Story 1: "The Girl in the Mirror"

There was a mirror in Maya’s room that she hated.

It wasn’t because it was old, or dusty, or cracked — in fact, it was polished to perfection. Her grandmother had gifted it to her, claiming it was a family heirloom passed down through generations. It stood over six feet tall, with an ornate silver frame etched in strange symbols Maya had never seen before.

From the moment it entered her room, things began to change.

At first, it was subtle. Small items would go missing — her comb, her school ID, even her phone charger. Sometimes she’d wake up and find her closet open, even though she remembered shutting it tightly before bed.

One night, around 3:17 a.m., Maya woke up with a jolt. There was no sound, no movement, but something felt... wrong. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and they drifted toward the mirror.

That’s when she saw her.

A girl — her exact double — standing inside the mirror. But she wasn’t mimicking Maya’s actions like a reflection should. She was just staring. Still. Pale. Smiling.

Maya froze.

She blinked. Rubbed her eyes. When she looked again, the mirror was empty. Her own reflection stared back.

She told her parents the next day, but they brushed it off as a dream. "Too much late-night horror stuff," her dad joked.

But Maya knew what she saw.

The next few nights, it escalated.

At exactly 3:17 a.m., she would wake up and see the mirror version of herself again. But each time, the girl inside grew… different. Her skin turned grayer. Her smile wider. Her eyes darker. And she no longer just stood still — she began to move.

One night, the reflection reached out — her hand pressed against the inside of the glass, fingers twitching, nails long and black.

Maya screamed.

Her parents came rushing in, only to find her trembling and pointing at the perfectly normal mirror.

They called a therapist. Suggested it was stress. Suggested removing the mirror.

But Maya’s grandmother was furious when they brought it up.

“You don’t remove the mirror,” she snapped. “It doesn’t like that.”

That night, Maya locked her door. She covered the mirror with a blanket. She left the lights on.

But at 3:17 a.m., the lights flickered — and then went out.

She heard whispering. It wasn’t coming from the hallway, or the room. It was inside her head.

“Let me in.”

The blanket was gone.

The mirror stood exposed, and the girl was still inside — now pressing her face against the glass, mouth open wide in a silent scream.

Maya couldn’t look away. Her body was frozen. Her breath caught in her throat as the girl raised a hand and tapped the inside of the glass three times.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The mirror cracked.

Maya shrieked and threw a chair at it.

The mirror shattered — but no sound came from the glass. Instead, the reflection girl stepped through the shards like mist.

The last thing Maya saw before blacking out was her own face — her real face — screaming back at her as the reflection smiled.

Maya's parents found her in the morning, curled in a ball in the corner of her room, shaking violently. The mirror was gone.

All that remained were the etchings from the frame, now scorched into the floorboards.

She doesn’t speak anymore.

She only stares at the wall — and at 3:17 a.m., she smiles.

Story 2: “Voices in the Vent”

They moved into the house in early October. A fresh start, a quiet neighborhood, a cheap deal they couldn’t pass up. Lindsay, her husband Jared, and their six-year-old son Evan were ready for change.

But something was wrong with the vents.

It started with whispers.

Lindsay first noticed them while folding laundry in the upstairs bedroom. The heating had kicked in for the first time that fall, and as the air whooshed through the old metal ducts, she swore she heard faint voices. She paused, leaned closer to the vent, and listened.

“...he’s watching…”

A chill ran through her.

She quickly turned the thermostat off, brushing it off as air movement or old house noises. Jared laughed when she mentioned it.

“Old vents sound weird. Don’t spook yourself.”

But the next day, Evan came into their room in the middle of the night, wide-eyed and pale.

“There’s someone in my vent,” he whispered.

Jared sighed. “It’s just wind, buddy.”

“No,” Evan insisted. “He talks to me. He says... he wants to play.”

They checked the vent. Nothing inside. No animals. No loose screws. Just air.

But Evan refused to sleep alone after that.

By the end of the week, the whispers grew louder — and more frequent. Lindsay could now hear them in every room with a vent. It was always the same voice — deep, male, slow — murmuring words she couldn’t always make out. Sometimes laughing softly. Sometimes breathing heavily.

And sometimes… calling her name.

“Lindssseeeey…”

She had the ducts cleaned. Twice. The HVAC guy looked confused both times. “They’re fine,” he said. “A little old, but nothing weird.”

But it was weird. Because then things started appearing in the vents.

At first, it was a single black marble in the hallway vent. Then a small cloth doll. A tiny shoe.

Objects Evan had never owned.

“Where are these coming from?” she asked Jared, panicking.

Jared didn’t answer. He looked exhausted. Pale. He said the voice had started talking to him too.

“He… he said I need to give something up.”

Lindsay grabbed Evan and booked a motel that night. But Jared refused to come.

“I need to fix this,” he muttered. “He said I can make it stop.”

She didn’t sleep.

At 3:03 a.m., her phone rang.

It was Jared.

His voice was soft, almost drowned out by a loud humming. “He’s in the vents. I see him. Don’t come back.”

The line went dead.

Lindsay and Evan returned home the next morning. The front door was unlocked.

The vents were humming loudly.

Jared was gone.

The police searched the entire house. No signs of a struggle. No note. No trace of him in or around the neighborhood.

The only strange thing they found was deep inside the crawlspace where the vents all converged. Wedged inside the ductwork was a single human tooth. Blackened. Still warm.

They sealed the vents. Lindsay moved out a week later.

---

A year passed.

Lindsay now lives in a small apartment with Evan. She doesn’t talk about what happened.

But sometimes, when the heater kicks on in the winter… Evan tilts his head to the vent and whispers, “Hi Jared.”

And then he smiles.

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Story 3: “The Sleep Experiment”

In 2019, a clinical trial opened for volunteers willing to participate in a sleep study. The offer was enticing: $7,500 for just two weeks of observation. All you had to do was sleep.

Sarah needed the money. She was a broke college student, drowning in loans, desperate for anything that didn’t involve flipping burgers or selling plasma. So she signed up.

The facility was clean, sterile, and windowless. Room 204 — hers — had a twin bed, a camera in the corner, and a single vent humming cool air. A monitor above the bed tracked her vitals and sleep patterns. The researchers told her everything would be recorded, and she'd be observed but never disturbed.

The first few nights were normal. She drifted off easily. The lights dimmed at 10 p.m. sharp. She woke up at 7 a.m. to breakfast and a daily check-in.

But on the fourth night, things began to change.

She woke up gasping — heart racing, palms sweaty — with no memory of dreaming. The monitor above her bed showed flashing red bars. Her oxygen had dipped. Her heart rate had spiked. But the researchers said nothing. Just smiled too much.

“It’s normal,” they said. “Some people react this way.”

That night, Sarah couldn’t fall asleep.

Not because she wasn’t tired. But because every time she closed her eyes, she felt watched — not by the camera, but by something else in the room. Something just out of sight.

She turned to face the wall and pulled the covers over her head.

But she could still hear it.

Breathing.

Shallow. Raspy. Right by her ear.

She jerked up, flipping the lights on. No one there.

The monitor beeped erratically again.

The next morning, she demanded answers. One of the researchers, a tall man with a crooked smile, finally told her the truth.

“You’ve reached stage two,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

He handed her a tablet.

On the screen was footage from her room — recorded two nights prior. It showed Sarah sleeping. Peaceful. Until the timestamp hit 3:33 a.m.

Then her eyes opened.

Except… they weren’t her eyes.

They were black. Fully black. No whites. And she sat up with unnatural stiffness, turned to face the camera, and smiled directly into the lens.

Then she stood.

And walked to the corner of the room — where there was nothing but blank wall — and whispered something inaudible for over two hours straight.

Sarah dropped the tablet.

“That’s not me,” she stammered. “That’s not—”

The researcher only smiled. “Stage three begins tonight.”

She didn’t sleep at all that night.

But at 3:33 a.m., her body moved anyway.

She was fully conscious — paralyzed, horrified — as her limbs pulled her from bed, walked her to the corner, and began whispering again. But this time, she understood the words.

They weren’t hers.

They were instructions.

"The flesh is not enough. You must wake what sleeps beneath."

She couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t cry. All she could do was watch from behind her own eyes.

The next morning, she awoke in the corner, blood under her fingernails and a strange sigil carved into the wall.

The researchers were gone.

Room 204 was locked from the outside.

No food came. No voice over the intercom. Just static.

And the breathing.

It came from inside the vent again.

She tried to scream. But no one answered.

---

Sarah was never released from the trial.

The facility is abandoned now. Room 204 is still locked, sealed shut with iron bolts and strange markings etched into the door.

Sometimes, people claim to hear a voice whispering through the vent: “The flesh is not enough.”

And if you press your ear close enough... the wall will whisper back.

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