Listen i said "Some reflections are not ours. Some mirrors remember what we try to forget."
Now Ahaan stared at the cracked mirror, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
The girl was still there.
Standing.
Smiling.
But it wasn't a normal smile — it was crooked, like her face didn't quite know how to be human anymore. Her eyes were pale and empty, but they locked straight onto his. She didn't blink. Not once.
Ahaan took a step back.
The reflection didn't.
It took a step forward.
"Nope... nope... not normal," Ahaan whispered, his voice shaking.
He looked around the hallway of the old house. The peeling wallpaper, the broken chandelier above him, the smell of damp and rot — none of it felt real. It was too still. Too silent. Like the house was holding its breath.
He looked at the mirror again.
Now she was right at the glass.
Her hand pressed against it.
And suddenly...
CRACK!
The glass splintered — a thin spiderweb of cracks spread from where her palm had touched.
Ahaan jumped. "Okay. I'm out!"
He turned and ran back down the hall — but the house had changed.
Where the front door had been, there was now only wallpaper. No exit. No handle. No way out.
"What the—"
He turned back. The mirror was gone. So was the hallway.
He was now standing in a room he didn't remember walking into. It was a bedroom. The curtains were drawn shut, though there was no light behind them. A single old bed sat in the middle of the room, its mattress ripped open like claws had torn through it. Dolls were scattered across the floor — not cute ones, but broken, old porcelain dolls with missing eyes and twisted smiles.
The kind that stare even when you're not looking.
He stepped forward, careful not to trip on one.
That's when he saw it.
The mirror was back — but this time, it stood behind him.
He saw his own reflection.
And then he saw hers — standing just behind his shoulder.
He spun around.
Nothing.
He looked back at the mirror.
She was still there.
But now... she was smiling wider.
And in her hand?
A lock of black hair.
Ahaan's hair.
He screamed and backed into the corner, heart pounding so loud it echoed in his ears. "This has to be a dream," he whispered. "This isn't real!"
But the cold... the smell... the sound of her laughter?
Too real.
Way too real.
The book — the strange black book — fell from his bag and slid open on the floor beside him. Its pages flipped on their own, fast, like they were being blown by invisible fingers.
Then it stopped.
A new entry had appeared.
CASE FILE: The Girl in the Mirror.
Name: Meera.
Age: 13.
Status: Trapped Between Worlds.
Cause: Obsession With Reflections.
Warning: Do Not Let Her Cross Through. If She Does, She Will Replace You.
"Replace me?" Ahaan whispered. His eyes widened.
Suddenly, everything clicked.
She wasn't just a ghost.
She was looking for a way out.
And she needed him to do it.
He glanced at the mirror. Her hands were now pressed fully against the glass. Her smile had disappeared. Now she looked angry.
The room grew colder. Frost began to creep up the mirror's frame. The dolls on the floor started to move — just slightly, their heads tilting toward him, like they were watching.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Ahaan looked around.
The sound was coming from the mirror. A clock? No. Not a clock.
A heartbeat.
HERS.
She was waking up fully.
Ahaan remembered the rules — "Do not engage without caution."
But what was he supposed to do?
Run? Trapped.
Hide? Useless.
Talk to her?
No choice.
He stood up slowly. "Meera?" he called, voice cracking. "Why are you here?"
The figure in the mirror blinked for the first time.
"You saw me," she whispered. Her voice was soft and broken, like a song on an old record. "So now I can come with you."
"No," Ahaan said. "You're not supposed to be here."
She tilted her head.
"You saw the mirror. That's how it works. The first to look... gets replaced."
Her hand pushed harder against the glass.
And it began to bend.
Not crack — bend.
Like the mirror was made of soft jelly. Like the rules of reality were warping.
Ahaan backed away. "Stop!"
The book flipped again. A line appeared in blood-red ink.
To trap her again: Burn the glass. Seal the frame. Speak her name three times.
"Burn it?! With what?! I don't have—"
His eyes fell on a box of matches lying near the old bedside table.
He didn't even stop to think.
He dove for it, grabbed a broken leg from one of the dolls, wrapped an old curtain around it, and lit it with the match.
The makeshift torch flared to life.
The girl in the mirror screamed — not loud, but sharp. High-pitched. Like nails scratching the inside of Ahaan's skull.
She pushed harder against the glass.
Her hand started to slide through.
He didn't wait.
He lunged at the mirror and pressed the fire to the frame.
The wood sizzled. Smoke filled the room.
"Meera," he shouted. "Meera! Meera!"
With each name, the mirror cracked.
Then—
BOOM!
The mirror shattered, exploding into tiny pieces. A cold gust of wind blew through the room. The dolls fell over. The lights flickered and died.
Silence.
Darkness.
And then...
A slow whisper.
"Thank you…"
He didn't know if it came from the mirror, or from the space where she used to be. But it didn't sound angry anymore.
It sounded... sad.
Ahaan opened his eyes.
He was back in the fog-filled forest. The Whisper Realm.
The man in the coat stood nearby.
"Well done," he said. "You survived your first legend."
Ahaan looked at the book. One page now glowed softly.
"But she was just a kid," Ahaan said. "What happened to her?"
The man didn't answer.
He only said, "Some stories don't end. They just wait."
And with that, the book flipped to its next page:
Then 2nd case The Train That Never Stoped
It will be next