"If you hear someone calling your name in this house… don't answer. Even if the voice sounds like mine…"
Those were the first words the caretaker whispered before leaving Ayo and Liora alone in the ancient winter lodge.
Snow pressed against the tall windows… soft at first, then heavier, as though something outside wanted in. The couple had chosen this retreat to mend themselves… to rediscover the warmth they once drowned in. Ayo, calm but haunted. Liora, tender but daring. Their fingers brushed as they explored the dim entrance hall lined with portraits whose painted eyes followed movement like hungry shadows.
But one portrait stood out… a tall mirror-framed painting of a man and woman holding each other too tightly… their necks bent at unnatural angles. Liora shivered.
"Let's not stay in this hallway…" she murmured.
Ayo nodded, but his gaze lingered. In the reflection of the frame, he thought he saw his own eyes blink slower than his real ones… as if another version of him lived behind the glass.
The lodge grew colder. Pipes groaned overhead. And the electricity occasionally flickered… not randomly, but rhythmically, as though pulsing with a heartbeat.
That night, while unpacking in the upstairs room, Liora touched Ayo's arm softly.
"It feels good… being close again."
Ayo kissed her forehead… gentle, almost desperate.
"I've missed you… every part of you."
But before the moment deepened, a sound traveled through the room… a soft voice… a woman's whisper…
Ayo… come downstairs…
Liora froze.
"Did you hear that?"
Ayo swallowed hard.
"Yes… but it wasn't you."
The whisper came again… sweeter… warmer… almost seductive.
Ayo… I'm waiting…
Liora's hand gripped his.
"Don't go. Please."
Ayo hesitated… but something primal tugged at him. A need… a longing… something that didn't feel like desire from this world.
He stepped toward the hall anyway.
The lights flickered.
The mirror downstairs glowed faintly.
And as Ayo descended, the reflection waiting for him wasn't his own.
"Ayo… touch the glass…"
The presence behind the mirror whispered like breath against his neck. The female figure inside the reflection looked like Liora, but her smile was wrong… stretched too wide… too hungry.
She pressed her palm against the inside of the glass.
Ayo's chest tightened… a strange pull, part fear, part temptation. Her eyes glowed with the same warmth Liora once held when she used to whisper his name in the dark. That was the trap… the mirror knew desire… it fed on it.
Liora rushed downstairs, heart pounding.
"Ayo… stop… that's not me!"
But the reflection turned to Liora and smiled.
He doesn't want you… not anymore…
Liora felt something hot and painful behind her ribs, but she stood her ground. She grabbed Ayo's wrist, pulling him back.
The mirror woman's expression twisted with rage.
The glass trembled… cracked… then bulged outward as if the figure inside were pushing through into the world.
Ayo shielded Liora.
"No… you can't have her… or me."
The reflection's arms burst halfway out, pale and dripping with black frost.
You came here to fix your love… but I can give you something stronger… something eternal…
Liora stepped forward, trembling yet defiant.
"We choose each other… even when it hurts… even when we are broken."
The mirror screamed. The lights exploded into darkness. The glass shattered inward… not onto them… but into a swirling vortex of wind and icy shadows.
A single rule echoed in Liora's head from the caretaker's warning:
Do not answer if the voice calls you.
So she did the opposite.
She whispered back, voice steady.
"No. You will not take him."
Her words sliced through the awakened darkness.
The mirror convulsed… then collapsed into a heap of blackened shards.
Silence. Stillness.
Only their breathing filled the room.
Ayo collapsed into her arms, shaking.
"Liora… I'm sorry… I almost…"
She kissed his cheek softly.
"We fight for us… that's what love is."
Outside, the snowstorm eased… as if whatever had wanted to enter the lodge had finally been denied its offering.
Ayo and Liora held each other… fragile, trembling, but fiercely alive.
Their love wasn't perfect… but it was theirs… and tonight, that was powerful enough to banish even the hungriest reflection.