Chapter One: The Last Words
The rain had not stopped for three days.
It drummed softly against the tin roof of the old house, as if nature itself mourned with him. Inside, the boy sat beside his grandmother's bed, his small hands clasped around hers—thin, pale, and trembling. Her breath came in shallow whispers, and her eyes, once sharp with mischief and stories, now stared past the ceiling, as though she saw something he could not.
He had lost his mother years ago, taken by a silence no one dared explain. Now, the only person who ever truly loved him was slipping away too.
"Listen to me, child," she rasped, her voice fragile as cobwebs. "In the east wing… the mirror… do not go near it."
He frowned. "The mirror?"
"The Mirror of Duties," she said, and her eyes suddenly focused—sharp, almost afraid. "It does not forget. And it never forgives."
A chill crept down his spine.
"Promise me," she whispered. "Never touch it. Never speak to it. Never answer it. Or go near it."
Then her grip loosened. Her eyes dimmed. And the boy was alone.
He didn't cry. Not yet. Because somewhere in the quiet walls of the old house, something unseen had heard.
And it was waiting.
The promise still echoed in his heart.
He had whispered it through trembling lips as his grandmother took her final breath: "I won't go near the mirror." He meant it, too—because something in her eyes that day was stronger than sickness. It was fear.
But promises are hard to hold onto when the world feels stacked against you.
After the funeral, everything changed. His father, worn down by grief and work, barely spoke. His new wife—cold and sharp-eyed—seemed to notice the boy only when she needed something cleaned, carried, or thrown away.
"Mop the floor again," she'd snap, even when it was already clean.
"Why is there a speck on the window?"
"Don't you dare speak unless spoken to."
The boy tried not to cry. His grandmother had taught him never to waste tears on cruelty.
At school, things weren't much better. His glasses were thick, and if they slid down his nose even a little, the world blurred into cruel smudges of light. That's when they struck—five boys, every day. They pushed him, tripped him, stole his lunch. Their leader was Leo, a thick-bodied brute with small, mocking eyes and a laugh like thunder.
"Hey, Four-Eyes," Leo sneered one morning, slamming the boy's books to the floor. "Did you clean your stepmom's shoes with your tongue today?"
The others roared with laughter.
The boy bent down, silent, retrieving his papers as best he could. If he said anything, they'd only hurt him more.
No one stood up for him. No one even looked his way. In every room, he was invisible—except to those who needed something from him, or wanted someone to blame.
But deep in the house, behind a locked door in the east wing, the mirror waited.
It had heard the boy's name.
And sometimes, when the house was quiet and the boy passed that end of the hallway…
…it whispered.
The house was quiet when the boy reached home.
No voice called out to demand chores. No footsteps echoed in the hall. His stepmother and father were gone—or so he thought.
But behind him, the sound of laughter returned like a shadow.
Leo and his gang had followed him.
"You live here?" one of them sneered. "Figures."
The boy tried to close the door, but they barged in—pushing, shoving, laughing like they owned the place. They kicked off their shoes, knocked over a chair, opened drawers like they belonged there.
"This place is haunted," one of them joked. "What if the dead grandma's ghost comes out and cooks us some rice?"
"Shut up," Leo snapped, but his grin was wide. "Let's see what the little rat's hiding upstairs."
The boy begged them to leave, but they didn't listen. They never listened.
Just as they reached the stairs, a sound stilled them all—a whisper. A woman's voice. Slurred, low, teasing.
The boy's heart dropped.
It was his stepmother. She was outside—with a man. Not his father.
The front door rattled.
"Quick!" the boy hissed. "Upstairs—now!"
They darted to the top floor, ducking into the old storage room tucked beneath the attic roof. The air was thick with dust and old things—trunks, crates, broken furniture, and boxes of memories long forgotten.
Then someone pulled a sheet off something tall, dark, and silent.
A mirror.
Leo froze.
The frame was old, almost alive—its carvings twisted into strange shapes, like vines choking one another. Across the top, in faded gold letters:
THE MIRROR OF DUTIES
It didn't reflect the room. It reflected nothing.
Leo stepped closer. The others didn't speak.
The boy's breath caught. "Don't… don't touch it."
Leo turned, grinning. "Why? Scared of glass? Or scared of what it'll show?"
He shoved the boy's shoulder.
"Your grandma told you not to come near it, huh? What's she gonna do—haunt me?"
The boy stumbled back, but stayed between Leo and the mirror. "She told me to never go near it. It's not just a mirror."
Leo's grin faded just a little.
Then the cloth—half-hanging—slipped.
The glass shimmered like water.
The mirror pulsed.
A wind rose in the room though no window was open.
Leo reached for the boy to shove him again—harder this time. Maybe into the mirror. Maybe just to scare him.
But the boy grabbed Leo's shirt to keep from falling—
—and the glass swallowed them both.
There was no sound.
No scream.
No floor.
Just a flicker of light.
And they were gone.