The door closed behind Evelyn before she could change her mind.
It was not a gentle closing — it was final, heavy, sealing her inside as if the house itself had decided she was no longer allowed to leave. The sound of it echoed through the hollow corridors of Ashford Manor, fading slowly into silence.
She stood still for a long time. The air felt wrong here. Not just cold — but thick, like the room itself was holding its breath. She could feel the weight of it on her chest as she lifted the lantern. The flame flickered, the glass trembling in her shaking hand.
The room was nearly empty.
The light reached the far corners only barely, revealing cracked walls, warped floorboards, and what looked like faint carvings — lines spiraling into strange patterns that twisted around the entire chamber. They didn't look random. They looked intentional.
Her voice, small and unsteady, broke the silence."Hello…?"
It came back to her a second later, distorted — as though the walls had repeated it.
She froze.
Then, from the far end of the room, came the faintest sound. Not footsteps. Not breathing. Something else. Something soft, like the shifting of fabric or the rustle of paper.
She took a step closer, the lantern's glow quivering across the floor. There was a circle carved into the center of the wood — a perfect ring, filled with smaller lines and symbols she couldn't understand. They were old, older than the house itself, she thought. And in the center lay…
She blinked.
It wasn't an object. It was a shape. A shadow.
At first, she thought it was just a trick of the light — the lantern's flame playing against uneven floorboards. But then it moved.
Evelyn's heart stumbled in her chest.
The shadow didn't belong to her.
She turned slowly, her breath quickening. Nothing was behind her. Only the wall. She looked back down. The shape was gone.
The whisper returned — low this time, almost too faint to catch."You shouldn't have come."
The lantern sputtered.
"No…" she whispered. "Who's there?"
There was no answer. Only a faint humming, so deep it made her teeth ache.
Then — tap.
She turned sharply. Something had touched the lantern glass. It left a smudge — five marks, faint and human-like, as though a hand had brushed against it from the inside.
Her fingers went numb.
She wanted to run, to get out, but the door was gone. She could see the place where it had been, but now it was just more wall. Smooth, unbroken, and pulsing faintly beneath the peeling paint — like it had a heartbeat.
Evelyn stumbled back, pressing her hand against her chest. Her mind was racing now — fragments of what the caretaker in the village had said flashing through her memory: Don't go near the Hollow Room. That's where it breathes.
She hadn't believed him.
Now she understood.
The air shifted again. The walls began to hum — low, rhythmic, alive. The lantern light flared, revealing something that hadn't been there before. A mirror.
Tall. Gilded. Its frame blackened by time.
Evelyn's reflection stared back at her, pale and terrified. The same mirror she'd seen in the bedroom upstairs. But how could it be here?
Her reflection blinked.
She hadn't.
Her throat tightened. She took one hesitant step closer, the wooden floor groaning beneath her feet.
The reflection smiled.
Evelyn stopped breathing. The smile spread, slow and deliberate — too wide, too sharp. And then the reflection moved closer, until its face filled the mirror.
The glass began to fog.
Her name formed there, scrawled by an invisible hand: EVELYN.
Her pulse pounded so hard it made her vision swim."No. No, this isn't real."
She stumbled backward, nearly dropping the lantern.
The whisper came again, now from everywhere — the walls, the floor, inside her head."You opened the door. You invited us."
The mirror cracked. Just a hairline at first, then branching, spreading like lightning. With each fracture, the reflection twisted — the smile becoming a snarl, the eyes hollowing out.
"Stop…" she whispered. "Please stop…"
But the cracks reached the edges, and the mirror shattered inward.
Instead of falling, the shards floated. Each piece reflected her — but not her. Each showed a different version: one with empty sockets, one screaming, one whispering words she couldn't hear. The pieces spun around her like fragments of thought breaking apart.
Then the lantern died.
Darkness swallowed the room whole.
Evelyn stood still, trembling, her breath coming in quick, shallow gasps. She could hear something moving again — closer this time, crawling across the floor. It sounded wet, dragging, slow.
She forced herself to move, reaching blindly through the dark. Her hand brushed the wall — but it wasn't wood anymore. It was soft. It pulsed beneath her touch, warm and slick.
A sound escaped her — not a scream, not a sob, something caught in between.
Then, faintly, she saw it: the circle on the floor, glowing faintly red. The markings pulsed, and within that light something began to rise.
A figure.
Not solid, not entirely. Its body flickered like a shadow caught in a windless flame. Its face… she couldn't see its face. Only the outline of one — and beneath it, a mouth that wasn't open but stretching, as though trying to remember how.
When it spoke, it didn't use one voice. It used many."You heard us. You came."
Evelyn backed away until her shoulders hit the wall."I—I didn't mean to. I was just—"
"You were chosen."
The figure's outline began to shift. Now there were more of them — shapes crawling out of the dark corners, each dragging long shadows behind them. Some stood, some crawled, some hung from the ceiling as though the gravity in the room had changed. Their whispers overlapped, building into something like a chant.
The light from the circle grew brighter. The room felt smaller. The air vibrated in her lungs. She couldn't tell if she was breathing or if the house was breathing through her.
The voices rose again:"She entered the hollow. She broke the seal. She belongs."
The figure in the center lifted its hand. The symbols on the walls blazed red, and the light carved deep lines into her vision. She closed her eyes — but the images were still there, burned against the inside of her eyelids. Faces. Countless faces, screaming in silence.
When she opened her eyes, she was not in the room anymore.
She stood in a hallway — but not one she recognized. The walls were black, the floor glistening with some mirror-like sheen. The air shimmered faintly, bending the light. She could hear the same whispering all around her, muffled now, distant but constant — like an ocean roaring behind a wall.
She tried to walk, but the hallway stretched. The farther she went, the longer it became. The doors she passed were endless. Every handle she tried was cold and unmovable.
When she looked back, there was no door at all.
Evelyn's breath quickened. The whisper grew clearer now."Evelyn… turn around."
She froze.
The voice was her own.
She turned slowly, her lantern trembling in her hands.
At the far end of the hall stood her reflection — the same as before, the smile carved across her face. Behind it, the shadows moved like water.
"You're not me," Evelyn whispered.
The reflection tilted its head. "I wasn't. Once."
And then it began to walk toward her.
Evelyn turned and ran.
The hallway folded. The walls stretched, bending inward, forming a spiral. She kept running, but the light behind her grew brighter — her reflection chasing, its footsteps echoing with hers.
The whispers became laughter now. Not cruel — almost delighted.
When she stumbled, she fell through the floor.
She didn't hit the ground. She hit silence.
Then, a faint light.
She was back in the room. The Hollow Room.
The lantern was burning again, sitting neatly at her feet. The circle was gone, the markings vanished. Everything looked normal — abandoned, dusty, lifeless.
Evelyn stood, shaking. For a moment, she almost convinced herself it had been a hallucination. That none of it had happened. That she could walk out the door, breathe fresh air, forget this nightmare.
Then she saw the mirror.
Perfect. Unbroken.
Her reflection smiled.
This time, she didn't.
"Evelyn," it whispered. "Don't leave me here alone."
And as she watched, her reflection reached out — and her fingertips brushed the glass from the inside.
The lantern flickered.
The room went dark.
Outside, the wind howled through the cracked windows of Ashford Manor. The house seemed to sigh, long and content, as though it had drawn a deep breath after years of hunger.
Somewhere deep inside its walls, something whispered:"Another one has come home."