It was Christmas Eve, and the snow fell silently outside the old house at the end of Blackwood Lane. The house had been in Lillian's family for generations—a creaky, sprawling place with drafty halls and cold rooms. She had fond memories of spending Christmas here as a child, and despite her husband's protests, she'd insisted they bring their family to the house this year, hoping to revive the magic of her childhood.
But the evening had already soured.
Lillian, her husband Graham, and their teenage son Daniel sat around a modestly decorated tree in the dimly lit living room, the warm glow of the fireplace casting shadows on the peeling wallpaper. The air was thick with tension. They had argued all evening—Graham complaining about the drive, Daniel sulking about being away from his friends, and Lillian herself struggling to hold everything together.
"I don't know why we had to come here," Graham grumbled, pouring himself another glass of whiskey. "This place is falling apart, Lill. Can't you let it go?"
Lillian forced a smile. "This house was my father's, and his father's before him. It's not just a place, it's… history."
"Yeah, history that's probably full of mold," muttered Daniel, his face buried in his phone.
Lillian's smile faded. She had hoped that coming here would bring them together, that maybe they could reconnect. But as she looked at her husband's weary expression, her son's dismissive posture, she felt a sadness settle over her. It was as though the house itself shared her disappointment, each creak of the floorboards a soft, lamenting sigh.
Then, a sound interrupted the silence—a soft, rhythmic tapping, like someone lightly knocking at the door.
They all turned, frowning.
"Who'd be out in this weather?" Graham muttered, standing up reluctantly. He walked to the front door, opened it, but found nothing but a wall of snow.
"Probably a branch," he said, shutting the door and returning to his seat.
But the tapping continued, and this time it was louder, more insistent. It was coming from somewhere deeper within the house. Lillian's stomach twisted. She knew every corner of this old place, and this sound… this sound was unfamiliar.
"Mom," Daniel said, looking up from his phone, his face pale. "Did you hear that?"
Lillian nodded slowly. She rose from her seat and moved toward the sound, compelled by something she couldn't explain. The tapping grew louder as she walked down the narrow hallway toward the back of the house, her family trailing behind.
The sound led them to the old study—a room that had belonged to her father, a place where he had spent hours alone, pouring over ancient books and documents. Lillian hadn't been in there for years, not since his passing.
The door was slightly ajar, and as she approached, a chill seeped through the crack. She pushed the door open, and immediately felt something was wrong. The air was dense, heavy, as though it was filled with an unseen presence.
The tapping had stopped, replaced by a low, humming sound, a noise so deep it vibrated in her bones. It felt… alive, like a heartbeat too vast to belong to any human.
"Lill, we should leave," Graham said, his voice uneasy. But Lillian couldn't turn away. Something was calling to her, something within the room itself.
At the far end of the study, her father's old desk stood untouched, covered in a fine layer of dust. And above it, hanging on the wall, was a strange object—a mirror. She didn't remember it being there, but its presence was undeniable, as though it had always been part of the house, hidden until now.
The mirror was ancient, its surface dark and almost liquid, reflecting nothing but shadows. It was framed in a tarnished silver, with symbols carved into the metal that made her stomach turn just to look at them.
"What… is that?" Graham asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Lillian moved closer, mesmerized by the mirror. As she stared into its depths, she felt the faint pull of something vast and incomprehensible on the other side, like standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling gravity itself reach up to claim her. She could see… something in the mirror, shapes that twisted and writhed just beneath the surface, things that defied logic, defied the boundaries of space and time.
"Mom?" Daniel's voice was small, trembling. "What's happening?"
But she couldn't answer. The mirror was drawing her in, her mind unraveling as it showed her glimpses of something far beyond human understanding—worlds of endless dark, beings that floated in voids untouched by light, eyes that stretched across galaxies, watching, waiting. She felt their gaze, ancient and indifferent, piercing her very soul.
And then she saw her own reflection.
But it wasn't her. The figure in the mirror was… wrong. Its eyes were too large, too dark, filled with a depth that went on and on, as though they were windows to that unimaginable darkness she'd just glimpsed. Her skin seemed to ripple, as though something beneath the surface was trying to emerge.
A voice echoed in her mind, a soundless whisper, vast and cold.
We see you.
A wave of terror washed over her, but she couldn't move. She was trapped, ensnared by the mirror, by the presence on the other side. She felt it reach out to her, an unseen hand sliding into her mind, filling her thoughts with its endless, yawning hunger.
Behind her, Graham grabbed her arm, pulling her back. "Lill, come on! We need to get out of here!"
But it was too late. The presence had already found her, already marked her. She could feel it, a part of her mind that no longer belonged to her, a piece of herself lost to the vastness beyond the mirror.
They stumbled out of the study, back into the hallway, but the house no longer felt like the one she'd known. Shadows danced along the walls, and she could hear whispers, faint but unmistakable, as though something unseen had been awakened.
By the time they returned to the living room, Lillian felt hollow, like something crucial had been pulled from her. She looked at Graham and Daniel, but their faces seemed distant, hazy, as though they were no longer fully real.
As the hours passed, she felt it growing, that presence inside her, twisting her thoughts, warping her memories. The house felt tighter, smaller, like it was pressing down on her, suffocating her. And as Christmas morning dawned, gray and cold, she realized with horror that she was no longer herself.
She was no longer Lillian.
The presence inside her, the vast, ancient awareness that had seeped through the mirror, had taken root, and she could feel it spreading, reshaping her mind, erasing the woman she'd once been. She looked at her family, at her husband and son, and felt only a faint, detached sorrow, as though she were observing them from a distance.
They didn't know. They looked at her, and saw her face, heard her voice. But the thing behind her eyes was not Lillian. It was something else, something older, something that had been watching, waiting, and now, finally, it had found a way through.
And as she smiled at them, hollow and empty, she felt it stir within her, felt the cold darkness stretch out, touching her memories, her love, consuming everything that had once made her who she was.
They would never know. They would look at her and see only their wife, their mother, never suspecting the truth—that the woman they loved was gone, lost to the thing that now wore her face, a thing that had come through the mirror, a thing that was only beginning to feed.