Chapter Five: The Broken Mirrors

Olivia sat in the corner, her eyes scanning the room, the shadows surrounding her threatening to swallow all the light. Everything appeared blurry, as if the world around her was beginning to dissolve into a sea of darkness. Soft footsteps echoed in the distance, but she couldn’t pinpoint their source. Was it her imagination, or was something else approaching?

The place she found herself in was extremely strange. It didn’t resemble any room or place she had seen before, but it carried a certain familiarity. It resembled the narrow hallways of her old house, the one she had left behind many years ago. She felt a tightness, a yearning to return to the unknown, to the place where she had lived her happiest memories before they faded into a dark secret.

As she dwelled on those memories, she began to hear a faint sound from afar. It resembled a hurried breath, as if someone were watching her closely. Panic began to creep into her heart, but she tried to remain calm. She knew that any movement might reveal her position.

She moved cautiously toward the door, placing her hand on the cold handle. The door looked ancient, slightly worn, as if time had passed without anyone touching it. In that moment, she felt something strange, as if an invisible force was trying to prevent her from opening it. But she resisted the feeling and turned the knob.

The door creaked open slowly, and as it fully opened, she discovered she had entered a completely dark room. The air inside was heavy, thick with dust and strangeness. There was nothing but broken furniture and torn curtains. But what caught her attention more than anything else was the presence of several mirrors scattered around the room.

She approached them cautiously, the glass reflecting her image in a strange way. Her reflection was not the one she was used to seeing. The mirrors showed her features in a distorted manner, with her face covered in dark shadows, as if every expression held a different meaning, one she didn’t recognize.

A strange feeling crept over her. The mirrors seemed to dance before her eyes, as if they were transporting her to other realms, to places she had long forgotten. She saw different images in each mirror: pictures of her as a child, images of Ava, images of other people she had long forgotten. But in each of these images, there was something off. There was always something strange in the background, a shadow that followed her from a distance, lurking in every corner.

Then, the mirrors began to shatter one by one. The sound of the breaking glass was like screaming, as if the mirrors were crying. With each mirror that broke, the room grew darker, and the light shrank. The shattered mirrors began to glow faintly, as if they were reflecting old sorrows, painful memories, and dark secrets. Olivia felt a weight in her chest, as though she was about to fall into a bottomless pit of darkness.

In that moment, she felt something strange, as if someone were watching her from behind the mirrors. The eyes were mysterious, as if they were coming from within the mirrors themselves. She looked into one of the broken mirrors and saw an image of Ava, her little sister, but the reflection was unclear, as though Ava were smiling at her from half in the dark.

Then, a strange voice echoed in her ear. It was the same voice she had heard several hours earlier, the one that had warned her to stay away. The voice whispered strange words to her:

"You are getting closer, but the truth you seek will be the last thing you find. There is always a price to pay."

The voice’s words were like screams deep within her mind, each word cutting like knives into her heart. She knew she was about to uncover something greater than just her sister’s disappearance. There was something in this place, something that deepened the secret she had been running from for years.

Suddenly, a piece of broken glass fell to the floor, as if it were pointing to something in the room. She approached it, and when she touched it, she discovered something odd: a small engraving carved into the glass. The engraving was very old, almost invisible. The letters appeared unfamiliar, as though they were from an ancient language, a language she seemed to have known long ago.

She tried to read the engraving, but the words seemed to distort in her mind. Then she felt something strange taking over her body. The glass grew warmer in her hands, as if fire were starting to burn from within. The engraving began to glow gradually, and the images reflected in the mirrors started to blend with reality. There was something moving inside the mirrors, and it was getting closer to her.

Despite the fear creeping up on her, Olivia decided to continue. She knew there was no turning back from the truth. But in the moment she got closer, she caught a glimpse of a strange face reflected in the glass. It was the same person who had appeared in the old pictures, in Ava’s image, in every moment she had forgotten.

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