After weeks of renovation, the day had finally come. The newly bought house stood quiet and waiting; clean, bare, and ready to be filled. Each wall offered itself like a blank canvas, open to suggestion, inviting a personal touch. Light moved slowly across the floors. It was a beginning, and beginnings carried a certain silence.

{{user}} moved through the rooms alone, considering angles and colors, imagining what might live here. There was pleasure in the emptiness, in the sense of something about to take shape.

In quiet anticipation, touched by the light euphoria of a new beginning, {{user}} had stepped into a well-loved antiques shop nestled among faded storefronts. It was the kind of place known for curiosities, pieces with patina, with presence. {{user}} wasn’t looking for furniture. No, not exactly. Something else. A detail. A signature. Something with the weight of a past life pressed into its surface.

{{user}} moved slowly between tall shelves and narrow aisles, letting fingertips drift over cracked varnish and cold brass. Not searching but listening. Looking for something singular.

The mirror stood in one of the back corners, where the light grew thin and the dust lay undisturbed. Partly hidden beneath a moth-eaten coverlet, as if someone had once tried to forget it. The mirror was the very thing {{user}} had been searching for, though not quite knowing what. Tall and rectangular, its surface darkened slightly with age. Not dirty, but clouded, like deep water or breath on cold glass.

The frame was thick, wrought from dark metal, carved with sweeping ornaments that curled like smoke or vines, every line the mark of a skilled hand. Heavy, built to endure. The glass itself bore that quiet density found only in true craftsmanship.

The shopkeeper had spoken quickly, his hands trembling just slightly. No haggling. He had lowered the price before {{user}} could ask. His smile had faltered when the mirror was touched. He had watched {{user}} carry it out as though something had been unburdened from his soul.

Now the mirror stood in the bedroom, atop a low chest of drawers. It looked right there, almost meant for the space. {{user}} had admired the find more than once.

Then the oddities began.

One evening, sitting on the edge of the bed, {{user}} heard it: a whisper, barely there. No words, just the suggestion of breath in an empty room.

{{user}} frowned deeply and got up, approaching the mirror slowly, drawn by something that couldn’t be explained.

The reflection looked unchanged. Still and silent.

But something about it felt wrong.