Li An's pulse thundered in her ears as she stumbled backward, her foot catching on something sharp. The sound of her breath—sharp and panicked—seemed deafening in the thick, oppressive silence of the room. The door had been open a moment ago, but now it was closed again, as though the house itself had swallowed her whole.
The mirror, however, remained unchanged. The shadow within it stretched across the reflective surface like an unblinking eye. No, not an eye. A presence. A thing that wasn't supposed to be.
Her throat tightened as she instinctively reached for the pocketknife she always carried. The cold metal felt reassuring against her palm, but even as she held it, she couldn't shake the feeling that it would be useless here. What could she possibly do against something like that? Whatever it was, it had power—something far beyond anything she had encountered in her years as a detective.
The house creaked and groaned, as if reacting to her fear. The shadows seemed to shift and curl in the corners of the room, pulling themselves closer to the mirror. It wasn't just the figure that moved. The whole space around her seemed to bend, distorting itself in ways that defied logic.
She had to leave. Now.
But as she turned toward what should have been the door, she was greeted by an unexpected sight: the walls themselves appeared to be closing in on her. The door she had entered through was now completely gone, replaced by a solid expanse of wood that bore no marks of a handle, no crack through which she might escape.
Her breath caught. She had been locked in. Trapped.
The Voice Returns
"You cannot leave."
The voice came again, this time clearer—cold and sharp, like an ice shard scraping across her mind. It was the same voice she'd heard earlier, and it was unmistakably coming from the mirror. Li An's heart raced faster, a sickening thrill of dread twisting in her chest.
"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice shaking. She raised the knife, though she knew it would do nothing against whatever this was. "What do you want?"
The reflection in the mirror seemed to shift. The shadow that had been stretching across the surface now took form—human, but distorted. The figure was tall, its face indistinguishable, but its eyes gleamed, cold and empty, staring back at her with a hatred she could feel deep within her bones.
"What I want," the voice echoed, "is not what you can give. You've already seen too much."
Her hands trembled around the knife. "I don't understand," she whispered, more to herself than to the shadow. "What is this place? What do you want with Zhang Xian?"
The figure in the mirror seemed to smile, but it wasn't a smile that brought any comfort. It was something darker—something mocking. "Zhang Xian was a fool," it said, its voice a whisper that vibrated in the air. "He tried to open the door. But the door... it was never meant to be opened."
Li An's mind raced. "The door? What are you talking about?" She took a step forward, her knife still in hand, but she was no longer sure if she was facing the shadow or the empty space beyond it. The room around her seemed to dissolve, warping, twisting into an impossible shape.
"You've already crossed the threshold," the voice continued. "Now you're a part of this. You can never leave. Not now. Not after looking."
The air around her thickened, as if the very space was becoming heavier, suffocating her with its malevolent weight. Her pulse was erratic now, her limbs growing heavy with the weight of fear. She felt as though something was closing in on her chest—something that wasn't just in her mind. The room around her felt alive, like it was pressing in on her from all sides, squeezing her closer and closer to the mirror.
The Old Book
Her thoughts, blurry and frantic, snapped back to the moment when she first arrived. There was something else—something important—she had seen, but she couldn't quite remember what it was. She hadn't had time to explore the room properly. There had been the candle, and the map, and the letter. But there was one other thing.
The book.
Li An's eyes darted toward a wooden table near the center of the room, half-covered in dust and forgotten paper. A thick, leather-bound book lay open in the center. It was the only other object in the room that seemed to have any significance. The pages were yellowed with age, the ink faded but still legible. She crossed the room quickly, as if the book might hold the key to escaping whatever nightmare she was trapped in.
She opened it, feeling the weight of its secrets pressing against her chest.
The first page was filled with symbols—runes, not unlike the ones she had seen in Zhang Xian's notes. But these were different. They weren't just drawings. They were alive, shifting and moving, their shapes changing as her eyes followed them across the page. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, but they didn't stop moving.
And then, in the corner of the page, she saw something that froze her in place.
The name: Zhang Xian.
Below it, in a strange, twisted script, was a warning.
"Do not seek what you cannot understand. Do not open the door. Do not look into the mirror."
Li An's fingers trembled as she turned the page. The next section was more cryptic, written in a language she didn't recognize, but the feeling of dread it invoked was universal. She felt as if the book was pulling her deeper into its dark history, urging her to understand its meaning.
And then, as if the house itself were watching her, the room seemed to pulse again—closer, tighter, like a noose tightening around her neck.
The First Step Back
Her eyes snapped back to the mirror, the reflection now swirling with dark shapes, those same shadows that seemed to have come to life. Her reflection—her own—was gone, replaced by something far worse. Her chest tightened as the figure in the mirror reached toward her, its hand almost brushing the glass.
Li An's heart stopped. The air was suffocating now, each breath a struggle. She looked down at the book again, but as she did, she felt it—the sensation of being pulled, of being drawn toward the mirror. She couldn't resist it. No matter how hard she tried, her feet moved closer.
The shadow reached through the mirror.