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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Verastahl on 2024-12-22 20:28:42+00:00.

It first happened when I was seventeen.  It was summer break, most of my friends were gone out-of-town, and I was bored and home alone.  I’d spent the last several days alternating between grinding in an MMO I was playing and reading weird stuff on the internet—urban legends, creepypastas, and wikis about cursed games.

When I came up with my game, well, I’m not claiming it’s original.  There are plenty of cursed games and stories about mirrors, as I’m sure you know.  You see something you shouldn’t in the reflection, or you use it to summon something like Bloody Mary.  Standard stuff. 

And my version wasn’t original or complex.  It all just started from me staring at the mirror hanging on my closet door and thinking about how I could see the door to my bedroom in it.  About how creepy it would be if the door opened in the mirror, but not in the real world.

Again, basic bitch stuff.

I had been close to falling asleep when the idea occurred to me, and something about it woke me up a bit.  I actually sat watching the reflection of my bedroom door for a good minute, as though me having the thought was going to somehow make the door move on its own.  Of course, nothing happened. 

I almost just laid back down and went to sleep, but something stopped me.  A thought occurred to me that seemed silly but was somehow still compelling.  What if I could open the door in the mirror without opening my own?

The illogic of it should have deterred me.  How would I even try to do that?  Go to the mirror and try to touch the doorknob there?  But no, that wasn’t the way.  Without questioning it, I knew that wasn’t the way. 

Instead, I got up and walked to my bedroom door, moving backwards and only looking at the door in the mirror, never in real life.  Focusing only on that mirror door, on touching and opening that mirror door.  I reached back awkwardly, fumbling in the air for a second before my hand closed on the cool metal of the doorknob.  I resisted the urge to look at the door as I twisted it, and in the reflection, I saw it open.  I took my hand off the knob and then looked behind me. 

The door was standing open.

It occurred to me then that the whole thing was stupid.  Obviously the door would be open if I’d turned the knob in my world.  It being open proved nothing other than I was a giant goober.  I wanted to laugh at myself, but I couldn’t.  Because something was different out there, wasn’t it?

I should be alone in the house, and it had gotten late enough that the hallway should have been totally dark.  I hadn’t turned on any lights when I got home from school that afternoon, and my parents shouldn’t be home for another hour or two.  And yet I could see a glow from the stairwell at the end of the hall.  The light on the wall coming up the stairs was lit, and maybe the one in the hall down by the front door.

I swallowed.  Had they come home early?

My mouth opened to call out, but some whisper in the back of my skull stopped me.  No, I needed to be careful.  Something wasn’t right.

I took a few steps back to grab my phone off the bed, keeping my eyes trained on the open door as I picked it up and stuffed it in my pocket.  Usually I’d have felt stupid being as spooked as I was, but the thought didn’t even occur to me.  Instead I felt my breath tremble slightly as I stepped to the door again, and after taking a look out into the gloomy hall, stepped through it.

Nothing seemed that strange at first, at least not other than the lights and the stale taste of the air.  Walking slowly and quietly, I moved to the stairs as I strained to hear any signs of movement below.  All I needed was to hear my mom on the phone or my dad turning on the t.v., and everything would be fine. 

Instead, I heard nothing, and after standing there listening for over a minute, I forced myself to head down the stairs. 

Every creak made me wince as I went down.  I felt like an intruder in my own house, and the fear of being noticed or caught was powerful, even though I didn’t understand why.  As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I felt a flare of rebellious anger at my fear.  This was all so stupid.  Nothing was different, I just didn’t notice the lights were on, and I’m just scaring myself like some kind of fucking…what was…

There was a coffin in the middle of the living room.

I only had a vague impression of the room overall, as my eyes were glued to the pale wood coffin laying in the middle of the room on what looked like the rug my mom had gotten years ago in South America.  It wasn’t a modern coffin with a curved, heavy lid that swung on a hinge and divided halfway up.  Instead it reminded me more of something you might see in an old photograph or a period movie—a white pine box narrower at the feet than the shoulders, fitted with a lid that had a cut-out of a cross so you could see the face of the person ins-

Thin fingers poked through the cut-out, curling around the edge of the cross as it gripped the wood tightly.  I was still sucking in a terrified breath when I heard a voice coming from the coffin.

“Will you let me out?”

There was nothing menacing or sinister about the voice itself—it sounded like a young guy who was scared.  I could sympathize.  Still, something struck me as strange about the voice beyond the circumstances, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.  As I was still deciding what to do, it spoke again as the fingers waggled out of the coffin’s cut-out.

“Please?  They keep putting me in a coffin, but I don’t want to be in here.  I can tell you’re different. 

Please help me.”

Heart pounding, I took a couple of steps closer.  What was this?  This couldn’t be my house, right?  I’d gone through the living room when I got home, and there was no way someone had snuck in a coffin without me hearing them either punching in the unlock code to get in or moving in something so big.  But what was the alternative?  That I’d managed to open a door into some mirror world?

“We don’t have much time.  You have to hurry.”

There was a thread of fear and desperation in the voice from the start, but it was stronger now.  It jolted me a few steps closer, but I still hesitated.  What if this was a trap?  I should just run back upstairs and try to get back into my bedroom, my house, my world.

I peered into the dark cross, but all I could make out were forearms and hands pushing out of the darkness.  It was a risk, but I could just open it real quick and then go back.  Besides, if just returning to the room didn’t work, this might be my only friend and guide on how to escape this place.  And there was just something in his voice…I couldn’t just leave him like this.

Glancing around first to make sure I saw no one else in the room or creeping up behind, I bent down and yanked on the lid of the coffin.  It came off with a protesting squeal, but I remember thinking that it hadn’t been so hard to get off that he shouldn’t have been able to push it out of the way.  But then all thought flooded out of me as I looked down at the person inside of the coffin.

It was me.

“What…”

My mirror twin was already pulling himself out of the coffin and getting to his feet.  Turning he gave me a smile.  “Thanks, buddy.  I couldn’t have done it on my own.”

Taking a few steps back, I just kept staring at him.  “You’re…me.”

He snorted.  “Kind of.  Sorta.  More like you’re a dim reflection of me, but I understand how you’d see it.”

I felt myself starting to tremble, and it was in my voice when I spoke next.  “I…I want to go home now please.”

My twin looked at me for a moment before breaking into a grin.  “Sure, I understand that too.  No problem.  I can take you to where you can cross back over.”

I glanced out at the stairs leading back up.  “I thought maybe I could just go back the way I came.”  I shot him a hopeful look.  “Would that work?”

He shook his head with a frown.  “‘Fraid not.  Each door can only be opened one way.  But I know where another one is nearby.  It’ll take you back.”

Stomach in knots, I weighed my options.  He could be lying, and just because he looked like me, it didn’t mean I could trust him or knew what he really was.  On the other hand, I had helped him, and he clearly wasn’t as surprised to see me as I was him, so he likely knew more about what was happening.  Maybe he really was trying to return the favor.

Taking a deep breath, I shook my head.  “I need to try upstairs first.  I’m not saying I don’t trust you, but this is all crazy and if it has a chance of working…like me doing the opposite of what I did to get here, then I should try before I go with you.”

A shadow passed over his face.  “Look, my family will be back any minute.  And once they see you, there’s no chance that you’re going anywhere.”

I shuddered slightly.  “What would they do?”

He shook his head.  “Nothing you’d like.”  He reached out and grabbed my arm.  “Neither of us can get caught again.  So you go if you want, but I can’t wait for you to try out something I know doesn’t work.”  My mirror twin sighed.  “Believe me, if it did, I’d have left a long time ago.”

I was about to agree to go with him when I paused.  “Wait.  If everything you’re saying is true, why didn’t you use the escape you’re taking me to ‘a long time ago’?”

The other boy grimaced and said nothing for a moment.  When he did speak, his voice was so…

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