The Reflection in the Mirror

It was supposed to be a fresh start. After years of living in cramped apartments, Lauren was finally able to buy her own house—a quiet, old Victorian home on the outskirts of town. It was the kind of house that had charm, the kind people often gushed about in movies. The creaky floors, the old wood beams, the dusty, ornate mirrors that seemed to take up entire walls. Lauren loved it instantly. It felt like something out of a fairy tale.

But it was also a house with a past.

When she first moved in, Lauren noticed the mirrors—there were too many of them. One in the hallway, one in the dining room, one in the upstairs landing, and then there was the one in the guest bathroom that stretched from floor to ceiling. At first, she admired their size and the delicate frames, but as the days passed, she started to feel uneasy around them. There was something strange about the way they seemed to reflect more than what was really there.

The first incident happened on the second night. Lauren had just finished unpacking some kitchen items and was getting ready to head to bed. The house was quiet—too quiet. As she passed the large mirror in the hallway on her way upstairs, she glanced at her reflection.

But it wasn’t her reflection that startled her.

The figure standing behind her wasn’t her own.

It was a woman, tall, with long, dark hair that cascaded down her back. She was dressed in a long, flowing white gown, her face pale, and her eyes… empty, staring back at Lauren with an eerie intensity.

Lauren’s breath hitched. She whipped around, expecting to find someone standing behind her, but the hallway was empty. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Her pulse quickened.

“Must be my imagination,” she whispered to herself, trying to shake off the feeling of being watched.

But from that night on, the occurrences didn’t stop.

The whispers started.

The next morning, while she was in the kitchen making coffee, she could hear soft murmurs, like voices coming from the walls. At first, she assumed it was just the house settling. But then, the voices grew louder, more distinct. They were talking to her.

“Lauren… Lauren…”

She turned to the mirror in the hallway. The whispers seemed to come from it, but when she checked her reflection, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Only her. Yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something—someone—was watching her through that mirror.

It wasn’t long before Lauren began to see more strange things in the glass. Sometimes, she would catch glimpses of shadows flickering behind her reflection when there was no one there. Other times, she would walk past the guest bathroom mirror and hear footsteps following her—her own footsteps, but not quite like hers.

One evening, after a long, exhausting day at work, Lauren decided to relax with a glass of wine. She sank into the couch, but the unease in her chest wouldn’t go away. Something in the house felt off. She got up to use the bathroom, passing the hallway mirror on her way.

This time, when she looked at her reflection, it wasn’t her.

The woman in the mirror was standing in the same spot, the same white gown, but this time, her lips moved.

“I’m not finished with you yet.”

Lauren’s heart raced as she took a step back, but the reflection of the woman remained. Her eyes were cold, almost dead, but her smile was wide, unnaturally so, as if she was savoring something. Lauren’s breath caught in her throat.

“No…” she whispered, but it felt like the walls of the house were closing in on her.

The woman in the mirror moved closer, though her reflection didn’t change its position. She seemed to step forward without actually moving. Then, the whisper came again, closer this time.

“You can’t escape me.”

Lauren backed away from the mirror, stumbling, feeling as if she couldn’t breathe. The reflection of the woman followed her every movement, always just a fraction of a second behind. She sprinted up the stairs, her heart pounding in her chest, but the feeling of being pursued was relentless.

She slammed the door to her bedroom and pressed her back against it, breathing heavily, her mind racing. Who was this woman? What did she want?

She tried to calm herself. She hadn’t seen the woman in the mirror for a few minutes now. Maybe it was over. Maybe she could just sleep it off.

But when she looked at the bedside mirror, she saw the woman again, standing in the corner of the room.

“You can’t escape me… because I’m already here.”

Samantha gasped. The woman wasn’t just in the mirror anymore. She was standing in the room, her feet just inches from Lauren’s own. Her eyes were wide, her mouth stretching into that unsettling smile.

With a scream, Lauren grabbed the nearest object—an old lamp—and hurled it at the mirror. The glass shattered, the shards scattering across the floor. The woman in the reflection screamed, but the sound was cut off abruptly. Silence.

The house felt eerily still. Lauren, trembling, slowly approached the broken mirror, watching the pieces glisten in the dim light. The reflection of the woman was gone.

It was over, she thought. Maybe she’d finally rid herself of the haunting.

But as Lauren bent to clean up the glass, she caught a glint in the remaining shard of the mirror. There, in the reflection, was the woman—standing behind her.

Lauren froze, her blood running cold.

“You can’t escape me.”

The woman’s whisper echoed in her ears as the light in the room flickered and went out. The house, it seemed, had claimed another soul.

And in the mirrors, she would never be alone again.