Chapter 13: The Mirror Feeds

I didn’t leave my apartment for days. Every reflective surface was covered. Foil. Paint. Sheets. But the mirror with teeth could not be covered. When I tried, the cloth caught fire.

I slept in the bathtub. Kept the lights on. But it still found ways in—reflections in my eye. In my thoughts. It fed on memory. On fear.

And every night at 3:17, the mirror widened.

Once, I dared to look in. I saw myself, but older. Thinner. Hollow. Whispering things I couldn’t hear. And behind me stood the house, doors wide open.

Sam was waving.

Chapter 14: Threshold

The next night, I didn’t sleep. I stood before the mirror with teeth, holding a knife.

“If you want me, take me,” I said.

The mirror didn’t answer.

I cut my palm and smeared the blood across the glass.

It swallowed it.

The teeth widened. And the mirror opened.

I stepped through.

The house was waiting.

Chapter 15: The Room With No Door

Inside, time folded. The hallway stretched endlessly, lined with mirrors that showed scenes I never lived—versions of me doing unspeakable things.

At the end was the attic.

I climbed the stairs again, older this time, slower. The door opened itself.

Inside was the chair. And in it… me.

He smiled. “We’ve been waiting.”

“Who’s we?”

The mirror on the wall shifted. And dozens of eyes blinked open across the glass.

Sam’s voice came from all of them.

“The house watches. The mirrors remember. And now, you belong to it.”

Chapter 16: Exitless

I ran. Or tried to. Every door led to another mirror. Every mirror led back to the attic.

There was no exit.

Only reflections.

Only versions of myself, waiting for their turn.

I screamed until my throat tore. But no one heard. Except the house.

And it was humming with joy.

Chapter 17: The Reflection That Stayed

In time, I stopped running. The mirrors no longer showed other lives. They showed only me.

Still.

Watching.

Sam never appeared again. But his voice lingered in the creaks of the walls, in the hum of the glass.

“You’re home now,” it said. “Home forever.”

And I understood. I wasn’t trapped.

I was chosen.

The house needed a watcher.

So I watched.

And waited.

Epilogue: The New Letter

The envelope was pale gray, stained in the corners.

No return address. No name. Just one line on the front:

“To the next one.”

Inside, a single sentence:

“Don’t go back to the house.”

On the back of the paper, barely visible, written in reverse:

“But you will.”