Chapter 637

Kofi worked as a night watchman at the old Blackwood Manor, now a museum of antiquated oddities. He'd taken the job primarily for the solitude. The quiet suited him, a stark departure from the vibrant, pulsing heart of Kinshasa he once knew. Here, in this silent, dust-laden place, he could almost hear the echoes of his past fade away.

The manor was a labyrinth of rooms crammed with forgotten relics. Each night, making his rounds, Kofi felt like he was walking through a silent film, each artifact a frozen frame in someone else's life story. He wasn't a man easily spooked.

Congo was a land of whispers and shadows, where the line between worlds often thinned. He had known true fear, the kind that sweats through your skin and settles in your bones. This old house, with its creaking floors and drafts that whistled like ghosts, was tame by comparison.

Tonight, a thick fog pressed against the manor windows, muting the outside world, making the inside feel even more isolated. The grandfather clock in the main hall chimed midnight, its sound echoing through the stillness. Kofi continued his walk, his flashlight beam dancing across display cases filled with porcelain dolls, dusty books, and weaponry that looked like it belonged to another age entirely.

In the west wing, a room he usually avoided because of its unsettling aura, Kofi noticed something different. A large, ornate mirror, usually covered with a velvet cloth, stood exposed.

He did not recall removing the cloth during his last rounds. Hesitantly, he approached it. The mirror frame was dark wood, carved with grotesque faces and swirling patterns.

The glass itself was old, its surface clouded with age, yet it reflected his image back with surprising clarity.

As he looked into the mirror, he thought he saw something move in the reflection behind him, a fleeting shadow. He turned around quickly, but there was nothing there. Just the long, empty corridor stretching into the gloom. He turned back to the mirror, dismissing it as a trick of the light, or perhaps his own tired eyes.

Then, he heard it. A soft sound, like weeping. It seemed to emanate from the mirror itself. Kofi paused, listening intently. The sound was faint, almost lost in the silence of the house, but it was there. A woman's quiet sobs.

He stepped closer to the mirror, his heart beginning to beat a little faster. "Hello?" he called out, his voice sounding too loud in the cavernous room. The weeping stopped for a moment, then resumed, a little louder this time.

"Is someone there?" Kofi asked again, reaching out a hand towards the cold glass.

A faint, breathy sound responded. "Help me…"

Kofi froze. The sound was definitely coming from the mirror. It was a woman's , weak and desperate. He leaned closer, his flashlight beam fixed on the reflective surface. He could see nothing but his own concerned face staring back.

"Who is this? Where are you?" Kofi spoke, his voice hushed.

"In here…" the sound came again, closer now, as if the woman had moved nearer to the surface of the mirror. "Please… I am trapped."

Kofi felt a shiver run down his spine, but not from fear, not yet. More from disquiet, from the strangeness of the situation. He was a pragmatic man, not one for fanciful notions. But he could not deny what he was hearing.

"Trapped? In the mirror?" he questioned, still cautious, skeptical.

"Yes… please, you must help me get out. I have been here for so long…" Her sound was laced with despair, making it sound all too real, too human to ignore.

He hesitated. This was absurd. A woman trapped in a mirror? It sounded like something from a children's story, not reality. Yet, the sound of her desperation was compelling. He could hear the suffering in her tone. And Kofi was not a man to ignore suffering.

"How… how did you get in there?" he asked, needing to understand, needing to find some explanation that made sense.

"It was an accident… a terrible accident. I touched the mirror, and… and I was pulled in. I can't escape. Please, you must help me." Her sound grew more urgent, pleading. "You are the first person I have been able to reach in years… so many years…"

Years? That statement sent a fresh wave of disquiet through Kofi. Years trapped in a mirror? It was impossible, wasn't it? But what if… what if it was real? What if someone was genuinely suffering, trapped and alone, and he was the only one who could help?

"What can I do?" Kofi asked, his skepticism beginning to wane, replaced by a cautious empathy. He had seen enough misery in his life to recognize the authentic sound of it.

"You must come in here… you must reach for me. If two of us touch the mirror at the same time… maybe… maybe that will break the spell, or whatever it is that is holding me. Please, I am begging you." Her sound was filled with a desperate hope, a hope that tugged at something deep within Kofi.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror, then back at the dark room around him. It felt wrong, deeply wrong, to step into a mirror, to try to enter a world that was not meant for the living. But the woman's sound… it was so full of anguish.

"Tell me your name," Kofi said, needing something more tangible, something to hold onto in this strange, unreal exchange.

"My name… it does not matter now. What matters is that I am trapped. Please, just help me. Please, reach out your hand. We must do it quickly… before… before it is too late." Her sound was becoming frantic, edged with a new kind of urgency that made Kofi's skin crawl.

He took a step back from the mirror, considering. It was likely a trick, a hallucination, something brought on by the late hour and the oppressive silence. Or maybe it was something else entirely, something he did not understand, something older and darker than he could imagine. But the plea… it was so real.

"What is it like in there?" Kofi asked, needing more information, stalling for time, his mind racing, trying to make sense of the impossible.

There was a hush, a moment of silence from the mirror, then her sound returned, softer now, almost a whisper. "It is… cold. And dark. And lonely. Imagine being surrounded by shadow, always, with no escape. No light. No warmth. Just… reflection. Endless reflection."

Her words painted a bleak picture, a horrifying isolation that resonated with a part of Kofi's own experiences, a part of him that knew what it was to be alone in the dark.

He had lived through nights in the jungle where the darkness felt alive, pressing in on you, suffocating. The idea of being trapped in that kind of shadow, forever… it was a nightmare made real.

He looked at his hand, his dark skin contrasting against the faint light from his flashlight. Reach out… touch the mirror. It was insane. But what if it was the only way to help her? What if ignoring her plea meant condemning her to an eternity of shadow and cold? Could he live with that?

"Okay," Kofi said, his voice stronger now, a decision forming in his mind. "Okay, I will try to help you. Tell me what to do."

A sound of something akin to relief, a breath released, came from the mirror. "Thank you… thank you. Just… just place your hand on the glass. Flat against it. And then… and then, push. Push as if you are trying to step through a doorway. But you must do it resolutely. You must believe you can come in."

Kofi took a deep breath, his heart pounding in his chest now, a mixture of apprehension and a strange sense of… duty.

He moved closer to the mirror again, extending his hand. He could feel the cold radiating from the glass even before he touched it. It was an unnatural cold, a cold that seemed to seep into his bones.

He hesitated for a moment longer, looking into his own reflection one last time. He saw uncertainty in his eyes, but also determination.

He was going to do this. He was going to try to help this woman, trapped in the mirror, no matter how foolish it might seem.

He placed his hand flat against the cold glass. It was smooth and slick, and the coldness intensified, making his fingers ache. He felt a strange tingling sensation beneath his palm, as if the mirror itself was reacting to his touch.

"Now, push," the woman whispered from within the mirror, her sound closer than ever, right in his ear, it seemed. "Push now, believe you can enter."

Kofi closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and pushed. He leaned into the mirror, putting his weight behind it, expecting to meet solid resistance.

But there was none. Instead of hard glass, his hand seemed to sink into something yielding, something cold and viscous, like water but thicker, darker.

He gasped, his eyes snapping open. His hand, his arm, was disappearing into the mirror. It was as if the reflective surface had turned into a liquid, a dark, swirling pool that was swallowing him whole.

He felt a pull, not gentle, but forceful, dragging him forward. He tried to pull back, to halt, but it was too late. He was being drawn into the mirror, his body sliding through the once-solid surface like smoke.

As he was pulled further in, the reflection in the mirror changed. His own image dissolved, replaced by a visage of something grotesque, something monstrous.

The woman's face, no longer piteous and suffering, but twisted into a scornful, malevolent grin. Her eyes, which had seemed so full of despair, now burned with a chilling, predatory light.

"Fool," she hissed, her sound transformed, no longer weak but potent with cruelty. "Did you suppose I wanted your help? I wanted your life."

Kofi felt a wave of terror wash over him, colder than the mirror glass. He had been tricked, foolishly. He had allowed his empathy to blind him to the evident danger, to the impossible nature of her plea.

He was fully inside the mirror now, in a world that was nothing like his own. It was indeed cold, a bone-chilling cold that seeped into his very soul. And it was dark, but not the comforting darkness of night. This was a noxious shadow, a darkness that seemed to press in on him, suffocating him, stealing the air from his lungs.

He could see the woman now, no longer a reflection, but a terrifying reality. She was tall and gaunt, her skin ethereal and pale, her eyes glowing with an unholy light. Her smile was wide, twisted, revealing teeth that were too long, too sharp.

"Welcome," she said, her voice now a rasping, malevolent purr. "Welcome to my prison… and now, yours."

She lunged at him with deadly force, her form moving with unnatural swiftness. Kofi tried to falter back, to defend himself, but he was disoriented, weakened by the sudden transition, by the cold and the darkness.

Her hands, long and gaunt, reached for him, her nails like shards of glass. They tore into his flesh, ripping through his clothes, drawing blood that seemed to dissipate into the shadowy air. Pain exploded through him, sharp and brutal.

He cried out, a sound muffled by the oppressive darkness, a sound that was swallowed by the void of the mirror world.

He struggled against her, but it was like fighting a shadow, something insubstantial yet unyielding. She was stronger here, in her realm of reflection, and he was an intruder, weak and vulnerable.

She dragged him deeper into the darkness, into the heart of the mirror world. He could see glimpses of his reflection around him, distorted, twisted, multiplying into an endless tableau of horror. The air hung thick with the stench of decay, of something ancient and foul.

He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the core, that this was the end. There would be no escape, no rescue. He had fallen into a trap, a foolish victim of his own kindness, of his inability to ignore a plea for help, even when it came from the impossible.

The woman scorned him, her malevolence a tangible presence. She was feeding on his terror, on his life force, draining him of everything that made him who he was.

His struggles grew weaker, his cries fainter. The darkness closed in around him, suffocating, relentless.

In the real world, in the silent, dust-laden room of Blackwood Manor, the ornate mirror stood motionless, reflecting nothing but the empty space before it.

The velvet cloth lay discarded on the floor, forgotten. Kofi was gone, vanished without a trace, another victim assimilated into the mirror's shadowy depths.

And in the mirror world, Kofi became just another reflection, trapped, tormented, forever echoing the suffering of those who came before him.

His Congolese warmth, his resilience, his very essence, faltered, perished, leaving only a shadow of a man, a fragment of a life, lost in the unending expanse of the looking glass, a brutal and somber end, unique to him, for his kindness had been his undoing, his empathy his demise, in a tale reflected in the cold, dark heart of an antique mirror.

The manor remained silent, unaware of the tragedy that had just transpired within its walls, the routine of the night undisturbed, the abyss in the mirror patiently waiting for its next fool.