The mirror arrived on a Tuesday morning, wrapped in thick cloth and carried carefully by two movers. No one feared it then. To the owner, it was simply a rare antique meant to give the building character. He collected old things—heavy tables, chipped cups, brass lamps—objects that seemed to outlast their makers. Only later did we understand that it was not just an antique but a haunted mirror, shaped more by where it stood than by what it was.
It stood taller than a person, built to face the human body head-on. Dark wood framed it, dense and old, carved with looping patterns that almost seemed to repeat if you stared too long. When I brushed my fingers along the edge, the wood felt warmer than the air. The apartment block smelled of fresh paint and plaster dust, yet the mirror carried a faint scent of something older, like a room that had been closed too long.
My friend Elias paused when he first saw it. He studied history. He noticed places more than people. He touched the carvings once, then pulled his hand back as if he had pressed against skin instead of wood.
“I don’t like how it looks back,” he said.
I laughed. I wish I hadn’t.
Life in a Newly Renovated Apartment
The building reopened with quiet excitement. Tenants moved in quickly, drawn by clean halls and smooth elevators. Light bounced neatly off the glass doors. Footsteps echoed softly in stairwells that still smelled of varnish.
In the lobby, the mirror faced the entrance. It caught everyone who walked in.
Elias moved in early to help catalog the antiques. I visited often, bringing coffee and complaints about work. At first, nothing seemed wrong.
Then one evening, while washing my hands in the ground-floor restroom, I blinked.
My reflection blinked a moment later.
It was small—barely noticeable. I stared at myself and blinked again. This time it matched. I told myself I was tired.
When I mentioned it, Elias did not laugh. He raised his hand slowly in front of the lobby mirror. His reflection followed, but not perfectly. There was a breath of delay, thin as a held sigh.
“Do it again,” he said.
We did.
The lag returned.
The Haunted Mirror Begins to Change
Over the next few days, the delay grew easier to see. Bathroom mirrors hesitated. Elevator panels reflected us just behind ourselves. Even the polished metal of the mailboxes held onto our movements a fraction too long.
Outside the building, everything worked normally. In shop windows across the street, our reflections moved with us. Inside, something was wrong.
Residents complained of headaches and dizziness. One woman said she felt watched when she brushed her teeth. A man on the third floor started covering his bathroom mirror with a towel at night.
Elias began keeping notes. He wrote down times. Locations. Small details. He stopped sleeping well.
One afternoon, a tenant collapsed in her bathroom. She was breathing but would not wake. Doctors found no injury, no illness. A week later, another resident fell near the elevator mirrors. Same condition. No explanation.
Fear settled into the halls like dust.
Elias taped a floor plan to his wall and marked each incident. The pattern was not neat. It did not explain itself. But every mark sat within the building’s walls.
He tried something reckless once. He struck a small hallway mirror with a metal paperweight.
The glass shattered.
Nothing changed.
That night, the delay in the lobby mirror felt longer.
Research and the Shape of the Truth
Elias searched estate records and old auction listings tied to the original mirror. The history came in fragments, not answers.
A wealthy man once owned it. His wife left him. His parents died soon after. Years later, he was found in a room alone with the mirror, the doors locked from inside.
There were no details about what he saw before he died.
Elias stopped pretending this was about faulty wiring or stress. He spoke less, watched more. Sometimes I caught him standing in front of the lobby mirror without moving at all, waiting to see who would move first.
“It’s not killing them,” he said one night. “It’s keeping them.”
I told him to stop. I told him we could leave, that this was not our problem. He shook his head.
“Some things don’t let you leave,” he said quietly.
Breaking the Haunted Mirror
The third collapse happened on a rainy evening. The lobby lights flickered. The mirror’s surface looked deeper than glass should allow.
Elias stood in front of it and did not step away.
“I grew up learning how to disappear,” he said. “If something has to stay behind, it should be me.”
I grabbed his arm. He pulled free.
For a moment, his reflection did not copy him. It stood straighter. Then it aligned, almost reluctantly.
The air felt heavy, pressing inward.
“Now,” he said.
I swung the hammer.
The mirror cracked with a dull, exhausted sound. Glass folded inward instead of outward. The carvings split. A sharp pressure burst through the lobby and vanished just as quickly.
Elias collapsed at my feet.
His eyes were open. They did not see me.
Doctors called it a coma. They used calm voices and careful words. The other residents woke over the next few days, confused but alive. The mirrors inside the building behaved normally again.
Tenants moved out. New ones moved in.
I still visit Elias. I tell him the building feels lighter now. Sometimes I wonder if that is true or just something I need to believe.
Late at night, when I stand in front of my own mirror, I move slowly.
Just to be sure it follows.
It always does.
I was the one holding the hammer. That part never leaves me. Even now, when I blink, I wait—just in case something decides to blink after me.