Whispers and Wonders Podcast Stories #1

The Midnight Mirror

The mirror arrived precisely at midnight. Wrapped in decaying velvet, its edges adorned with tarnished gold that seemed to swallow the moonlight. The note attached, hand written, read simply, “For the new owner of 18 Ashcroft Lane.”

Marcus had moved into the house three days prior. It was a crumbling Victorian manor, sagging under the weight of centuries, as if time itself had grown weary of its presence. It was all he could afford — a derelict in a forgotten corner of town — but there was something about the house that had ensnared him. It was as if the house had been waiting for him, whispering his name long before he had arrived.

Now, as he stood in the doorway, the icy night air clawing at his skin, he stared at the mirror with a growing sense of unease. He hadn’t ordered it. No one knew he moved here yet. There was no return address, no indication of where it had come from. Yet here it was, as if it had always been meant for him.

Marcus hesitated, then dragged it inside, the mirror scraping across the worn wooden floor with a sound like bones grating together. The velvet cloth slipped off easily, revealing a surface that reflected the dim light of the hallway with unsettling clarity, as though the mirror itself were hungry for the world around it.

For a moment, Marcus caught a flicker in the glass — a shadow, darting behind him in the reflection. He spun around, but the hallway was empty and silent. A chill crawled up his spine, but he dismissed it as nothing more than a trick of the light. He was tired. That had to be it. He was tired.

He carried the mirror to the study, the only room in the house that he had managed to make somewhat a tad comfortable. He propped the mirror against the wall, intending to hang it later. As he turned to leave, something in the mirror caught his eye again. His reflection stared back at him, but there was something off about it. The room in the reflection seemed darker, the shadows longer, as though the light was being devoured by the glass. His reflection’s eyes were a touch too wide, its expression tense, as if it held a secret it could not share.

He blinked as the image returned to normal. Marcus laughed nervously, rubbing his eyes. “I really need some sleep,” he muttered, switching off the lights.

That night, Marcus dreamed of the mirror. It loomed on the wall, impossibly large, casting a suffocating presence over the room. The glass was no longer clear but had turned into a swirling black void, alive with an unseen energy that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Shadows shifted within it — vague, restless shapes pressing against the surface as though trying to escape. Though faceless, their gaze was palpable, sending waves of dread through him. As he stood frozen, a whispering began, soft at first but growing in urgency, calling his name with a desperate insistence. He wanted to scream, to flee, but he was rooted in place, helpless as the whispers crescendoed into a cacophony that filled the room, his mind, his very soul.

He opened his eyes abruptly, scared and drenched in sweat. The silence of the house was loud. The fragments of his dream made sure he couldn’t fall asleep again. He felt an agonising thirst, his throat dry as if he was the one whispering in his nightmare.

As he passed the study, he noticed the door was ajar. He was certain he had closed it. A faint light flickered inside, a weak glow just visible through the crack. He paused, listening. The silence was thick, almost alive, as if something — or someone — was lurking just beyond the door.

He pushed it open, and there it was — the mirror, still leaning against the wall, yet somehow different. The glass seemed to shimmer, as if rippling beneath the surface. Marcus stepped closer. The room was as he’d left it, yet something felt profoundly wrong. And then he saw it — his reflection wasn’t mirroring his movements. It stood motionless, staring at him with eyes that were not quite his own — darker, emptier, as though something else looked out from behind them.

A cold, unnatural chill seeped into his bones as he reached out, his fingers trembling, to touch the glass. The surface was icy, far colder than it should have been. As his fingers brushed it, his reflection began to smile — a slow, creeping smile that widened too far, distorting his face into something grotesque. He pulled his hand back, and the smile vanished, the reflection resuming its normal appearance.

The room seemed to close in on him, the air thick with an unnameable dread. He backed away, slamming the door shut. It was just a mirror, he told himself. Just a mirror.

But deep down, he knew that something was wrong.

Sleep did not come easily that night, and when it did, it brought only darkness. He dreamed of shadowy figures slipping through the walls, of whispering voices that clawed at the edges of his sanity.

The next day, Marcus avoided the study. The mirror remained untouched, but its presence weighed heavily on his mind. The house seemed to breathe around him, every creak and groan a sinister reminder that he was not alone. As the day wore on, a sense of impending doom settled over him, a feeling that something terrible was about to happen.

By evening, the tension became unbearable. He couldn’t stand it anymore — the oppressive silence, the lurking shadows, the feeling that something was watching him. He stormed into the study, determined to rid himself of the mirror once and for all. But when he entered, he froze in the doorway..

The mirror was no longer leaning against the wall. It had moved, now hanging perfectly centred as if it had always been there. The reflection showed the room in perfect detail, but there was something in the background, something barely visible in the dim light — a figure, standing just outside the doorway, its form twisted and unnatural.

Marcus spun around, but the doorway was empty. His pulse raced as he turned back to the mirror. The figure was gone, but his reflection wore that same unsettling smile, the one that wasn’t his.

A cold breeze brushed the back of his neck, and the room seemed to grow darker, the shadows stretching toward him. The mirror pulsed with a low, throbbing hum, almost like a heartbeat, and the glass began to swirl with faint, indistinct shapes, their movements erratic and desperate.

Then the whispering began again, insidious and malevolent, seeping into his thoughts, overwhelming his senses. His name, repeated over and over and over, by voices that seemed to echo from the depths of the void. The reflection in the mirror began to move on its own, stepping closer to the glass, its smile widening into something monstrous, inhuman.

The shadows in the room stirred, creeping along the walls like living things, closing in on him. Marcus’s breath came in short, panicked gasps as he watched his reflection press its hand against the inside of the mirror. The glass rippled, straining to contain the force behind it.

With a sudden, sharp crack, the glass splintered, fractures spreading like spiderwebs. The reflection’s smile twisted into a horrific grimace as it pushed against the breaking glass, its fingers stretching out, distorting as they pressed through the surface.

In a blind panic, Marcus grabbed a heavy book from the desk and hurled it at the mirror. The glass shattered with an ear-splitting crash, shards exploding in all directions. The room plunged into darkness, the whispering cutting off abruptly, leaving only an oppressive, suffocating silence.

For a long moment, Marcus stood there, his heart pounding in his chest, staring at the broken shards of the mirror. The air was still, the room unchanged, but the feeling of being watched lingered, more intense than before.

He forced himself to step closer, to peer into the shattered glass. The reflection was gone, the mirror now broken. But in the pieces scattered across the floor, he could see them — twisted, distorted faces staring up at him, their expressions frozen in terror and madness.

And then it hit him — the faces weren’t reflections. They were something else, something trapped within the glass, their eyes pleading, desperate.

His eyes widened as he realised what he saw. The mirror had been a prison, a doorway, and now… it was broken…

A cold breeze swept through the room, and he felt it — the presence, stronger now, no longer confined. The shadows on the walls began to move, twisting into dark, amorphous shapes that slithered toward him.

He backed away. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The shadows closed in, the faces in the glass watching, their silent screams echoing in his mind.

And then, just as the darkness swallowed him whole, he heard it — a soft, familiar whisper.

“Marcus…”

The last thing he saw before the world went black was his reflection, smiling that same twisted, inhuman smile as it stepped out of the mirror and into the world, leaving Marcus trapped within the shards, his own face now one of many, forever watching, forever pleading from the broken glass.

In the cold, quiet stillness of 18 Ashcroft Lane, the house settled into silence once more. The mirror was gone, replaced by a new, pristine one that reflected nothing but an empty room.

And somewhere, deep within the glass, a figure waited, watching, for the next owner to arrive.