Celia Parker arrived just as dusk bled into the forest, the sky a bruised purple above the tallest pines. Fresh snow carpeted the narrow track, erasing any hint that others had passed this way in days. She pulled her hood tight, the howl of wind pricking her senses as she crossed the threshold into the rental cabin’s pale glow. When the door closed behind her, the sound snapped through the silent room like a gunshot.
Inside, the air was stale and cold, but far better than the suffocating grief at home. Celia dropped her pack and let her gaze roam the humble living space. A worn hearth sat at one end, its iron grate cold and ashen. A threadbare rug, frayed at the edges, covered mismatched floorboards. Against one wall, a tall bookshelf bowed under the weight of dusty tomes: hunting manuals, faded volumes of local folklore, biographies of long-dead pioneers. No one had tidied in years, yet the cabin felt lived-in—haunted even—by memories she couldn’t yet name.
She shrugged off her coat and boots, careful to leave the snow on the floor. She clicked on the single lamp beside the couch and watched dust dance in its beam. A stack of yellowed photographs lay fanned on the coffee table: glimpses of a family posing with axes, children bundled in scarves, a solemn teen clutching a rifle. Celia picked one up. The girl wore Celia’s own eyes and cinnamon hair, yet something was off—the curve of her smile too forced, the background pine trees gnarled into unnatural twists. A shiver ran through her. She dropped the photo into a small basket, careful not to look again.
By midnight, snow whirled against the windows in thick eddies. Celia stoked the dying embers of the fireplace until orange tongues licked the chimney. She spread fresh logs in neat rows, then settled at the dining table with her laptop and notebooks, determined to lose herself in writing. But her mind kept drifting back to that photograph. Who was that girl? Had she vanished here, in this very cabin? The notion coiled in Celia’s chest, squeezing out every rational thought.
At 1:07 a.m., a knock came from the front door—three sharp raps that echoed too cleanly in the cramped space. Celia nearly leapt from her chair. She froze, listening. The knock repeated, fainter this time, as if on the other side of a thick curtain. No one had rented this place but her. With trembling hands, she clicked off her lamp and peered through the frosted window. Nothing but swirling snow. She backed away, palms slick, and told herself it was a branch scraping the siding. The voice of reason warned her not to rise.
But the knocking came again, only softer, now from inside the cabin—like someone tapping on the wall behind her. She spun around. The living room was empty, the fireplace crackling low. Her breath came in ragged puffs. She gathered courage and crept toward the wall, sliding her palm over the rough logs. At the corner, she slipped behind a stack of books and felt a hollow draft. Beneath a loose plank lay a narrow gap. Through it, she glimpsed the staircase to the attic—darkness yawning upwards.
When she reached the stairs, candlelight died. The lone bulb flickered and gave out, plunging her into inky gloom. Celia flipped on her flashlight. Its narrow beam revealed layers of dust and cobwebs clinging to the walls. She ascended, each step moaning under her weight. The attic door stood slightly ajar. She gripped the knob, its metal icy against her palm, and pushed it open.
Moonlight filtered through a small round window high in the gable, illuminating trunks and discarded clothes strewn across the floor. In the far corner lay a long, twisted branch carved with runes—symbols Celia had seen in her dreams. She reached out, fingers brushing the wood. The instant her skin touched the carvings, a dull thud shook the room—something slammed into the main floor below. Celia flinched and stumbled back, bumping into the doorframe. The branch lay motionless, but her heart thundered in her ears.
She fled down the stairs two at a time, flashlight beam bouncing wildly. She hopped into the living room—empty, the fireplace cold. On the coffee table lay the runed branch, its carvings smoothed by age. She ran her fingers over the symbols, notes whispering to life in her mind: binding circles, marks of hunger, seals meant to trap something ancient. How had it traveled downstairs without footsteps? She wanted to hurl it aside but dared not trust where it might land.
Outside, wind clawed at the cabin. The windows rattled, and an unearthly keening rose and fell, like a chorus of lost souls. Celia’s flashlight flickered. She backed away, pressing herself against the far wall. The hatchet she’d brought lay snug against the hearthstone. She grabbed it, its weight anchoring her rising panic.
A long, low thump shook the front door, and something tapped—tap… tap… tap… as though counting each second before it would break through. Celia braced herself, knuckles white, and watched the door as if she could bore holes through it with her gaze. The tapping stopped. Silence swallowed the cabin. She held her breath.
Then, a child’s laughter—soft and distant—drifted down from the attic, curling through the rafters. Celia’s blood ran cold. She turned, flashlight sweeping the room, and caught a flash in the mirror propped against the wall: a pale girl standing behind her, face pressed to the glass, eyes shimmering glassy. Celia whirled, but when her beam landed moments later, the mirror reflected only her own wild-eyed face.
Her scream caught in her throat as the lights flickered back on. The hearth burst into flame without warning, sending shadows dancing like grotesque dancers. The mirror’s glass wavered as though rippling water. The girl’s face emerged again, closer, muscles slack except for a grin too wide. Celia stumbled backward, dropping both flashlight and hatchet. She fumbled to catch the hatchet, but the blade clattered across the floor to rest at the girl’s reflected feet. Celia lunged, snatching it up—and the image in the mirror dissolved, leaving only her own terrified stare.
Celia fled to the kitchen corner, barricading herself behind the old oak table. In her panic, she knocked over porcelain plates. They shattered, shards scattering like teeth. The lights dimmed once more. Outside, the wind slammed into the walls. She pressed her forehead to the tabletop, fighting nausea. She had to escape—at dawn, she would be free.
By 3:22 a.m., the storm faded into brittle hush. Celia eased the table aside and crept to the door. She tried her phone again: no signal. She slammed her fist on the landline—dead. She spread chairs and trunks across the threshold, jammed a stool beneath the knob, and strapped her duffel strap around the handles. Then she sank against the wall, clutching the hatchet.
Morning broke pale and still. Celia rose on numb legs, muscles stiff. She needed wood and water. Sipping cold thermos coffee, she layered her parka and stepped outside. The forest lay silent, every branch etched in white. She trudged to a woodpile north of the cabin, pulling heavy logs free. As she stacked them, she noticed footprints trailing into the woods: deep, elongated hollows in the snow, toes splayed. They vanished among the trees. Rational thought fled her mind.
She dropped the logs and aimed her flashlight toward the treeline. Nothing moved. Then she heard a snap of a twig. She whirled; in the beam’s edge crouched a girl, face hidden by hair. The shape rose and slipped behind a tree. Celia called out—no answer. She advanced, following faint prints that arced back to the cabin. A horn of ice-cold dread squeezed her throat.
She darted back to the porch, slamming the door shut and barricading it again. In the entryway, she found her phone glowing—a single incoming call from her mother’s number. She pressed answer. A static hiss, then a voice she hadn’t heard in months: “Celia… don’t come home. Stay.” The line went dead.
The cabin thrummed around her. The fireplace reignited on its own, embers snapping. The runed branch lay by her bed, pulsing under the lamp’s pale light. She reached out, trembling, and felt the wood thrum with something feral. It tugged at her fingertips, a silent promise: come closer.
Tears pricked her eyes. She hurled the branch from the window—it vanished into the snow. Below, a rumble shook the floorboards. Flames licked the hearth taller than they should, black smoke curling toward the ceiling. Through the window, she saw dozens of footprints trampling drift toward the cabin. She slammed the blinds.
In the kitchen, she found her phone again. A new message glowed: YOU BELONG TO US. She dropped the device as the mirror in the hallway shattered with a sharp crack.
Celia backed into the hallway, every nail and floorboard stretching like sinew under her skin. Her breath came in shreds; the hatchet in her trembling hand felt impossibly heavy, its steel gleaming like ancient bone. The cabin’s single bulb flickered, shadows fracturing into impossible angles. From behind her, the mirror’s shards reassembled themselves—slowly, agonizingly—until the glass hung sealed once more, warped and rippling like stagnant water.
A low chant filled the room, voices dozens deep, slithering through the walls. Celia spun toward it, heart hammering. Through the mirror, she saw something vast: tendrils of midnight mist weaving through a starless sky, punctuated by cyclopean lanterns drifting beyond comprehension. A cavern yawned at the horizon, studded with blinking eyes, and a colossal form curled around that abyss, so immense it broke her mind to fathom.
Her reflection pressed its forehead to the glass. Celia poised the hatchet for one final strike—expecting to shatter her own face. But before she could swing, the glass devoured the steel with a hungry crackle. She felt it first in her fingertips: a pulse of ice-cold madness rippling up her arm. The mirror quivered, then yawned open like a maw.
Without warning, Celia’s scream inverted into a whisper. The mirror exhaled her voice back at her, layered a dozen deep: “We are here. We are hungry.” Her legs gave way, and she collapsed into a writhing pool of reflections. Duplicates of herself smiled, then melted into the crackling blackness. She tried to crawl away, but hands—her own hands snatched at her ankles, dragging her back.
The cabin fractured. Walls peeled away to reveal cyclopean arches that bled phosphorescent ichor. The ceiling receded into an infinite void, where lantern-beasts bobbed like wayward stars. Celia’s mind snapped. She saw galaxies bleed into one another, heard the agonized howl of worlds dying, and felt the pull of that infinite maw, bidding her to join its eternal feast.
In a final moment of defiance, she raised the hatchet above her head. But the blade turned to smoke in her grasp, and when she looked at her reflection, it was gone—replaced by a creature with too-long limbs and a crown of writhing spines. The thing leaned close, its breath like rot and winter wind, and spoke in a chorus of Celia’s lost thoughts: “You are no longer yours. You belong to us.”
Her bones unwound in excruciating harmony with the cabin’s heartbeat. She felt herself stretching, twisting—her spine curving until her back met the ceiling. Her hands sprouted talons; her eyes gleamed with jaundiced light. Every ounce of her humanity dissolved into that ancient hunger. As the transformation completed, the mirror’s surface rippled shut behind her back, sealing her inside a shell of the girl she used to be.
Outside, the forest fell silent once more. The cabin’s windows glowed faintly, pulsing with a timeless breath. No footprints led away. Only a single photograph lay on the coffee table—Celia’s face frozen mid-scream, eyes blazing amber. If you look long enough, those eyes follow you, beckoning.
On some nights, if you wander too close, you’ll hear a soft, wrenching sigh born of infinite hunger—and see, reflected dimly in the cracked hallway mirror, a figure crouched low with too-long limbs, skin mottled with frost. The cabin never lets its prey go. It collects them one by one and feeds their souls to the thing beyond the glass.
