Excerpts from the private diary of Inspector [Name omitted in file], Case File #47
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Day 1
They brought me to a cellar in the east quarter. A single corpse in a chair. Throat cut. No weapon, no blood trail.
The walls — mirrors.
Endless mirrors. Fifty perhaps, polished clean. I looked once, twice. Something in them was wrong. A blink out of time. A smile where none should be. I forced myself not to look longer.
No evidence gathered. Only the feeling of being watched by my own faces.
Returned home. Ate stew I could not taste. Took a hot bath to calm my nerves.
In the steam I wiped the glass.
My reflection smiled.
I did not.
I left the room without drying. Brandy could not erase the image.
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Day 2
I told myself it was fatigue. Returned to the cellar. The mirrors stood unchanged, yet I could not shake the sense that every glass contained something waiting.
No footprints. No marks. Only silence.
The body already claimed by the coroner. All that remained was myself — multiplied.
Dream that night: I stood again in the mirror room. The corpse sat still. Then, from every reflection, figures leaned forward, pressing against the glass. Hands, faces, shadows. Silent. Watching.
I woke with sweat freezing on my skin.
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Day 3
I eat, but the food is tasteless.
I work, but my pen shakes.
The mirror above my washstand shows me writing when I am still.
I smashed it. Glass everywhere. For a moment, relief. Yet in the fragments scattered on the floor, a hundred small faces stared back — some smiling.
Sleep brought no mercy. Again the dream. This time the figures whispered, though I could not hear the words. The dead man rose from the chair in silence.
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Day 4
Three nights in a row. The same dream.
I now keep this diary not as record for the Yard, but for myself. To prove what is real.
Tonight, I saw my own reflection step half a pace forward, while I remained still.
I fled the room. I am not certain I will return to it.
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Day 5
The dream again. But this time, the mirrors broke. Shattered. From within the shards, every dead face I have ever seen — every case, every victim.
And behind them all…
myself.
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Day 6
If this book ends here, let it be known: the mirrors are not glass. They are doors.
And something has stepped through.
I can feel it watching as I write.
Entry ends.