For a moment, there was nothing.
No sound, no breath, no light—just that deep, waiting dark.
Then, as their eyes began to adjust, they realized something impossible.The mirrors hadn't gone black at all. They were showing the room exactly as it was—every wall, every shadow—except for one small, nauseating detail.
The reflections were still moving.
In the mirror-world, their doubles stood just as they did, lanterns dark, hands trembling. Then, one by one, the reflections turned their heads to the left. All in perfect unison. All facing something that didn't exist on their side of the glass.
Noah swallowed hard. "They're looking at—"
Marcy shushed him sharply. The sound felt too loud, like a bell rung in a mausoleum. She gestured to the far end of the hall. "That," she whispered.
A door now stood there.
It hadn't been there before.
Its surface shimmered faintly, like heat rising from desert sand, and the brass handle gleamed with a slow pulse of light—as though it were breathing with the house.
Evan forced a laugh he didn't feel. "We didn't pass that. There wasn't a door."
Noah shook his head. "There wasn't a hallway."
The floorboards beneath them sighed—a sound like an exhale through rotten wood—and the air began to carry that familiar, awful hum. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once, vibrating in their bones rather than their ears.
Behind them, the mirrors flickered. Their reflections took a single, collective step toward the glass. Then another. Then another.
The motion was wrong. Smooth, graceful, without the tiny imperfections that made humans human.
"Don't look at them," Marcy hissed, grabbing Noah's arm. "If they move when we move, we'll lose track."
But they weren't mimicking anymore. The reflections didn't follow. They led.
The mirrored versions reached the door in their world first. Their movements slowed, reverent almost. Each placed a hand against the gleaming brass handle. In perfect synchronization, they turned it. The mirrored door swung open into darkness.
And then—one by one—they stepped through and vanished.
The mirrors turned blank again.
Evan whispered, "We're supposed to follow."
Marcy glared at him. "We're supposed to survive."
He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the real door now. It had begun to hum in harmony with the others, that same bone-deep rhythm, the heartbeat of the house. The handle twitched once, faintly, as though something inside wanted out.
Noah reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the old key they'd found two rooms back—a tarnished, ornate thing with teeth like a broken grin. He didn't know why, but it felt suddenly heavier.
"It wants us to open it," he said softly.
Marcy stared at him as though he'd lost his mind. "Then don't."
He hesitated. "What if it's how we get out?"
She almost laughed, but the sound died in her throat. "You still think this place has an 'out?'"
Before Noah could answer, the lantern at his side flared to life—on its own.A cold, blue-white flame hissed behind the glass. It wasn't warm. The light it gave off didn't so much illuminate as expose, peeling shadows back like layers of skin.
The hallway was longer now. The mirrors were gone. In their place hung portraits—hundreds of them—each framed in that same dark, living wood. Every painting showed the same room they stood in, only emptier, more decayed.
In the final portrait, the walls had collapsed entirely. The only thing that remained was the mirror door, still closed.
Evan's voice was barely audible. "I think we already opened it."
As if in answer, the real door creaked. Not much—just a breath, just enough to show the edge of darkness waiting inside.
Noah stepped closer. His reflection appeared faintly in the polished brass handle—distorted, stretched. The reflection's eyes blinked out of sync with his.
He froze. "It's watching."
The others drew near despite themselves. The air felt thicker here, like syrup. The closer they got to the door, the more the walls seemed to bow inward, drawn toward it, the wood groaning under invisible pressure.
Marcy whispered, "Why does it look like it's listening?"
The door gave a slow, rhythmic thud—like a heartbeat from the other side. With each pulse, the lantern's flame flickered lower, its blue-white light shrinking into a pinpoint.
The portraits began to hum. Soft at first, then louder, the kind of resonance you feel in your teeth. The figures within them—those empty rooms—began to move. Dust fell upward. Curtains breathed inward. In one frame, a chair slid across the floor all by itself.
Evan clapped his hands over his ears. "Make it stop! Just—make it stop!"
No one could.
The door shuddered once, and the hum cut off mid-note. The silence that followed was so abrupt it felt violent.
Then the handle turned—slowly, deliberately—without a hand touching it.
Noah's voice broke. "Don't—don't open—"
The door swung wide.
And what lay beyond wasn't darkness. It was light—pale, blinding, soundless. It flooded the corridor, washing over them in an instant. The air vibrated as though the light itself were alive, thinking, considering.
Marcy stumbled backward, eyes wide. "That's not light."
Noah blinked. "Then what is it?"
Inside the room, shapes began to coalesce—not solid, but aware. They rippled like reflections seen through moving water, and each flicker brought new faces, new echoes. People who looked almost like them. Not identical, but familiar.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Each one stared directly out at them.
Evan whispered, "It's every version of us this house has ever had."
The light dimmed slightly, enough to show the room's impossible geometry. It stretched in directions that defied sense—walls folding into ceilings, ceilings tapering into corridors that looped back upon themselves. The air shimmered with the weight of something vast and unseen.
And at the far end of the room, half-shrouded in light, stood another mirror.
Only this one was blank. No frame, no reflection—just a perfect oval of nothing.
The surface rippled once, and a hand pressed through. Not human. Not monstrous. Something in-between. The fingers dragged slowly along the air, leaving faint trails of luminescent residue that hung like smoke.
Noah stumbled back, tripping over a floorboard that hadn't been there a moment before. "It's pulling us in."
Marcy's voice cracked. "Then don't look at it!"
Too late. The mirror pulsed again, brighter now. The portraits behind them began to fade, one by one, as though the house were erasing itself. The corridor shortened with each breath, forcing them closer to the light.
Evan's face went slack. "It's not showing us what's coming," he murmured. "It's showing us what's already happened."
The mirror rippled once more.
And from somewhere deep inside the house came the soft, deliberate sound of a door closing.
Not this one. Another. Deeper.
The hum returned—faint at first, then growing until it filled the air like a living voice. The room itself seemed to listen for their next move.
Noah's hand shook as he reached for the door again, but the handle was gone. Only smooth, pulsing wood remained beneath his palm.
Marcy whispered, "It's not a door anymore."
The light inside the room throbbed once, and every portrait on the walls turned its gaze toward them—each one alive, each one breathing.
And in the center of that pale, endless light, something opened its eyes.
The house inhaled.