The Mirror’s Curse

The Mirror’s Curse

✍️ Writer – Vijay Sharma Erry

The mirror loomed over them as they traversed the hallways of the abandoned mansion. It was rumored that no one came out alive from it.

The four friends—Rahul, Anshul, Kavya, and Tanvi—stood just beyond the decaying wooden gate of the mansion. The village they had passed through only an hour ago had been alive with whispers. Whispers of this place. Children had hidden behind the skirts of their mothers, the elderly had crossed themselves, and the shopkeeper had bluntly refused to give directions. Yet, Rahul had insisted.

“Come on,” he had said, his grin wide and confident, “we’re in the twenty-first century. Ghosts? Curses? Really?”

But now, standing at the threshold of the crumbling mansion, the air felt heavier. The vines crawled over the broken walls as though trying to strangle what remained. The broken windows stared like hollow eyes. The air smelled of dampness and decay.

Tanvi shivered. “I don’t like this place. It feels… wrong.”

Rahul smirked, adjusting his backpack. “That’s the point of exploring, isn’t it? The thrill.”

Anshul kicked the rusted gate open. It screeched and echoed through the vast, rotting halls. “Let’s get this over with. If there really is a haunted mirror, I want to see it. Then maybe I’ll finally believe in all this nonsense.”

Kavya hung back, her heart pounding. She had read about this mansion in her grandmother’s old diary once. The diary had warned of the Vishkara Mirror, a relic that was never meant to reflect the living. It was said the mirror was cursed by a betrayed woman whose soul had been bound within. But she hadn’t told her friends. They wouldn’t have believed her.

They walked deeper. Their torches sliced through the darkness, catching glimpses of shredded curtains, broken furniture, and portraits on the wall. The painted eyes of long-dead aristocrats seemed to follow them. Every step made the floor groan as though the house resented their intrusion.

Then they saw it.

At the end of the hallway stood the mirror. It was massive, reaching almost to the cracked ceiling. Its frame was made of wrought iron, twisted into grotesque shapes—faces screaming silently, hands stretching outward. The glass itself gleamed unnaturally, untouched by dust though the rest of the mansion was choked with it.

Tanvi gasped, stepping back. “That’s it. That’s the mirror.”

Rahul chuckled, walking toward it. “It’s just a piece of glass, Tanvi. Look at it, perfectly polished. Probably worth a fortune if we hauled it out of here.”

“Don’t!” Kavya shouted, surprising herself. Her voice cracked in the hollow corridor.

Everyone turned to her. Anshul frowned. “What’s with you?”

Kavya hesitated, but the memory of her grandmother’s shaky handwriting flashed in her mind. Do not meet your reflection in it. For the mirror shows not who you are, but who you will become. And once it knows you, it never lets you go.

She whispered, “My grandmother wrote about this mirror. It’s cursed. We shouldn’t even be here.”

Rahul rolled his eyes. “Grandmothers always have ghost stories. Watch this.” He stepped directly in front of the mirror and stared at his reflection.

The others followed his gaze.

For a moment, all seemed normal. Rahul’s tall frame, messy hair, cocky grin—all there. Then something shifted.

His reflection blinked.

But Rahul hadn’t.

Tanvi screamed. Kavya clutched her mouth. Anshul froze, eyes wide.

The reflection grinned wider than humanly possible, its lips stretching grotesquely, teeth too sharp, too many. Then the reflection raised its hand and tapped on the glass.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound echoed like a hammer against stone.

Rahul stumbled back. “What the hell—?”

Suddenly, the reflection slammed both palms against the inside of the glass, and cracks spiderwebbed across the mirror. A cold gust of wind burst from it, extinguishing their torches for a second. When the beams flickered back, Rahul’s reflection was gone.

Completely gone.

But the others were still there. Three reflections. Not four.

Tanvi turned pale. “Rahul’s reflection… it’s missing.”

Rahul laughed nervously, though his voice shook. “Maybe… maybe the glass is old. That’s all.”

But Kavya noticed something horrifying—Rahul’s shadow on the floor was faint. Too faint. It was fading.

“Your shadow!” she screamed.

Rahul looked down. His heart stopped. Where his shadow had stretched moments before, now only a blur remained. And then—nothing.

“No!” Rahul shouted, clutching his chest. But before the others could react, an invisible force grabbed him. His body jerked violently, and he was yanked toward the mirror. He clawed at the floor, leaving scratch marks on the rotting wood.

“Help me!” he screamed.

Anshul and Kavya lunged forward, grabbing his arms. The cold from the mirror stung their skin like frostbite. Tanvi screamed, pulling too, but the force was too strong. With a final, gut-wrenching scream, Rahul was sucked into the mirror.

The glass rippled like water. Then silence.

The friends fell back, panting, trembling. Kavya’s hands were bleeding from the effort. Tanvi sobbed uncontrollably.

And then they saw him.

Inside the mirror.

Rahul was standing there, pounding on the other side of the glass. His mouth moved, screaming their names, but no sound came out. His eyes were wide with terror, his fists bruised from striking the unyielding glass.

Anshul cursed. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t real!”

But it was.

The mirror shimmered again. Now, Rahul wasn’t alone. Behind him, dozens of figures pressed against the glass—men, women, children—all with hollow eyes, all trapped. Their faces were twisted in agony, their hands smeared against the other side.

Kavya whispered, trembling, “These… these are all the people who never came back.”

The temperature dropped. Their breaths came out in frosty clouds. The voices began then—a chorus of whispers, overlapping, clawing into their ears. Join us. Join us. Join us.

Tanvi collapsed, covering her ears. “Make it stop! Please, make it stop!”

The mirror pulsed with a faint red glow. Anshul, desperate and angry, grabbed a broken chair and hurled it at the mirror. The chair shattered into splinters, but the mirror remained untouched, not even a scratch. Instead, Rahul inside the glass screamed silently, as if the attempt had only caused him pain.

Then the mirror did something worse.

It shifted again, showing not their reflections, but their futures.

Kavya saw herself hanging lifeless in the mansion hallway, her eyes rolled back. Tanvi saw her own face pale and bloodied, screaming endlessly from inside the mirror. Anshul saw himself stabbing his own chest, over and over, as though controlled by invisible strings.

They staggered back, horrified.

Kavya whispered, “It’s showing us… how we die.”

Tanvi sobbed. “I want to go home. Please, I want to go home!”

But the door they had come from slammed shut with a thunderous bang.

The whispers grew louder. The figures inside the mirror clawed harder at the glass. And Rahul… Rahul’s eyes were no longer pleading. They were hollow, resigned. He was becoming one of them.

Anshul grabbed Kavya’s arm. “We need to break it. There has to be a way. If the curse is real, there must be something keeping it alive.”

Kavya remembered her grandmother’s words again. Do not meet your reflection in it… once it knows you, it never lets you go.

“What if… what if we don’t look into it?” she said.

But it was too late.

Tanvi, trembling, raised her head. The mirror caught her gaze. Her reflection smirked, stepping forward.

“No!” Kavya screamed, but Tanvi’s body jerked violently. She convulsed, her eyes turning white, and then she collapsed to the floor. Her reflection, however, remained standing in the glass, smiling cruelly.

“Tanvi!” Anshul dropped to his knees, shaking her. But her chest no longer rose. Her reflection laughed silently from inside the mirror, pressing her hands against the glass, alive in there while her body lay dead outside.

Kavya was choking back sobs. “We’re next. We’re all next.”

The whispers grew unbearable. Anshul, in blind rage, pulled a rusted iron rod from the floor and screamed, slamming it against the mirror. Again, nothing. Instead, his reflection raised its own rod and, with a grotesque grin, stabbed itself through the chest.

Anshul froze. Pain blossomed in his real chest. He looked down, horrified, as blood soaked his shirt. He dropped the rod, falling to his knees, gasping. “It’s… controlling me…” His eyes dimmed, his body fell, and his reflection dragged his soul into the glass.

Now only Kavya remained.

Her entire body shook as she backed away, the whispers digging into her skull. Join us. Join us.

The mirror now showed all of them—Rahul, Tanvi, Anshul—standing inside, reaching for her. Their lips formed the words, “Come, Kavya… it’s better here…”

Tears streamed down her face. “No. No, I won’t.”

She turned and ran down the hallway, stumbling, desperate for escape. Every door she tried was locked, every window barred with rusted iron. The mansion itself seemed alive, determined to trap her.

Finally, she reached the front gate again. She pulled with all her strength. The vines tightened, holding it shut. She screamed, clawing, tearing at them until her fingers bled.

Then she felt it. A cold hand on her shoulder.

She froze, too terrified to turn.

Slowly, she forced herself to look back.

It was her own reflection, standing behind her, outside of the mirror now. Its face was twisted, its eyes black voids. It leaned close and whispered in her own voice, “You can’t run from yourself.”

Kavya’s scream echoed through the mansion.

The next morning, the villagers found the gate ajar. Inside, the mansion was silent, as always. But the mirror…

The mirror now held four new figures. Rahul, Anshul, Tanvi, and Kavya—forever pressing their hands against the glass, screaming silently, waiting for the next visitor.

And the legend continued: no one who entered the mansion ever came out alive.

The mirror was always waiting.

✍️ Writer – Vijay Sharma Erry