The Glass Museum

I hadn’t thought about the glass museum in years. It was a decaying relic from the 1970s, a single-story structure on the edge of town that had once been a showplace for local artisans. By the time we discovered it, it was nothing more than a dusty mausoleum of shattered dreams—and, as we’d soon learn, something far worse.

It was late autumn, the kind of night where the cold seeps through your jacket and the streetlights hum with a sickly orange glow. My friends and I had been looking for a place to drink, and Marcus, who had a knack for finding forgotten spots, suggested the museum. ‘My cousin used to work the night shift there,’ he said, passing a flask to me. ‘He quit after a week. Said he kept hearing things moving in the display cases, even though the place was locked tight.’

We laughed it off. The building was boarded up, but we found a side door with a jimmied lock, and soon we were wandering through the main hall, flashlights cutting through the dark. The air was thick with dust and the smell of old varnish. Rows of glass cabinets lined the walls, their shelves empty except for a few broken shards and price tags that had yellowed with age.

It was around midnight when I noticed the back room. It was sealed off with a heavy steel door, unlike the others, which hung open. Marcus’s face went pale when he saw it. ‘That’s where they kept the special pieces,’ he whispered. ‘The ones the artists swore were cursed.’ We should have listened, but we were young and drunk, and curiosity is a hell of a drug. We pushed the door open, groaning on rusted hinges.

Inside, the room was surprisingly intact. A single glass case sat in the center, covered with a velvet cloth. The floor was scattered with what looked like tiny white fragments—broken glass, maybe. Or teeth. I stepped closer and pulled the cloth away. Inside was a mirror, old and tarnished, set in a gilded frame. But the glass was not reflective. It was black, like a pool of oil, and in its depths I could see the faint outline of a face—not mine, not any of ours, but a woman’s face, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream.

‘What the hell is that?’ Leo said, backing away. The face in the mirror turned to look at him, and for a split second, I could have sworn it smiled. Suddenly, the glass in the other display cases began to rattle. One by one, the doors swung open, and the shards on the floor started to lift, swirling around us like a tiny hurricane. We ran, but the door had slammed shut. We were trapped.

The shards began to piece themselves together, forming shapes—hands, reaching for us. Marcus screamed first. A shard flew at his face and embedded itself in his cheek. Leo tried to kick the mirror, but the glass held firm, and the face now had a body, crawling out of the frame, made entirely of broken mirrors, reflecting our own terrified expressions in a hundred fractured panes.

I don’t remember how we got out. I woke up outside, lying on the wet pavement, the museum’s side door hanging open behind me. Marcus and Leo were gone. I never saw them again. The police searched the museum, but they found nothing—no bodies, no blood, only the broken case in the back room, and a single piece of paper on the floor, covered in handwriting that looked like it had been scratched by glass: ‘They are with me now. Come see.’

I didn’t go back. I never will. But sometimes, when I pass a window at night, I catch a glimpse of a woman’s face in the reflection—and she’s smiling.