Charles descended the staircase, his grip still tight on the iron poker as his nerves remained frayed. The air in the mansion had changed—thickened with an unseen weight, as if the house itself was pressing down on him, growing more hostile with each passing minute. The clock on his phone read 2:15 a.m. Nearly four more hours to go, and each moment stretched into an eternity.
As he stepped into the foyer, the echoes of the woman's scream still ringing in his mind, the system chimed softly in his head:
Reward detected: Ghost repellent enhanced.
Charles blinked. Enhanced? He glanced down at the iron poker in his hand. There was nothing visibly different about it, but he could feel a faint energy pulsing from the metal. It hummed slightly in his grip, as though charged with some invisible force. He wasn't sure what this new enhancement entailed, but if the ghosts feared it before, they would fear it more now.
He was just about to step back into the dining room when a faint, unintelligible whisper filled the air around him. He froze, every muscle tensing. The sound wasn't coming from the system—it was coming from the house.
It grew louder, like a distant conversation, though Charles couldn't make out the words. He slowly turned, scanning the foyer, but nothing moved. The shadows were still. The room was empty. Yet, the whisper persisted.
The chat lit up once again.
"Anyone else hear that?"
"Bro, the whispering! It's creepy as hell!"
"There's something wrong with this house, dude!"
Charles swallowed hard and took a tentative step forward. The whispers intensified, surrounding him from all sides now, as if they were carried by the very walls of the mansion. He followed the sound instinctively, moving toward the back of the house, deeper into the darkness.
His footsteps echoed in the empty hallway as he reached a door he hadn't noticed before. It was partially ajar, its wood warped and old, and through the crack, he could see nothing but blackness beyond. The whispers grew louder, more urgent. They beckoned him.
Charles hesitated, the cold creeping into his bones. His breath fogged in the air as the temperature dropped several degrees, a sure sign that he wasn't alone. But something about these whispers was different. They weren't hostile, not like the woman's eerie voice had been. These were almost... pleading.
With a deep breath, he nudged the door open with the poker, the old hinges creaking loudly. Beyond was a small, dark study, the air thick with dust and age. The shelves were lined with old books, and a single wooden desk sat in the center of the room, an ancient-looking lamp casting a dim glow over it.
The whispers were clearer now. They came from the far corner, where a large, ornate mirror stood, its surface reflecting nothing but the darkness around it. Charles's eyes were drawn to the mirror immediately. It felt... wrong, like it didn't belong here, like it was watching him.
He approached slowly, the whispers growing more frantic with each step he took. The words were still unintelligible, but they carried an unmistakable urgency. He raised the iron poker, ready for anything, but the mirror remained still, its surface pristine despite the decay around it.
Then, without warning, the whispers stopped.
Charles paused, his breath caught in his throat, and for a moment, everything was silent.
Then the surface of the mirror rippled.
Charles jumped back, his heart leaping into his throat as the reflection in the mirror twisted. The darkness within it seemed to swirl, like liquid shadow, and suddenly, a figure began to form—a shadowy shape, humanoid but featureless, like a person made entirely of darkness. Its head turned slowly toward him, though it had no eyes to see with.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The chat exploded with panicked messages.
"What is THAT?!"
"It's in the mirror!"
"Dude, back away!"
But Charles couldn't look away. He was transfixed by the figure, by the way it seemed to bleed into the very fabric of the mirror. He took a step back, but the shadow didn't follow. Instead, it raised a hand—or what passed for a hand—and pressed it against the glass.
And that's when the whispers came again, but this time, they weren't distant. They were inside his mind.
"Help us."
Charles's eyes widened. The voice was different—soft, almost human, but filled with a sorrow that made his chest tighten. He took another step back, gripping the poker tightly, unsure whether the figure was a threat or something else entirely.
"Trapped. We're trapped." The voice grew clearer, more desperate. "You... must free us."
"Free you?" Charles asked aloud, his voice shaky. "What do you mean? Who are you?"
The figure in the mirror seemed to pulse, the shadows around it swirling like a vortex. The air in the room became thick, suffocating. Charles felt the weight of their desperation pressing down on him, but he didn't move closer.
"We are the lost... bound to this house... bound by him." The whispers were laced with fear now. "He controls us. Please... break the mirror."
The chat exploded again, the viewers just as confused and terrified as Charles.
"Wait, is it telling him to smash the mirror?"
"It could be a trick!"
"Do it! Maybe they're trapped like ghosts or something!"
Charles stared at the mirror, his mind racing. The whispers seemed genuine, filled with pain and fear, but there was a gnawing doubt in the pit of his stomach. What if this was another trap? What if breaking the mirror unleashed something worse?
His grip tightened on the iron poker, his hand slick with sweat. He had to make a decision.
Suddenly, the air in the room shifted again. The temperature dropped even further, and Charles could feel another presence behind him. His stomach lurched as a low, guttural growl filled the room.
He spun around, and there, standing in the doorway, was another ghost. This one was different from the woman and the man from before. It was larger, hulking, its form a grotesque blend of shadow and physicality. Its eyes glowed a faint red, and its mouth twisted into an inhuman snarl.
The thing advanced slowly, its massive, clawed hands reaching toward him.
Charles's mind screamed for him to run, but the whispers from the mirror grew louder, more urgent.
"Break it! Break the mirror! Hurry!"
Charles turned back to the mirror, his heart racing. The shadowy figure inside pressed its hands against the glass again, the desperation in its voice palpable. But the creature behind him was closing in fast, its growl vibrating through the very walls of the house.
There was no time to think.
With a roar of desperation, Charles raised the iron poker high and swung it down with all his strength, smashing the mirror.
The glass shattered into a thousand pieces, the sound deafening as it echoed through the room. The shadowy figure within the mirror let out a scream—a mixture of relief and agony—as it dissolved into the shards. At the same time, the hulking ghost behind Charles let out a blood-curdling roar and vanished, its form evaporating into thin air as the mirror's hold was broken.
Charles stood there, panting, surrounded by the glittering remains of the mirror. The whispers had stopped. The room was silent once more.
The chat erupted into a frenzy of messages.
"What just happened??"
"Did he free them?!"
"Dude, that was INSANE!"
Charles wiped the sweat from his brow, his hands still shaking from the adrenaline. He didn't know what had just happened, or if he had made the right choice, but one thing was clear: something had been trapped in that mirror, and now, it was free.
The clock on his phone read 2:45 a.m.
He still had over three hours to survive, and the mansion was far from done with him.
As he stepped out of the room, the shattered mirror behind him, he couldn't shake the feeling that whatever he had unleashed was now watching him.
The night wasn't over yet.
And the real horror had only just begun.