It was 2:43 a.m. when I woke up to the mirror humming.
Not creaking. Not cracking. Humming.
Low and steady, like a vibration echoing through the bones of the house. At first I thought it was the air conditioner. But no, the room was too still. Too cold. I felt the chill on my bare arms despite the silk blankets wrapped around me.
The full-length mirror across the room was no longer reflecting the bedroom.
It was reflecting a hallway.
Not mine. Not even part of this house, as far as I knew.
I stared at it, heart pounding, and did what no sane person would do.
I got out of bed and walked closer.
The second I crossed the carpet, the temperature dropped. My breath fogged up. The glass surface shimmered—not like a reflection, but like a liquid membrane—and then, without any warning, my hand went through it.
My fingers disappeared into the cold.
I yanked it back with a sharp gasp.
"Okay. Okay, nope. Nope times a thousand."
I stepped back, about to scream for help—maybe for Aaryan, maybe for whoever would believe me—but then… I heard it.
A voice.
From inside the mirror.
"Alya."
I froze.
"Anaya?" I whispered.
The hallway in the mirror flickered—once, twice—and then the girl appeared.
Same face.
Same lips.
Same eyes.
But not my sister.
The smile was wrong. Too wide. Too hollow. And her eyes—God, her eyes were all pupil. No whites. Like she'd stared too long into the dark and became part of it.
"Come in," she said softly. "You'll see everything he won't tell you."
My feet moved before my brain caught up. One step. Then another. The mirror's surface turned completely silver, like a gate opening—
"Alya!"
The shout snapped me out of it.
Aaryan was at the door, chest rising fast, eyes wild. He stormed into the room and yanked me back just as my fingertips brushed the surface.
The mirror screamed.
I didn't even know glass could scream. But it did—like a hundred voices crying out all at once. The surface shattered inward, but didn't fall. It just cracked like ice and held.
Aaryan pulled me to the bed, his hands on my shoulders.
"Did she speak to you?" he asked, deadly serious.
"Who?"
"The girl. In the mirror."
"I thought it was—" I choked. "I thought it was my sister."
"It wasn't."
His grip tightened. "If you'd gone in, you wouldn't have come back out."
"What is that thing?"
He didn't answer right away.
Instead, he looked at the broken-glass surface and said quietly, "A mirror that remembers. It doesn't show reflections. It shows what you want the most—and feeds on it."
I stared at him.
"What do you see in it?" I whispered.
His jaw clenched. "My mother."
The silence wrapped around us like fog.
He stood slowly. "You're not ready yet."
"For what?"
"To know what happened to your sister."
I stood too. "Then make me ready."
He looked at me for a long, long time. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his kurta and pulled out a key. Small. Silver. Engraved with a strange symbol—like an eye with a teardrop.
"This unlocks a room on the third floor," he said. "The room only opens at dawn."
"What's inside?"
"Memories."
"And what's the catch?"
He didn't blink. "You'll lose something."
"Like what?"
He turned toward the broken mirror and whispered, "Depends what you're not ready to let go of."
—
I didn't sleep the rest of the night.
Instead, I sat by the window watching the stars disappear, one by one.
I held the key in my palm until the metal warmed to my skin.
And I kept thinking of that not-Anaya girl in the mirror. How her voice was soft, almost sweet.
But her eyes?
Her eyes were hungry.
And she knew my name.