At the center of a forgotten hotel, five floors above the lobby no one staffs, down a hallway that smells like cold perfume and dust, is a door that opens only when you stop looking for it.

It leads to the Mirror Room.

Every wall, floor, and ceiling is as you expect. Mirrored. But none reflect quite right.

They are not broken. Just . . . off. One mirror shows you blinking when you are not. Another shows you ten years younger. One, near the far wall, does not show you at all.

They say a girl lives in the Mirror Room. Not behind the mirrors . . . but within them. Not a ghost, not exactly. Something gentler. Something patient.

She appears only to the lonely.

So now you know.

She’s been seen brushing her hair in slow, rhythmic strokes, though the brush never moves through it. She sits on the edge of a reflection of a bed that doesn’t exist in the room you stand in. She smiles with a sadness too old for her face.

No one knows how long she’s been there. She never speaks.

But sometimes — sometimes — if you come in carrying a loss too large for your ribs, she will reach out from the mirror and touch your hand.

Just your hand.

And for a moment — all the pain, all the empty, all the unsaid things in your chest — become quiet. Not gone, but quiet. And shared. Like you’ve given her half the weight to hold.

But there is a price.

If you stay too long, your reflection changes. First subtly. A blink you didn’t blink. A breath out of sync. Then more: bruises on your arms that aren’t yours. Lips moving silently when yours are still.

You begin to feel the pull.

Not like drowning. More like . . . belonging.

Because the longer you stay, the more the mirrors begin to look like home. You start to believe that you were meant to be inside them — and the girl was the one outside all along.

And if you stay too long, you become the next one behind the glass. Watching. Waiting.

Until someone lonelier than you arrives.

And the girl who once held your hand . . . moves on.

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© Secret Agent Man
info@secretagentman.net