The corridor funneled us into a wide chamber, its vaulted ceiling lost in darkness. Our footsteps echoed unnaturally loud, bouncing back at us in distorted tones, as though the walls were mimicking us with slight delay.
I raised my phone, trying the flashlight again. The beam caught on shattered glass.
The hall was lined with mirrors.
Dozens of them, tall and ornate, their gilt frames cracked and peeling. Some mirrors were whole, reflecting our pale faces back at us. Others were fractured, shards clinging to the frames like jagged teeth. Dust blanketed the floor, but the mirrors themselves gleamed, spotless, too clean.
Rachel swallowed hard. "I don't like this. Not one bit."
"Just don't look too long," Ethan muttered, eyes scanning the frames. "It's just mirrors. They can't hurt us."
"Can't they?" Maya whispered.
We kept walking, but I couldn't stop glancing at the reflections. They didn't look right. Our movements were slightly delayed, the mirrored versions of ourselves twitching a half-second behind. Sometimes the angles were wrong—Rachel turned her head left, but her reflection tilted right. Ethan blinked, and his reflection didn't.
I gripped the strap of my backpack tighter, heart pounding.
Halfway down the hall, Maya stopped. Her reflection hadn't.
In the mirror nearest her, she was still standing, staring at us, while the real Maya turned to continue forward.
"Don't move," I hissed.
We all froze, eyes snapping to the glass.
Maya's reflection smiled.
It was subtle, a slow curling of lips, but it was enough. None of us were smiling.
Rachel whimpered, pressing into my arm. Ethan swore under his breath.
The reflection raised its hand, pressing a pale palm flat against the other side of the glass. Maya's real hand stayed at her side, trembling.
Then the reflection knocked. Three sharp taps, loud enough to echo down the hall.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
We staggered back instinctively, colliding with one another. The reflection tilted its head, smile widening into something grotesque. Its eyes were wrong now—too dark, too deep, swallowing the light.
"Don't look at it," I snapped, grabbing Maya's wrist. "Move. Now!"
We hurried past, but the mirrors on either side began to shimmer, the reflections inside twitching and jerking. In one, Rachel's copy clawed at the glass, leaving bloody streaks across its pristine surface. In another, Ethan's doppelgänger leaned forward, whispering something we couldn't hear.
The air grew heavy with static, every hair on my body rising. The mirrors weren't just showing us anymore—they were watching.
At the far end of the hall stood a massive, unbroken mirror, taller than the rest, framed in black iron twisted into the shape of writhing vines. Unlike the others, it didn't reflect us at all. The glass was dark, a void, swallowing our light whole.
We stopped, unable to move closer.
Maya's voice was a hoarse whisper. "It's a door."
I didn't want to ask what she meant, but Rachel did. "A door to what?"
As if in answer, something moved in the dark glass. Not a reflection—something else.
A shape, humanoid but elongated, its limbs too thin, its fingers dragging along the surface like claws scratching metal. It leaned closer, its faceless head pressing against the other side of the glass.
The heartbeat of the house thundered in my ears, faster, louder, until it was almost a roar.
The glass rippled like water disturbed by a stone, and the thing inside pressed harder. A hand slid forward first—long, spindly fingers clawing out of the dark surface, dripping with black liquid that hissed when it hit the floor. The air filled with a scent like burning metal.
Rachel screamed and stumbled backward, slamming into Ethan. "It's coming out!"
"Run," I barked, though there was nowhere to run. The hallway behind us stretched into suffocating darkness, the walls seeming to pulse with the same heartbeat. We were cornered.
The rest of its body emerged in jerks and snaps, like it didn't understand how to move in our world. Its limbs were too long, joints bending in wrong directions. Where a face should have been was only smooth, pale skin, except for a mouth carved wide, splitting open in a grin too large for its head.
It turned that faceless smile toward us.
The mirrors on either side began to rattle violently, their surfaces rippling. Our reflections smashed their hands against the glass, mouths moving silently, eyes wide with terror.
"Don't let it touch you!" Maya shouted. She grabbed Rachel's wrist, pulling her back as the creature's hand slammed into the ground with a wet slap. The floorboards sizzled beneath its touch.
I yanked an old candelabrum from a nearby table, brandishing it like a weapon. "Stay back!"
The thing tilted its head. Then, impossibly, it laughed. The sound didn't come from its mouth but from all around us—from every mirror, from the walls, from the floor itself. High, distorted, like a recording played backward.
The laughter ended in a shriek, and it lunged.
I swung the candelabrum with everything I had. Metal cracked against its arm, snapping the limb sideways, but the creature didn't stop. Its other hand slammed into my chest, throwing me back into the nearest mirror.
The glass didn't shatter. It rippled, pulling at me, sucking me toward my own reflection, which stared back with eyes full of horror.
Ethan grabbed me by the shoulders, yanking me free. "Move!" he roared. The two of us staggered just as the creature's clawed hand sliced down, gouging deep grooves into the wood where I had been.
Rachel was frozen in place, hands pressed over her mouth, tears streaming down her face. The creature turned toward her.
"Rachel!" Maya shouted. She shoved her friend aside at the last second. Claws ripped through the arm of Rachel's jacket instead of her chest. The fabric hissed where the black liquid touched it, dissolving in seconds.
The thing shrieked again, its grin widening. It pressed both hands to the ground. The wood beneath its palms began to rot instantly, spreading outward in a black web.
"We can't fight it!" Maya shouted. "We have to get out!"
I scanned the hall, desperate. There—at the far left wall, a smaller mirror cracked nearly in half. Beyond it, the reflection didn't show us. It showed another hallway, narrow but empty. A way out.
"Through there!" I shouted.
Ethan gawked. "You want us to jump through a mirror?"
"You see any other exits?"
The creature lurched toward us, faster now, its broken arm snapping back into place with a nauseating crack. It slashed at the air, and the cut lingered—thin black scars hanging in space like tears in reality.
"Go!" I bellowed.
Maya dragged Rachel toward the cracked mirror. She hesitated only a second before slamming her palm against the surface. Instead of solid glass, it rippled like water. Without thinking, she pulled Rachel through.
Ethan cursed under his breath and followed.
The creature's head snapped toward me, its grin splitting wider, impossibly wide. I raised the candelabrum again as it lunged, claws swiping for my throat. I ducked low, swung upward, and jammed the metal straight into its chest.
It shrieked, stumbling back, black fluid spraying across the floor. The smell burned my nose and eyes.
I didn't wait to see if it would recover. I turned and hurled myself into the cracked mirror.
Cold swallowed me, like diving into icy water. For a split second, I couldn't breathe, my lungs compressed as though crushed by the weight of stone. My own reflection pressed against me, screaming silently, trying to drag me back.
Then I was through.
I tumbled onto damp carpet, choking, gasping for air. Ethan grabbed my arm, hauling me up. Maya and Rachel stood ahead, both pale as corpses. Behind us, the mirror surface rippled violently, the creature pressing its face against it, shrieking wordless rage.
The cracks in the glass spread wider and wider until, with a deafening shatter, the mirror exploded outward. Shards rained down like knives.
The creature was gone.
But so was the hall.
We stood in another corridor—different from before, narrower, darker, the walls lined with faded wallpaper that seemed to squirm under the flickering light. The heartbeat of the house thudded louder than ever, furious.
Rachel clutched her torn sleeve, eyes wild. Her arm beneath was blistered red where the creature's claws had grazed her skin. She winced when Ethan tried to touch it.
"It burns," she whispered, voice breaking. "It won't stop burning."
Maya rounded on me, shaking with fury. "We can't keep doing this. This house wants us dead. If we don't find a way out—now—we're all going to end up like… like that." She gestured to the shards of mirror on the floor, still dripping with black fluid that hissed as it evaporated.
I didn't argue. She was right.
But deep down, I knew something worse.
We hadn't escaped the creature.
We'd only been moved to the next part of its game.
The corridor we landed in was suffocatingly narrow, the faded wallpaper curling away from the damp walls. The light came from nowhere in particular, a dim glow that seemed to seep out of the plaster itself. It wasn't enough. Shadows crowded every corner, shifting when we weren't looking.
Rachel leaned against the wall, clutching her blistered arm. Her breathing came in short, sharp bursts, the sound echoing too loudly in the cramped space. Maya knelt beside her, trying to steady her shaking hands.
"It's spreading," Rachel whispered. She pulled her sleeve back, and we saw it—black veins snaking outward from the wound, crawling beneath her skin like living things.
Maya bit her lip, holding back panic. "We need something. Water, bandages, anything."
"There's nothing," Ethan muttered. His voice was cold, clipped. "And making noise isn't helping. That thing is still out there. It'll find us again."
Rachel's eyes filled with tears. "You think I don't know that?"
"Hey," I snapped, stepping between them before the tension exploded. "We're not tearing each other apart. That's what this place wants."
Ethan scoffed, but he looked away, jaw tight.
The heartbeat of the house pulsed through the walls, louder than before. It didn't sound steady anymore—it was erratic, frantic, like the mansion itself was excited. Hungry.
I pressed my palm against the wall. It was damp, warm, as though alive. My stomach twisted.
"This corridor didn't exist before," Maya said, standing. Her eyes darted up and down the stretch of hallway. "The house is… changing us. Herding us."
Ethan gave a bitter laugh. "Like cattle."
Silence fell. The word felt too close to the truth.
We started walking again, slow and cautious. The corridor stretched on longer than it should have, repeating itself. The same torn wallpaper. The same broken sconces. Every ten steps, I saw the same stain on the carpet, the same crack in the wall.
Rachel stumbled once, and I caught her. Her skin was burning hot now, her pulse frantic under my fingers. She looked at me with wide, glassy eyes. "It's inside me," she whispered. "I can feel it. Crawling."
Maya squeezed her hand, forcing calm into her voice. "You're going to be fine. We'll fix this. We just have to keep moving."
But her tone betrayed her fear.
We finally reached the end of the hall—a door of heavy oak, bound in iron. Unlike the others, this one wasn't cracked or decayed. It looked solid, deliberate, as though it had been waiting for us.
Ethan tried the handle. Locked.
"Figures," he muttered, kicking the base. The door didn't budge.
"Step back," I said. I braced my shoulder against the wood and shoved with all my weight. The frame groaned, then splintered, and the door slammed open with a thunderous echo that rolled down the corridor behind us.
We stumbled into a vast chamber.
The ceiling arched impossibly high, lost in shadow. Rows of chandeliers hung above, their crystals swaying though there was no wind. The floor was a checkerboard of black and white marble, cracked and smeared with stains that looked far too much like dried blood.
In the center stood a staircase that spiraled upward into darkness. The railings were carved into shapes of writhing bodies, mouths open in eternal screams.
Rachel gasped. Maya pulled her close, shielding her eyes, but Rachel had already seen.
Ethan swore softly. "This isn't a house. It's… it's a tomb."
I swallowed hard, forcing down the rising dread. No. Not a tomb. A labyrinth. A predator's den.
The heartbeat was deafening here, rattling the chandeliers until their glass teardrops clinked together like teeth.
Rachel's legs gave out, and Maya lowered her gently onto the marble floor. The black veins in her arm had reached her shoulder now, pulsing with every beat of the mansion's heart.
"We can't stop," Ethan said harshly. "If we stay here, we're dead. If we move, maybe we've got a chance."
Maya snapped her head toward him, fury flashing in her eyes. "She's dying! You want to just drag her around until—"
"Until what?" Ethan snarled. "Until that thing comes back and finishes the job? Pick your poison, Maya."
I raised my hand, cutting them both off. My own voice shook, but I forced it steady. "We're not leaving anyone behind. We figure this out. Together."
But the truth pressed down on me as heavy as the house itself: the mansion wasn't going to let us leave. It was breaking us down, piece by piece, and Rachel was the first to crumble.
The chandeliers swayed harder, shadows stretching across the marble floor like claws reaching for us.
I tightened my grip on the useless candelabrum, my knuckles white.
The house wasn't done with us.
Not even close.