The Locked Glass

It had been five years since I last saw the hooded thing in the mirror of that cramped one-bedroom on Vine Street. I’d convinced myself it was a trick of the fluorescent light, a fold in my own sleep-deprived brain. I moved twice after that, first to a duplex with creaky floorboards, then to a quiet suburban house where the only ghosts were the ones I invented. But now, as we were packing up for a third move, something made my blood run cold again.

Our utilities had been shut off two weeks early, leaving the house dark and the taps dry. My parents had gone to my sister’s to watch the kids, and I was staying with a family friend, Mrs. Delgado, in her old Victorian on Maple Street. She was a sweet, forgetful woman who kept a bowl of hard candies on the coffee table and a collection of ceramic birds on the mantel. I thought I’d be safe there, away from the empty shell of our old house.

One night, my younger sister, Tess, came over to keep me company. We ordered pizza, watched a movie, and laughed about the chaos of moving. Around midnight, Tess went to take a shower. I was on the guest room floor, my laptop open, scrolling through packing lists. That’s when I heard it: a sharp, panicked yell from the bathroom, muffled by the sound of running water. ‘Liam!’ she screamed. ‘I’m stuck!’

I bolted down the hallway, my heart hammering. The bathroom door was ajar, and steam billowed out. The shower was an old claw-foot tub with a glass door that had a stubborn latch. Sure enough, Tess was inside, her hand pressed against the glass, her face flushed. The latch had jammed. I had to lift the door with all my strength, the metal screeching, until it finally popped open. Tess stumbled out, shaking, and wrapped herself in a towel.

‘I thought I’d never get out,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘For a second, I saw something in the mirror.’

My blood turned to ice. I turned slowly, my eyes dragging across the bathroom. There was a large, fogged mirror on the back of the door, the same one I’d noticed when I lifted the shower door. But now, as the steam cleared, I saw a streak of clarity in the condensation, like a hand had wiped across it. And in that clear patch, I saw my own reflection, pale and wide-eyed. But behind me, just for a flicker, there was a second figure, tall and cloaked in black, its hooded head tilted at an angle that suggested curiosity.

I spun around, but there was nothing. Just Tess and the empty bathroom.

Tess saw my face and went pale. ‘You saw it too, didn’t you?’ she whispered. I nodded, unable to find my voice. We fled to the living room, leaving the bathroom light on, and sat huddled on the couch. I tried to rationalize it: the steam, the stress, a trick of the light. But Tess wouldn’t let it go. ‘It was like that time you told me about, when you saw it in the mirror at the old apartment.’ She was right. It was the same shape, the same darkness, the same sense of ancient malevolence.

We tried to sleep, but every creak of the house made me jump. Mrs. Delgado was away visiting her sister, so we were alone. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the thing was still there, just out of sight, waiting for us to let our guard down. The next morning, I found Tess in the kitchen, her face drawn. She had a photo in her hand, an old polaroid I’d never seen. It was of Mrs. Delgado’s house, taken from the street, and in the upstairs bathroom window, there was a shadowy figure that looked impossibly like the hooded thing. My stomach dropped.

I asked Mrs. Delgado about it when she returned, trying to sound casual. She said the photo was from years ago, when she first bought the house. She’d taken it to show her sister. She didn’t understand why I was so interested in the window. She also mentioned that the bathroom mirror was a recent addition, from a previous owner who had claimed the house was ‘haunted’ and had installed it to ‘watch over’ the room. She laughed it off, but her eyes held a flicker of unease.

That night, Tess and I decided to stay up, determined to face whatever was there. We armed ourselves with flashlights and a camera, hoping to catch evidence. At 3 AM, the temperature in the room plummeted. The mirror above the sink in the hall began to fog up, even though no one was using hot water. We both stared as letters began to form in the condensation, slow and deliberate, as if traced by an invisible finger. They spelled: ‘YOU CANNOT RUN.’

Tess grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin. The mirror fogged further, and the reflection of the hallway behind us began to distort. In the glass, I saw the hooded figure, no longer just a glimpse but fully formed, its darkness swallowing the light. It raised a hand and pressed it against the glass, as if trying to break through. I heard a low, guttural murmur, like the sound of a throat clearing in a cave. ‘LEAVE,’ it said, but it was more of a vibration in my bones than a word.

We didn’t need to be told twice. We grabbed our bags and ran to my car, not stopping until we reached a 24-hour diner on the edge of town. I called my parents, told them something was wrong, and we spent the night huddled in a booth, sipping coffee, watching the sun rise. I never went back to Mrs. Delgado’s house. We finalized the move to a new apartment, and I made sure to cover up every mirror we owned with cloth, just in case.

But I know it’s not over. That thing has followed me from apartment to house to now, and I understand now that it’s not tied to any place—it’s tied to me. I can feel it in the periphery of my vision, a dark stain in the corner of my eye. Sometimes, when I look into a clear surface, I catch a glimpse of a hooded silhouette, waiting. It hasn’t shown itself fully since that night at Mrs. Delgado’s, but I know it’s biding its time. And the worst part is, I think it enjoys the chase. It let me run, because it knows eventually I’ll have nowhere left to go, and it’ll be waiting there, behind the next glass, ready to finish what it started.