The Mirror Room

Warning: This story contains themes of mental health struggles, psychological trauma, implied violence, and intense emotional distress.

I awoke in a house that wasn’t mine, the air dense with ash and a sharp, acrid tang that lingered at the back of my throat—sulphur, though I couldn’t fathom why. My name is Elias, but the thought felt brittle, as though spoken by another’s tongue. My twin, Ezra, was dead—or so I believed, the memory a raw wound with no clear form. A scream, blood pooling on a floor, my hands trembling, slick with something warm. The details slipped away, like water through cracked glass. I stood in a hallway that stretched too far, its polished wood gleaming under a light that never flickered, never dimmed. Mirrors lined the walls, tall and narrow, their surfaces rippling faintly, as if breathing. My reflection stared back, but it wasn’t alone. A second shadow flickered behind me, split and doubled, moving when I didn’t. I turned, heart lurching, but the hall was empty, the air heavy and warm.

A man stood at the far end, tall and pale, his suit crisp as a freshly honed blade. His smile was too wide, too perfect, showing too many teeth. “Elias,” he said, his voice smooth as oil, pooling in the silence, warm but edged with rot. “Welcome. I’m your Guide. This is a place of healing, a retreat for your… recovery.” His eyes, grey as storm clouds, held mine too long, unblinking, and the air stung with sulphur, faint but undeniable. I didn’t recall arriving. The last thing I remembered was Ezra’s face—pale, eyes wide with terror, his hands raised as if warding off a threat. Then nothing. A void where memory should have been, aching like a bruise.

“Follow me,” the Guide murmured, gliding towards a staircase that spiralled into shadow. His steps made no sound, as if he didn’t quite touch the floor. My own footsteps echoed, too loud, the sound bouncing wrongly, as if the house were mocking me, throwing my presence back in my face. A clock on the wall read 3:17, its hands frozen, the second hand twitching but never advancing. I blinked, and it still read 3:17, the numbers sharp and unyielding. Down the hall, a woman in a grey dress passed, her face blank, her lips moving slowly, deliberately: Don’t trust him. Her eyes locked on mine, wide and urgent, before she vanished around a corner, like a frame skipped in a broken film. A child’s voice whispered from nowhere, sharp and piercing: “He’s lying.” I spun, my pulse hammering, but the hall was empty, the mirrors reflecting only me—and that second shadow, always there, just out of reach.

The Guide didn’t pause, didn’t turn, just smiled that same wide smile as he led me deeper into the house. The air grew warmer, the sulphur smell stronger, curling in my lungs like smoke. Doors lined the hall, some ajar, revealing glimpses of rooms that defied sense—furniture upside down, windows showing a sky too red, too still. I passed a table with a vase of flowers, their petals blackened, curling inward, yet they smelt sickly sweet, like decay masked by perfume. The Guide’s voice broke my thoughts. “You’ve endured so much, Elias. Here, we’ll mend what’s broken.” His words were gentle, but they felt like fingers tightening round my throat, each syllable laced with something unspoken.

The “therapy room” was stark, all white walls and a single wooden chair that creaked under my weight, the sound too loud in the sterile silence. The Guide sat across from me, a notebook in his lap, its pages pristine, untouched by ink. He held no pen, but his fingers twitched as if tracing letters in the air. “Tell me of Ezra,” he said, his voice a lullaby with thorns, soft but piercing, each word sinking into me. I tried to recall, but the images came in shards, jagged and misaligned: Ezra’s hands raised, warding off something unseen; blood pooling on a floor, dark and slick, spreading too fast; a scream that might have been his or mine, or both, echoing in a room I couldn’t place. The memory flickered, warped, like a tape played backwards, the frames stuttering. Was Ezra afraid of me? Or something else? Something worse?

The Guide leaned closer, his breath hot, carrying a faint rot that made my stomach churn. “Cease peering into the past, Elias. Embrace the weight you carry. It’s the only path forward.” His eyes glinted, sharp as flint, and for a moment, I thought I saw them flicker red, just a flash, gone when I blinked.

“Weight?” My voice cracked, thin and unsteady, barely mine. “I don’t even know what happened.”

“You chose,” he whispered, his smile curling like smoke, his words coiling tighter. “The choice is yours, even if it lies buried.”

I left the room, my head heavy, the walls seeming to shift when I wasn’t looking. Doors appeared where none had been, then vanished when I reached for them. The hallway looped, bringing me back to the same clock—3:17, always 3:17. I wandered, restless, the house a maze that seemed to breathe, its walls pulsing faintly. In a dusty room, I found a child’s drawing pinned to a wall: two stick figures, identical, holding hands. One had red eyes, scratched in with angry crayon strokes, the lines so deep they tore the paper. The drawing smelt of sulphur, sharp and choking. I blinked, and it was gone, the wall blank. But for a moment, I saw the word LIAR etched into the plaster, the letters jagged, fading as if the house had swallowed them. A clock in the corner read 3:17, its hands still. A whisper came again, that child’s voice, urgent: “He’s lying.” My skin crawled, the air too warm, too thick.

I found a room of mirrors by chance, a door at the end of a hall that hadn’t been there before. Inside, mirrors covered every surface—walls, floor, ceiling—reflecting me into infinity, a thousand Elias faces staring back. But it wasn’t just me. Ezra stood in one reflection, alive, his face pale, his eyes desperate, his lips moving in silence: Wake up. I reached for the glass, and it rippled, warm under my fingers, like living skin. My reflection wavered, and for a moment, I saw two shadows again, one with eyes that burned red. The Guide appeared behind me, his reflection wrong—eyes too red, smile too sharp, wings of scorched bone flickering at his back, their edges trailing ash. “This place is not for you,” he murmured, his voice low, vibrating through the floor, each word a weight. The room shuddered, the mirrors trembling.

A woman entered, her face blank, her voice flat: “Dinner is at six.” She left, then returned, saying the same words, then again, three times, a loop that made my head spin. The air grew hotter, the sulphur smell choking now. Then, a glitch: light poured from nowhere, blinding, and a figure appeared—tall, radiant, its face blurred like a smudged painting, its presence warm, alive. “This is not real,” it whispered, its voice clear as a bell, cutting through the haze. “You are not alone.” The Guide’s voice boomed, “No more!” and the figure vanished, erased like a fault in code, the light snuffed out. The air smelt of fire, but there was no smoke, only heat. A door in the corner was labelled EXIT, its letters carved deep, but it wouldn’t budge. Behind it, I heard voices, garbled, speaking backwards, a hymn that twisted my gut, the words wrong, unholy.

I fled, my heart pounding, the mirrors following me, their reflections shifting, showing glimpses of Ezra, of blood, of my own hands holding a knife. I found the Guide in the therapy room, his notebook open to a page that stopped my breath: SUBJECT: HOST CONFIRMED – GUILT LOOP ACTIVE. The words were scrawled in red, the ink wet, dripping. “What is this?” I demanded, my voice shaking, barely holding together. “What are you doing to me?”

His smile faltered, and in the mirror behind him, I saw it: red eyes, fangs glinting, a shadow that burned like coal, wings of ash unfurling. “You’re mending,” he said, his voice distorted, guttural, like a growl from deep within the earth. The room shifted, walls bending, the air thick with heat, the sulphur choking now. Memories flooded back, unbidden, sharp as glass: Ezra screaming, “It’s him—it’s not me!” My hands, slick with blood, holding a knife, raised to strike. But before that, the Guide’s voice in my ear, whispering, He’s the liar. He’s the threat. Hallucinations of Ezra’s betrayal, lies planted in my mind, twisting my thoughts until I believed my twin was my enemy. I saw it now—the Guide’s words, his presence, driving me to act, to raise the blade.

“This isn’t mending,” I said, stepping back, my voice steadying. “This is torment.”

The Guide laughed, a sound like cracking stone, the room trembling with it. “Torment is merely a mirror, Elias. You’ve always been here.”

The mirrors were everywhere now, the house collapsing into a kaleidoscope of glass, reflecting a thousand fractured versions of me, of Ezra, of the Guide. He stood at the centre, shedding his mask, his skin splitting like burned paper, revealing something vast and terrible—eyes blazing red, wings of ash and bone unfurling, a presence that filled the air with fire and rot, the sulphur so thick I could taste it. “You thought me apart from you,” he hissed, his voice slithering through my skull, my veins, my thoughts, as if he’d always been there. “I’ve worn you, Elias. I drove the blade through Ezra with your hand. This is my tale, my loop, my cage for you.” He’d twisted my mind, made me believe Ezra was the enemy, driven my hand to raise the knife. The guilt was his design, a chain to trap me forever in this purgatory of mirrors and lies.

But light broke through, sharp and blinding, splitting the mirrors like lightning through a storm. A figure emerged—radiant, its form blurred but warm, its presence a counterpoint to the Guide’s darkness. Its voice was a chorus of bells, clear and unshaken. “You are not lost,” it said, and the air cleared, the sulphur fading, the heat lifting. Ezra appeared in every shattered mirror, alive, his hand reaching for mine, his eyes steady, unafraid. “Fight him,” he mouthed, his voice breaking through, faint but real. A symbol burned in the air—two circles, joined, glowing like a promise, like a vow unbroken. God’s hand, not the Devil’s, held me now.

The Guide screamed, his devilish features now fully formed, a sound that shook the house, his form fraying, wings crumbling to ash, his red eyes dimming. “No!” he roared, but the light grew, swallowing his shadow, the mirrors cracking one by one, their shards falling like rain. The house trembled, walls dissolving, the sulphur gone, the clocks ticking at last, their hands advancing. Ezra stood before me, whole, his hand gripping mine, warm and solid. “You didn’t kill me,” he said, his voice soft but certain, cutting through the haze of guilt. “He tried, but I was saved. We both were.”

The light enveloped us, warm and endless, the house crumbling into dust, the mirrors gone, the air clean, smelling of grass and sky. We stepped out into a world that felt real again—green underfoot, a breeze carrying the scent of earth, not ash. The sky stretched wide, blue and alive, no longer red, no longer still. The Devil’s loop was broken, his lies burned away, his cage shattered.

The Devil ever hungers for truth, weaving cages from guilt and shadow, whispering lies to bind the soul. But this time, the truth was spared, and so were we.