, breathing heavily. But the footprints… they ended right beside the bed and vanished into nothingness.

A cold shiver ran down Maryam’s spine.

She was about to step back when a soft voice whispered her name.
“Maryam…”

She spun around. The room was empty, except for her sleeping grandmother.

By 1:30 a.m., the electricity went out. Darkness swallowed the house. Maryam grabbed her torch. Its beam fell on the wall opposite her—and her blood turned cold.

There were words scrawled across the plaster in dripping black letters:
“Time is running out.”

Her hands trembled. Who could have written this? And when?

The door suddenly slammed shut. A cold draft swept the room. The mirror on the wall shimmered, and her reflection twisted into something monstrous—empty eyes, yellow skin, a strange smile.

Maryam blinked, and her reflection returned to normal.

“This is just my imagination…” she whispered to herself.

But then—BANG! Her grandmother’s room shook violently.

Maryam ran. The bed was overturned. The window was wide open. And her grandmother was gone.

She shone her torch outside. In the rain-drenched garden stood a tall shadowy figure. Motionless. Staring directly at her.

Her breath caught in her throat. The torch slipped from her hand. When she scrambled to pick it up and looked again—the figure had vanished.

At 2:00 a.m., the footsteps returned. Louder this time. Closer. They stopped at her bedroom door.

The door creaked open.

A woman entered. Her hair dripped with rainwater, her clothes torn, her eyes hollow.

Maryam backed away in terror.

The woman spoke in a low, broken voice:
“I am not who you think I am… I am the one your family buried here.”

Maryam screamed.

Suddenly, silence. The door stood ajar, but the woman was gone.

Maryam’s shaking hand touched the wall near her bed. Her fingers scraped against deep claw marks etched into the plaster—as if someone had tried to break out from inside the wall.

Morning came. Her grandmother was still missing. The police arrived, tearing apart the house.

Behind the very wall near Maryam’s bed, they discovered a skeleton. Its tattered clothes matched exactly what Maryam had seen on the strange woman.

The officers said the remains were decades old. But if that was true—where was her grandmother?

Maryam stood before the mirror, trembling. And there—in her own eyes—she saw the same hollow emptiness that belonged to the woman in the night.