The Mirror Opens to a World That Stares Back
In the hallway where the old clock keeps a patient rhythm, the mirror learned to listen. It hung there before I arrived, a pane of glass that refused to reflect our present and instead offered a different cadence of light—dusty streetlamps, unfamiliar doors, a sky that never caved to the same weather as ours. I thought it was a simple artifact, a stubborn shard of history, until the second night I realized the world beyond the glass did more than merely watch; it waited.
At first the sight was faint, a tremor in the corner of an eye that wasn’t mine. The reflection didn’t mirror me so much as it revealed a city that breathed in reverse—the river curling upward, trees rooted in the ceiling, a clockwork sky that clocked toward dawn while ours circled midnight. The first time I spoke to the glass, my whisper returned not to my ear but to the neighboring world, where a cautious voice replied with jealousy and curiosity, as if someone had finally discovered a mirror with a heartbeat.
It spoke in a drawl that sounded like my own, but older—as if a shadow version of me had learned to listen better. “Step closer,” it breathed. “We want to borrow your eyes for a while.”
Every night thereafter, the barrier between our rooms thinned. The world inside the mirror learned my routine—the way I kept the hall light low, the precise cadence of sleep, the moment I pressed my palm against cold glass to steady a nightmare that dragged me toward the edge of the world. In that moment of contact, I felt the other city tilt toward me, and a curious weight settled in my chest: a secret debt owed to a version of me who had never left the glass.
- People there appear familiar yet unfamiliar, as if they carry the same memories but with a different intention.
- The weather mirrors ours, but the season of fear arrives sooner and lasts longer.
- Objects move with deliberate quiet, as though every action has been rehearsed a thousand times—everything is a scene waiting for its cue.
- The mirror’s edges glow softly when danger nears, a beacon for the curious and a warning for the unwelcome.
- Eyes in the other world look back with an intensity that makes your own gaze feel porous, as if your thoughts could slip through the glass and be read.
Tonight I pressed my palm to the surface and whispered a choice I hoped would stay unmade: keep the door between us closed, or invite the other world to step through and shoulder its own fate. The glass shivered, the room exhaled, and the world on the other side leaned closer with a patient, terrifying welcome. I began to understand that some reflections don’t merely show us ourselves; they demand that we become them. And so I wait, listening, as the world beyond the mirror finally clears its throat and answers in a voice that is mine, and not mine, forever staring back.