Eleanor Carter had always been fascinated by antiques. As an art historian, she loved collecting old things with stories buried within their cracks and patina. When she stumbled upon a peculiar mirror at an estate sale, something about it called to her. Its frame, ornately carved with twisting vines and faces frozen in expressions of sorrow, seemed almost alive. The glass had a strange, silvery sheen, not quite like any mirror she had seen before.

The seller, an old woman with milky eyes, hesitated before naming a price. “This mirror doesn’t show who you are,” she warned, voice hoarse as wind through dead leaves. “It shows who you will become. But be wary—if one day it shows nothing, then you have no future left.”

Eleanor laughed off the warning as nothing more than a marketing ploy, but she bought the mirror anyway, enchanted by its craftsmanship. She took it home, placing it in the hallway opposite her bedroom. That night, curiosity got the better of her, and she stood before it, breath shallow with anticipation.

Instead of her usual reflection, a ten-years-older version of herself gazed back. It was undeniably her—same blue eyes, same sharp cheekbones—but with subtle, haunting differences. A few wrinkles, streaks of gray in her hair, a sadness behind her eyes she couldn’t quite place.

She touched her face, but the reflection did not mimic the movement. Instead, the older Eleanor tilted her head and smiled—a knowing, almost sorrowful expression. Then the image wavered and returned to her present self, as if nothing had happened.

A cold dread curled in her stomach. The seller’s words echoed in her mind, but she pushed them away. Just an optical illusion, a trick of the light.

Over the years, the mirror became a nightly ritual. Each time she looked, she saw a slightly older version of herself. Sometimes healthier, sometimes more worn down. The most disturbing nights were when she saw herself bruised or frail. But she convinced herself it was just a trick of the mind, a visual representation of her own subconscious fears.

Until one night, ten years after she had first bought it, the mirror showed nothing at all.

Eleanor stared into the glass, her own reflection absent. The hallway was still visible in the mirror, but where she should have been standing, there was only emptiness. She waved her hand in front of it, but the reflection remained vacant.

A suffocating fear took hold. Was she about to die? Was her time up? She turned away, heart hammering, and tried to dismiss the idea as paranoia. But as the days passed, an unease festered in her bones.

The next evening, she hesitated before standing before the mirror again. This time, she wasn’t alone.

A figure stood behind her—half-formed, obscured by shadows. Its head was tilted at an unnatural angle, and its limbs were distorted, as if struggling to fit into the human shape. Eleanor spun around, but the hallway behind her was empty. Slowly, she turned back to the mirror.

The figure was closer.

A scream lodged in her throat. It was her. Or rather, a grotesque version of herself—face twisted in agony, eyes hollow and lifeless, skin peeling as if rotting away. The older version of her was gone; in its place was something terrible, something that should not exist.

Eleanor stumbled back, slamming into the wall. The image flickered, and for a moment, the mirror was just a mirror again. But then, the surface began to ripple, like disturbed water, and the figure stepped forward.

It moved unnaturally, jerking like a puppet with severed strings. Eleanor backed away as its rotting hand pressed against the glass from the inside, leaving a smear of darkness. Its lips moved without sound, mouthing words she couldn’t understand.

Then she heard it—a whisper from nowhere and everywhere at once:

You have no future.

The room plunged into darkness. The air grew thick, suffocating, pressing against her like unseen hands. The last thing she saw before everything went black was her own reflection dissolving into the void.

The Missing Woman

Days passed. The mirror remained, but Eleanor did not.

Friends tried calling, knocking on her door. The landlord let himself in when the silence became too much to ignore. Eleanor’s apartment was undisturbed—nothing stolen, no signs of struggle. Only one thing was strange.

The mirror no longer reflected anything at all.