Rhea sat at the dining table, her hands clenched tightly around a cup of cold tea. Across from her, Aarav placed the police report on the table. The name Clara Wynn stared up at her.
"Clara," she said softly, the name tasting foreign and familiar at once. "She came to me in a dream."
Aarav leaned in. "What did she say?"
"Nothing. Just looked at me… and smiled. But it wasn't… kind. It felt like she knew something I didn't. Like she was waiting."
Aarav nodded, then pulled the tarp off the mirror in the garage. Rhea gasped.
The frame shimmered, even in the dim light. Vines and unfamiliar runes spiraled around its edges, and the glass was unnaturally clean.
"I found it where the mansion stood," he said. "Just standing there. Untouched. I think… it survived the fire. Or maybe it was never part of the house at all."
Rhea stepped forward and studied her reflection. For a moment, everything seemed normal. Then—her reflection blinked again. Delayed.
Behind her, in the mirror, Clara appeared.
Rhea spun around. No one.
She turned back. Clara remained in the mirror, a ghostly figure standing beside her reflection, whispering.
"Help me be seen."
---
Dr. Verma listened carefully as Rhea recounted everything—the mirror, the police report, Clara's reflection.
"There may be more to your connection with this house than just trauma," she said gently. "If Clara was erased from history, maybe she's using you to bring her story back."
"But why me?" Rhea asked. "Why now?"
"Because you saw what no one else did. You listened. And you didn't run."
Rhea's next journal entry took a different tone.
**Day 5: Morning**
* Real: Clara existed. The police report proves it.
* Not sure: I saw her in the mirror again. She mouthed my name this time.
She flipped the page, expecting blank lines—but another unfamiliar entry appeared:
**"Behind glass, we fade. Bring her name to light, and I'll show you the truth."**
---
Rhea and Aarav dug deeper. Newspaper archives. Library microfilms. Eventually, they found something—a faded article, dated July 1971.
**MIRA TWINS' SECRET COMPANION VANISHES**
**Young woman named Clara Wynn disappears under strange circumstances. No body found. Rumors link her to inheritance conflict.**
It wasn't much. But it was a start.
That night, Rhea faced the mirror alone. "Clara," she said, voice trembling. "You want to be seen? I'll show the world. But I need the truth."
The mirror shimmered. Then the world around her dissolved into darkness.
---
She stood in DaMira Mansion again—but this time, it was whole. Unburned. A memory.
She heard laughter echoing from a room down the hall. She followed it and saw the twins—Nathaniel and Gregory—dressed in fine suits. Between them, a young woman: Clara. Her smile was tight, her eyes wary.
"Promise me," Clara said. "If anything happens to me… you'll tell the truth."
"You're family," Nathaniel replied. "Of course."
Rhea watched as the scene warped. The brothers arguing. Clara crying. A safe being locked. A paper burned.
Then silence. And darkness.
Clara's voice whispered behind her: "They took everything. Even my name."
Rhea turned to look behind her in the memory, but there was only black. She heard the sound of glass breaking and then—nothing.
She woke up gasping, on the garage floor in front of the mirror.
On the glass, written in condensation:
**Bring her back.**
---
Determined, Rhea started a video series. "The Truth of DaMira: The Forgotten Sister." It went viral quickly. People questioned the mystery. Clara's name began appearing in searches.
With every mention, the mirror changed. Less fog. Less delay.
In one of her later episodes, Rhea read out loud the article she had found. As she spoke Clara's name again and again, her reflection changed—the ghostly image of Clara began to take on more color, more life. Less apparition, more person.
Until one night, Clara stood clearly behind Rhea. She wasn't pale. Not ghostly. Just… peaceful.
She smiled gently and whispered, "Thank you."
Then faded.
---
But peace didn't last long.
Aarav came rushing into her room one morning. "You need to see this."
He showed her a forum post. Someone had dug deeper into the Mira family's inheritance scandal. And someone else mentioned a "Rhea curse." The mirror, they claimed, had power.
Rhea scrolled through the post, her heart pounding. Then she saw a photo—of the mirror. In it, a reflection. Not Clara.
Herself.
But not as she looked now—her eyes were black. Her mouth stretched wide in a grin that didn't belong to her.
She looked at Aarav. "This isn't over."
That night, she set up her camera, determined to face the mirror again.
"Clara is at peace now. But if something came through with her story… I want to know."
The mirror rippled like water.
Another voice answered. "Not all stories end when they're told."
The glass cracked.
Darkness spilled into the room.
---
Dr. Verma kept calling, but Rhea didn't pick up.
She couldn't.
The whispers were back. Not Clara's. Louder. More insistent.
She tried to sleep but dreamt of rooms folding into each other, voices arguing, and a cold wind always blowing from a door she could never reach.
Finally, she called the museum. "I want it moved. Sealed away."
They complied.
Rhea watched the mirror get packed into a wooden crate, sealed with thick chains.
As it was loaded onto the truck, she saw a reflection in the side of the van.
Her own face.
Smiling.
But she wasn't.
---
Dr. Verma met her again in person. "The mind can make meaning out of trauma. But sometimes… the meaning becomes something else."
"I thought I freed her," Rhea whispered.
"Maybe you did. But maybe something else was listening."
Rhea started writing everything down. The videos. The dreams. Clara. The mirror.
The mirror.
She ended the last entry with one line:
**"The mirror was never haunted. It was a door."**
To be continued....