…my blood ran cold. Because pasted to the center of the brittle, yellowed parchment was a Polaroid photograph of my siblings, taken just days ago at the funeral. But in the photo, their faces were distorted, melting into featureless, gaping voids, while hovering directly above them was a massive, jagged shadow.
Beneath the photo, written in Grandma’s elegant, frantic cursive, was a chilling warning:
“The money is bait. It carries the rot. They have exactly three days before the Collector comes to claim the souls that the gold bought. The mirror is the only way to see it coming. DO NOT SELL IT. DO NOT BREAK IT.”
My phone buzzed violently against the wood of my desk, shattering the silence. It was my sister, Chloe. I stared at her name on the screen for a long moment before my trembling fingers swiped to answer.
“Hey,” she said, her voice sounding uncharacteristically breathless, almost manic. “You wouldn’t believe the luck I’m having. I just went to the casino to celebrate the inheritance, and I literally cannot lose. But…” She paused, and I heard a strange, wet scratching sound through the speaker. “My skin feels like it’s burning. Deep underneath. And I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eye.”
I slowly lifted my head and looked into the antique mirror. In the dim light of my living room, the clouded glass seemed to ripple like dark water. I picked up the heavy, tarnished frame and angled it toward my open doorway. Through the glass, the reflection of my apartment looked completely normal—until my gaze drifted to the ceiling just above the hallway.
Clinging to the drywall in the reflection—though the actual ceiling of my room was empty—was a pale, multi-jointed limb ending in elongated, needle-like claws.
“Chloe,” I whispered, my mouth bone-dry. “Where are you right now?”
“I’m right outside your door,” she giggled, but it didn’t sound like her laugh anymore. It sounded metallic. Layered. Two voices speaking at once. “I want to see that ugly old mirror. I think… I really think I need to look at myself.”
I dropped the phone. It clattered to the floor, her distorted laughter echoing from the speaker.
Frantically, I flipped to the second page of the journal. It was filled with intricate anatomical diagrams of monstrous entities and detailed instructions on how to use the mirror to trap them. The symbols carved into the leather cover weren’t just decorative; they were bindings. Grandma hadn’t handed me a worthless, ugly antique. She had handed me a weapon. And she had used my siblings’ greed to buy me the time I needed to learn how to use it.
A heavy, wet thud hit my front door. Then, a slow, rhythmic scratching.
“Open up,” Chloe’s voice sang from the other side, accompanied by the rattling of the doorknob. “I’m so rich now. I want to share it with you.”
I picked up the heavy wooden backing of the mirror, gripped the leather journal tightly, and positioned the glass so it faced the front door. Grandma always told me to look closer. Now, I was finally seeing the truth: my siblings had inherited a death sentence, and I had inherited a war.’
