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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Important-Victory-25 on 2024-11-09 07:27:20+00:00.

It’s been one year since my sister Evelyn vanished. One year of dead ends, empty searches, and a silence that eats at me. People say you’re supposed to move on, but that’s impossible when there’s no closure, no answers—when it feels like she’s still out there somewhere, waiting for me to find her.

She disappeared near a hidden lake deep in the woods outside our town, Laketon. The place is called Mirror Pool. Even the name makes people tense up; locals have whispered about that lake for as long as I can remember. No one ever really explains why, just mutters things like, “Never go there alone,” or “Don’t look too long into the water.” You’d think it was a myth to scare kids, but Evelyn… she became obsessed with it. She was never one to ignore something so curious and forbidden.

I remember her standing in front of that lake, watching the water as though it had answers she needed, something she couldn’t put into words. And then, just like that, she was gone.

The police searched every inch of Mirror Pool and the surrounding forest. They dragged the lake, combed through the woods… but it was like she’d been erased. Not a single trace. No footprints, no clothing, not even a broken branch to suggest where she might have gone. Just… gone.

The only thing left behind was her journal. I found it under her mattress a week after she vanished, buried beneath her usual mess of books and drawings. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it. Evelyn was private, and something about prying into her thoughts felt wrong. But desperation does strange things to you. So, one night, I opened it, hoping maybe she’d left some kind of clue.

Most of the journal was typical Evelyn—sketches, story ideas, observations about people she’d seen around town. But then I reached the last few pages, and things took a darker turn. Her writing became frantic, almost erratic, like she was on the edge of something, teetering between fascination and fear. She wrote about Mirror Pool with an intensity that left me chilled.

There was one line in particular that I can’t shake, no matter how hard I try:

“The water… I saw something in it, something that looked just like me but wasn’t. It was smiling, and I know I wasn’t smiling.”

I’ve read that sentence a hundred times, feeling a chill creep down my spine every time. It’s as if Evelyn saw something in that lake that she couldn’t unsee, something that took hold of her in a way that scared even her. And yet… she kept going back.

Days turned into weeks, then months. People stopped talking about Evelyn, and life in Laketon went on as if she’d never existed. But for me, her absence is like a hole in my chest, an ache that never goes away. And that one sentence from her journal—it lingers, clawing at the edges of my mind, making me feel like there’s something more out there, something I have to understand.

I told myself I’d stay away, that I’d let the past stay buried. But on the anniversary of her disappearance, something snapped. I needed to know. I couldn’t keep living with these questions, these half-imagined horrors. I had to see Mirror Pool for myself. I had to know what had drawn her in, what she saw in those waters.

The hike to Mirror Pool is longer than I remember. The path twists and winds through dense forest, the trees thickening as if they’re trying to keep me out. The sun is setting, casting long shadows that stretch like fingers across the ground, and the air grows colder with each step, an unnatural chill that settles deep in my bones. I tell myself it’s just nerves, just fear messing with my head, but part of me can’t shake the feeling that something in these woods is watching me.

When I finally reach the clearing, I stop short. Mirror Pool lies ahead, nestled between dark trees, its surface unnaturally still. It doesn’t look like water at all, more like a sheet of black glass reflecting the bruised sky above. There’s something… wrong about it, a presence in the air that makes my skin prickle. I can’t explain it, but it’s as if the lake is alive, aware, watching me just as intently as I’m watching it.

I take a step closer, then another, feeling the weight of the silence pressing down on me. The only sound is my own breathing, quick and shallow, as I approach the water’s edge. I stare into the lake, and my reflection stares back—pale, tired, hollow-eyed. But there’s something else, something I can’t quite place.

Then, slowly, my reflection changes. The corners of its mouth twitch, curling up into a smile. It’s a small, subtle thing, but I feel my stomach drop. Because I know I’m not smiling. My face is blank, expressionless, but she is grinning back at me with a look that’s both familiar and wrong, as though there’s something lurking behind those eyes that isn’t me.

I stagger back, my heart hammering in my chest, and the reflection vanishes. The water is still again, a perfect, unbroken mirror. I tell myself it was just a trick of the light, my mind playing games, but there’s a tightness in my chest, a feeling that I’m being pulled into something dark and terrible.

As I turn to leave, I hear it—a faint whisper, so soft I almost miss it. But it’s unmistakable, a voice that sounds like mine, but twisted and hollow.

“Come back,” it murmurs. “Stay with me.”

The words send ice through my veins. I glance back at the lake, but the water is silent, unmoving. I try to shake it off, tell myself it’s just my imagination, but as I make my way back through the woods, the whisper lingers, following me like a shadow, repeating over and over in my mind.

“Come back. Stay with me.”

I make it home, barely able to catch my breath, and collapse into bed, telling myself that it was just a dream, a trick of the mind. But as I lie there in the darkness, I can’t shake the feeling that something is waiting for me. That something saw me in that lake, something that’s calling to me with my own voice, waiting patiently for the moment I look back.

And I know, deep down, that this is only the beginning.