Shadows in the Glass

Daniel inherited the old Thompson house from a great-uncle he barely remembered. The letter was formal, clinical—but the delivery unsettled him. Along with the keys arrived a small, unmarked wooden box, tied with a fraying ribbon.

Inside was a miniature of the house. Every shingled roof, every cracked window, every gnarled oak tree meticulously carved. At the center, a tiny figure of a man—him.

He laughed, uneasy. “A collector’s item,” he muttered. That evening, unpacking the rest of his inheritance, he noticed a detail that twisted his stomach: the miniature living room held a photograph on the mantle. Leaning closer, he realized it was him… as a child. A child who had never set foot in the Thompson house.

He blinked.

The next night, he could hardly sleep. He kept picturing the tiny figure moving, tilting its head, staring. Shadows in the corners of the room felt too thick, too deliberate. A floorboard creaked. A whisper, almost a word, curled through the empty hallway. He shook his head and tried to convince himself it was nerves. But even when he closed his eyes, he could see the model on the table, the figure staring back.

Over the next few days, Daniel discovered more photographs in the real house—behind floorboards, under loose tiles, tucked behind dusty paintings. Each showed moments of his life no one else had witnessed: his tenth birthday, the school play where he fell, the summer he broke his arm. Some photographs were dated years before he was born.

He began sleeping less, pacing the empty hallways, glancing at every corner, every mirror. And every time he returned to the miniature house, the tiny figure had moved. Sometimes it was in the living room, sometimes on the porch, sometimes leaning against a tiny tree as if it had grown its own awareness.

One evening, Daniel saw it clearly. The miniature figure was lying on the floor of its living room, perfectly still. His heart froze. A photograph had appeared on the real mantle, showing him lying face-down, exactly as the figure was posed.

Panic clawed at his chest. He stumbled back, knocking over a chair. Shadows in the hallway flickered. In the mirror, he saw movement—not his reflection. Another shadow, his face, staring.

He ran to the front door. Locked. Windows wouldn’t budge. The house seemed to breathe around him, the walls tightening, containing him.

He grabbed the miniature house from the table. Maybe destroying it would end this. He hurled it to the floor. Pieces shattered, splinters scattering.

The figure was gone from the model. But a photograph slid from the mantle. It showed him lying on the living room floor, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream.

His knees buckled. Whispers curled through the walls:

“Welcome home.”

He turned. In the mirror across the room, he saw it. Himself, lying on the floor, staring back with the same terrified gaze as the photograph.

A gasp ripped from his throat.

The whisper came again, closer:

“You were always meant to be here… in the box.”

The next morning, Daniel tried to leave. The front door refused. The key would not turn. Sunlight glinted off the broken model pieces. Every photograph seemed to shift when he looked away. One showed him asleep in his bed, as he had been the previous night—but now there were scratches on his arms that he didn’t have before.

The house began to play with him. He would hear faint footsteps in rooms he wasn’t in, creaking floors in a hallway he’d just passed. The miniature figure appeared again in the living room of the model, its head tilting as if studying him. His reflection in the mirror lingered a second too long. Shadows clung unnaturally to corners. The air smelled faintly of something rotten, or burning.

He tried to sleep in the living room, hoping morning would bring clarity. In the night, a whisper grazed his ear:

“Don’t turn around.”

Of course, he turned.

The figure was standing behind him in the mirror, but the reflection’s lips didn’t move. Its eyes were empty yet knowing. Daniel’s pulse raced. He swung around—nothing. Just the empty room, silent and still.

The miniature house on the table rattled. A window popped open in the tiny model. The figure now stood outside the front door of the model, looking directly at him. Daniel’s stomach twisted. A sense of inevitability, unstoppable and cold, settled into him.

He realized the house, the model, the photographs—they weren’t just strange coincidences. They were instructions. Every move he made had been observed, recorded, mirrored. He understood, in a deep, shivering certainty, that the house had been waiting for him. It had always known him.

Days bled into nights. Daniel stopped counting. He stopped eating. He couldn’t leave. The house and the model were two reflections of the same reality, both alive, both hungry. The whispers grew louder, pressing against the walls, pressing against his mind. Every shadow was a finger pointing, every creak a warning.

One evening, he saw himself reflected in the window. At first glance, it was normal. Then the figure in the reflection blinked before he did. The figure smiled.

Daniel felt bile rise in his throat. He wanted to destroy everything—the house, the miniature, the photographs—but he feared the act would cost him more than staying. The fear rooted him.

That night, he heard the whisper again:

“Time to join.”

He didn’t move. He couldn’t. Across the room, the miniature figure had shifted. Now it was lying on the tiny living room floor, staring up at him. The model’s tiny photograph mantle was empty. The air felt heavy, suffocating.

Then the mirror cracked. Slowly, impossibly, like ice forming across its surface. Daniel’s own reflection—his terrified, gasping face—split into countless fragments, each one staring back, screaming silently.

He backed away. The walls themselves seemed to lean in. The floorboards stretched unnaturally beneath his feet. From somewhere behind the walls, a voice whispered clearly, calmly:

“Step inside.”

Daniel’s knees gave way. The floor beneath him rippled like water. He fell. The house, the miniature, the photographs—all vanished in a flicker of cold light.

And then he was there.

On the living room floor of the Thompson house. Everything exactly as in the miniature. He could see the tiny figure beside him, rising to meet him, indistinguishable from himself.

A hand—his hand, but not—touched his shoulder. The whisper came again:

“Welcome home.”

Daniel gasped, but no air filled his lungs.