The Whispering Room – Part Three: The Mirror World

 

 The Whispering Room 

 Part Three: The Mirror World

Lina stood frozen.

The broken mirror behind her faded into smoke, and the house around her twisted like melting wax. She tried to scream, but no sound came out.

She wasn’t in the real world anymore.

She was in the Mirror World.

It looked like her house but darker. Wrong. The windows were covered in shadows that moved like fog. The walls whispered. The clocks ticked backward.

And the worst part?

She was not alone.

Figures stood in corners. Pale people. Boys and girls with blank eyes and stitched lips. Some crawled on the ceiling. Some dragged chains behind them. All of them were like Lina trapped reflections of those who had been replaced.

One girl reached out to Lina and whispered:

“She took your place too?”

Lina nodded.

The girl whispered again, “Then there’s still time.”

The girl’s name was Eliza. She had been trapped 50 years ago.

She explained the Mirror World was like a prison for souls stolen by a demon called Nyra a spirit that used mirrors to steal bodies and live forever.

Every time Nyra escaped a mirror, someone else had to take her place.

But Lina had done something different. She had escaped without using a mirror.

Which meant: the prison was unstable. The rules were breaking.

If Lina could find the First Mirror, deep inside the core of this world, she could destroy it and release every soul inside.

But Nyra was hunting her.

Lina followed Eliza through a twisted forest of broken mirrors. She saw herself in every one screaming, crying, aging, dying.

Each mirror showed a version of her that could have been.

One showed her growing old in the locked room.

Another showed her burning in the fire that destroyed the house 20 years ago.

And in the largest mirror, she saw something worse:

Her parents.

Tied to chairs.

Their mouths sewn shut.

A shadow stood behind them.

It was “Lina” the fake one.

Nyra.

Eliza screamed, “She’s using your body to hurt them!”

Lina had no time left.

They ran through halls made of broken glass. Mirrors shattered behind them as shadow creatures chased them the Mirror Guards, souls completely lost to the darkness.

Eliza was caught.

She screamed, “GO! FIND THE FIRST MIRROR!”

Lina ran into a final room lit by blue fire.

In the center: a huge, ancient mirror with symbols carved into the frame.

The First Mirror.

She saw her real self in the glass tired, scared... but strong.

She raised the hammer the little boy had given her.

One hit.

Cracks.

Two hits.

The glass glowed red.

Three hits

BOOM.

The Mirror World exploded in white light.

Lina opened her eyes.

She was back in her house.

Sunlight.

Warmth.

She ran downstairs. Her parents turned and smiled.

“Morning, sweetheart.”

Everything felt normal.

Until she walked past a mirror...

...and saw Eliza’s face staring back at her.

Then she heard Eliza’s voice whisper in her head:

“We escaped... but only one of us gets to stay.”

Lina turned and saw her reflection smile with someone else’s eyes.