The Mirror in the Corner - An Original Short Story by Josh
My girlfriend and I moved into our first apartment together—the kind you convince yourself you can afford because it feels right. It was nearly the top of our budget, but we didn’t care. We were finally out of our parents’ houses. Finally on our own.
Furniture came secondhand. I was fine with the basics: a futon, a TV, something to play games on. She wanted more. She wanted it to feel like home.
That’s when she said we needed a mirror.
I didn’t get it. There was already one in the bathroom. But she wanted a large one—antique-looking, decorative. Something that belonged in the space. I said fine, already doing the mental math of overtime hours if it cost too much.
Every store we visited proved my fear right. The mirrors were massive—and so were the prices. I finally told her we had to wait. Money was tight. Groceries mattered more than décor.
She agreed, but I could tell she was disappointed.
We stopped for coffee to cheer her up. While we sat outside, she froze, staring across the street.
An antique shop.
We went in “just to look.”
The mirror was already there, leaning in the corner of the store like it was waiting for us. Seven feet tall. Ornate frame. Old. Beautiful.
And only a hundred dollars.
Too cheap.
I asked the clerk why. They hesitated, then said someone had come in days earlier and demanded it be taken out of their house. No explanation. No questions answered.
I ignored the cold knot in my stomach and paid.
The mirror was heavy. Heavier than it should’ve been. I remember thinking it felt less like lifting an object and more like dragging something that didn’t want to move.
We put it in the living room, in the corner—angled just enough to face our bedroom.
That night was perfect.
The nights after were not.
It started small.
Footsteps when no one was home. Movement in my peripheral vision. Lights turned off that I knew I left on. Once, I saw a silhouette sitting in my computer chair—only for it to vanish when I flipped the light.
I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want to sound insane.
She didn’t tell me either.
Sleep became impossible. Our apartment felt heavier at night, like the air itself was pressing down. We stopped talking. Started arguing. For no reason either of us could explain.
Then came the crash.
I woke up to a deafening bang from the living room. I grabbed my pistol and crept through the apartment, every muscle tight, heart pounding in my ears.
Nothing was out of place.
When I returned to the bedroom, the door was wider open than I’d left it.
Something was standing over her.
Tall. Black. Wrong.
I screamed and turned on the light.
Nothing.
She woke up crying, terrified—not at what she saw, but at me, standing there with a gun and a look I couldn’t explain.
That was the night everything broke.
We tried to fix it. A hotel weekend. Time away. When I finally told her what I’d been seeing, her relief terrified me more than anything else.
She had seen it too.
The footsteps. The shadows. The feeling of being watched.
Back home, the noises continued—until one night I went upstairs to confront the neighbors.
No one lived there.
Management confirmed it the next morning.
That night, we came home late.
Every light in the apartment was on.
I told her to wait outside while I cleared the place. As I turned back toward the door, the mirror caught my eye.
Something stood behind me in its reflection.
Eight feet tall.
Grinning.
I threw a blanket over the mirror and ran.
She pulled it off.
Screamed.
She said it wasn’t tall.
It looked like me.
Same body. Same face—except twisted, stretched into something that had never been human.
She swung a bat at the glass.
It didn’t crack.
The thing smiled wider.
We took the mirror to the dump.
Life returned to normal.
Months passed. We healed. We got engaged.
Then one day, new neighbors moved upstairs.
I offered to help.
They smiled and said, “Thanks—this mirror is heavy.”
It was the same one.
Same scratches.
Same dread.
Still looking for a corner.
