A story by Archisha Roy of class 5, blending mystery and horror as a girl faces chilling events in her new home and a haunted mirror. Edited by Gunjita Das and Publishing by Purba Nandi, Sub-Editor, Epic Words.
Today is my 19th birthday. My father gifted me a house and informed me that, henceforth, I needed to stay alone in this new house.
As I never lived alone, I was a bit scared. I said, “I didn’t want to stay here alone.”
But Dad didn’t care much and said, “Come on! You are grown up now; you will have to get used to staying here alone. You never wanted to stay in the hostel, did you? Everything will be fine. Don’t worry.”
I requested again to be taken with him, but he declined my request and said, “Okay, I can drop you at your college and pick you up again, but you cannot come with me. Bye.”
I waved him with a sad face, closed the gate and entered the house. As soon as I went inside, I found a large living room, and as I went further, I saw another room, which was a bedroom.
There, a large mirror caught my attention. I went near and wondered, “Why does this room have such a huge mirror? However, the room looks great and quite large too.”
Some days back I read a story titled ‘THE MAGIC WARDROBE’, and I decided to name the mirror in my room ‘THE MAGIC MIRROR’. I went to the washroom to freshen up, after which I lay down to rest a bit and fell asleep underneath the comfortable blanket.
When I woke up, it was almost 6:00 in the evening. I quickly dressed to go out to attend the tutorial classes at Surakhi’s house. But then when I looked at the mirror, I saw a boy instead of my reflection. ‘It is just my hallucination,’ I thought. Ignoring it, I went out.
While travelling, I kept thinking about the boy, and honestly it felt a little strange to me. But I soon forgot about it as soon as I reached Surakhi’s place.
After the classes, I came back home in a taxi.
As I reached, I freshened up and changed into my comfortable pyjamas. But then as I went in front of the mirror to apply my moisturiser, I could see him again peeking from the mirror.
I screamed and, without thinking twice, jumped onto my bed and covered myself in the blanket. I was so scared that I decided to skip my dinner and know not when I fell asleep.
When I woke up, it was 9 in the morning. I glanced at the mirror and found nothing suspicious. Everything was completely fine. While I was brushing my teeth, I kept on thinking about the boy and realised that he appeared only after 5 in the evening.
I called my father to tell him about these strange happenings. But when he received the call, he said he was slightly busy and was not in a position to speak. He assured me he would call back and disconnected.
I decided to call my uncle, a police officer. After a thorough search I finally found his number. After a few rings he received the call, I tried to sound natural, I said, “Hello uncle, how are you? I hope you are doing well.”
“I’m doing well. What made you call me? Any trouble?”
“Yes, some problems; can you please come to my house?”
“Sure, I can.”
“Thanks, Uncle, but not at our house. I stay somewhere else now. I’m sending you the address.”
“You have got a new house? That’s great news! Send me the details; I’ll be there in an hour.”
I was waiting for him impatiently; that one hour felt like an eternity. And finally, when he arrived, I narrated everything about the strange boy in the mirror. I also told him that I was very uncomfortable and it is pretty scary as well. I wanted to share this with my father, but he was busy.
But after listening to my narrative, he laughed and said, “Are you joking? I never knew that you believed in ghosts. I am leaving; I have a few other things to complete.”
Saying that he left. But I pleaded, “Please don’t leave, Uncle!” I went behind him, but he had left by then.
I was slowly losing my nerves; I called Sophia, my best friend, and told her about the incidents. But just like my uncle, she too laughed at me. I pleaded with her to come to my place after 5:00p.m.
“I’ll definitely come for a comedy show.”
“This is not funny, Sophia.” I replied quite aggressively.
I just couldn’t understand why everyone was taking such a serious matter as a joke. I went to the kitchen and drank a glass of water.
As I went to the main door and closed it, I found a room by the side. “Why don’t I just go inside the room and decorate it? It would be so much fun! Well, this is rather a good side of having my own house.”
Right when I was about to open that room, somebody knocked on the main door. I went and opened it and found my father standing there. I told him to sit on the couch and offered him a glass of water.
I was about to open the door to the room when he said, “Is there any emergency in going into this room?”
I answered him positively and was about to go to my room to bring the keys, as it was locked. Before I could go bring the keys, he held my wrist and said, “You only have permission to use the kitchen, the bedroom, the living room and the bathroom. Nowhere else”.
“But why, Father? It is my house, right?”
He did not reply to my question but said, “You will not use any other room besides what I just told you, and don’t ask me the reason. Bye for now; I am leaving.”
“Bye,” I said.
As he left, I decided to go inside, ignoring his words. But I kept thinking about why my father instructed me not to go inside that room. But then I felt that I should call the rest of my friends and enter the room together after five in the evening. I decided to enter the room after 5:00 with them. I called them one by one, giving them enough time so that they could not offer an excuse not to come.
As I was calling my friends, a sound came into my ear. It felt like a glass had fallen down. I rushed to the kitchen to check, but it was all dry and clean without a single piece of glass.
I went to check my room, and that was fine too. And as I was already in the living room, I knew there was no glass that had broken either. I concluded that it must have been from somewhere in the neighbourhood.
I went to my room, but as I stepped in, I saw two blurry traces of hands in the mirror. I was very tired and just wanted to sleep, so I didn’t think much and cleaned it up. I finally went to sleep at around 3. But when I woke up around quarter past five, I found the mirror had two new traces of hands on it. I was stunned and just ran out from the house and rushed to Sanika’s place.
I told her the whole chaos, but she didn’t believe a single word. Instead she asked me to stop acting like a little kid. I tried to make her believe, but she said, “I think you are not grown up yet. Don’t you have any sense? These can never be true. Go check again; all this is your imagination.”
I went back to my home and checked once more, and what I saw left me speechless.
There were drops of blood falling out from nowhere. I screamed out loud and quickly packed my clothes and other necessary things, and soon I left that house forever.
To this date I haven’t figured out where that blood dripped from. It still gives me chills.
Archisha Roy
Class V
Edited by Gunjita Das and Publishing by Purba Nandi, Sub-Editor, Epic Words.
