Emma didn’t know how long she sat there in the dark, huddled
against the wall, paralyzed by fear. Time seemed to lose meaning in that cursed
room, where the air grew colder and the shadows lengthened.
The presence was still there, lurking in the corners of her
mind, whispering things she didn’t want to hear, showing her images she didn’t
want to see.
She couldn’t stay there forever. She had to find a way out,
had to find the others. Summoning every ounce of strength she had left, Emma
forced herself to stand. She turned back to the mirror, the only object in the
room, now the only possible escape.
Approaching it cautiously, she reached out a trembling hand
and touched the surface. It was ice-cold, and the blackness within seemed to
ripple at her touch.
She stared at her reflection, which was distorted and
twisted like before, but this time she saw something else—figures standing
behind her, watching her with hollow eyes.
Emma spun around, but the room was empty. When she turned
back to the mirror, the figures were still there, closer now, their faces
clearer. They were the friends she had seen earlier in the mansion—Lily and the
others—but their expressions were vacant, their eyes dark and lifeless.
A horrible realization began to dawn on her. The Wycliffe
Mansion had a history of disappearances, of people who came and never left.
What if Lily and the others were just like those who had vanished before? What
if they were already dead, and she was the next victim?
Desperation clawed at her, and she pressed her hands against
the mirror, trying to push through it, to escape the nightmare that was closing
in around her. The mirror resisted at first, but then it began to give, like a
membrane stretching under pressure.
The room behind her seemed to dissolve as she pushed harder,
her reflection distorting further until it was barely recognizable. The figures
behind her grew clearer, their hands reaching out, trying to pull her back.
With a final, desperate push, Emma broke through the
mirror’s surface, tumbling forward into the darkness beyond. She fell,
disoriented and terrified, landing in a heap on the cold, hard ground.
When she looked up, she found herself in a different part of
the mansion, one she hadn’t seen before. The air was thick with dust, and the
walls were covered in ancient, peeling wallpaper.
But this place felt even more wrong, more haunted, as if the
house had a mind of its own and had decided to show her its darkest secrets.
Emma staggered to her feet, her heart pounding in her chest.
She had escaped the room, but she was far from safe.
The mansion had trapped her in its web, and the haunting
truth was that she was not the first, and she wouldn’t be the last.