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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/philosophysubboy on 2024-09-26 18:45:46+00:00.

I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this. I don’t have any friends, family, or even acquaintances. When I ran away with Dan, I thought I was moving towards a better part of my life. I was going to be more grand, more promiscuous, and more exotic. But I can’t….

I arrived at the house just after dusk. It was smaller than I remembered, hunched beneath a sky the color of ash. The realtor had called it “quaint,” but now all I saw was decay. The paint, once white, peeled like dead skin, curling back from the wood in long, brittle strips. The windows were clouded with dirt, like they hadn’t been touched in years.

I wanted peace, solitude. But as I stood there, staring at the house, I felt the air grow heavy, pressing in on me. Grief does strange things to your mind, I thought. I hadn’t been myself since Dan’s accident. His death left a gaping hole inside me, and this place—this forsaken house—was supposed to be a refuge. A place to escape, to grieve in silence. But the longer I looked at it, the more I felt something was wrong.

I shook off the feeling, telling myself it was just the exhaustion. I dragged my suitcase inside and shut the door, the echo of the slam too loud in the empty rooms. The house smelled like damp wood and old memories, stale and suffocating. I unpacked slowly, my hands numb, mind drifting.

That first night, I slept fitfully, wrapped in Dan’s old sweatshirt. The wind outside howled like a wild animal, scratching at the windows. I thought I heard footsteps in the hallway around midnight—slow, deliberate—but when I forced myself out of bed to check, there was nothing. Just silence, thick and oppressive. By morning, I convinced myself it had been a dream.

Days bled into each other. I wandered the empty rooms, the floors creaking beneath my weight, each groan sounding like the house’s whispering voice. Objects started disappearing—small things at first: a spoon, a pen, my keys. I brushed it off, telling myself I was just forgetful. Grief does that to you. I’d forget my own name if I didn’t say it out loud sometimes.

But the mirror… that was harder to ignore.

It started with glances, catching the corner of my reflection when I wasn’t looking for it. I’d be in the kitchen, washing dishes, and out of the corner of my eye, I’d see something move in the hall mirror. At first, I thought it was just my reflection, delayed somehow. But it wasn’t.

One night, as I passed the mirror, I saw her—me—standing there, staring back. Only she wasn’t copying me. I froze, my heart thudding painfully in my chest. My reflection stood still, her face slack, eyes wide and dull. She was waiting. Watching.

I reached a trembling hand toward the glass, but before I could touch it, she moved. Not a blink, not a shift in weight—just a sudden, violent jerk. Her hand shot up to the glass, slamming against it with a sickening thud.

I screamed and stumbled back, but when I looked again, my reflection was normal. A terrified, pale version of myself. I backed away, avoiding the mirror for the rest of the night, every muscle in my body wound tight, waiting for something to happen.

But nothing did. Not yet.

The next day, I started hearing the voice.

It whispered, faint at first, almost like a breeze, but then it grew louder. Clearer. It was Dan. I was sure of it. His voice, soft and familiar, coming from the walls, the floors, the cracks in the wood. He was calling me, telling me he wasn’t gone, that he was trapped here. With me.

I wanted to believe it. God, I wanted it so badly. The grief in me ached, tearing at the seams. I spent hours sitting in the dark, listening for him, begging for more. But all I got were whispers, taunting, cruel. The voice turned from gentle to accusing, blaming me for his death, telling me I had abandoned him.

“You let me die,” he hissed through the walls. “You should be with me. Come back to me.”

I tried to shut it out, but it followed me from room to room. The objects that had disappeared started showing up in strange places—on the bed, in the fridge, inside my shoes. Things I didn’t even own appeared in the house: an old pocket watch, a child’s stuffed bear, a photograph of someone I didn’t know, their eyes scratched out.

The mirror was the worst. Every time I passed it, she was there. My reflection. But she wasn’t me anymore. Her eyes followed me, tracking my movements. She smiled when I wasn’t looking. A cold, mocking grin that stretched too wide.

I tried covering the mirror with a sheet, but every time I left the room, the sheet would be on the floor when I returned, the glass gleaming as if nothing had been there at all.

By now, I was hardly sleeping. The voice never stopped. My reflection never looked away.

Then, last night, it happened.

I woke to the sound of glass shattering. Heart racing, I sat up in bed, blinking in the dark. The mirror. I knew it before I even stepped into the hallway. I could feel it—like a heartbeat, pulsing in the walls.

The mirror was broken, shards scattered across the floor. But in the middle of the glass stood a figure, tall and dark, shifting like a shadow made of flesh. It smiled at me—my reflection, no longer behind the glass but standing in my home, dripping with something dark and sticky.

I tried to scream, but the sound lodged in my throat as she moved closer, her smile splitting her face in two, wide and grotesque. “Come with me,” she whispered, her voice like shattered glass. “Come be with him.”

I ran, but the house twisted around me, the walls groaning as they stretched and warped. I could hear her behind me, her footsteps quick and sharp like the ticking of a clock. Closer, closer.

Now I’m here, hiding in the attic, my back pressed against the cold wood. The whispers are louder, Dan’s voice mingling with hers, calling me, telling me to give in, to join them. I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. The door is creaking open.

And the mirror is gone.

I think she is too………