Avery\u2019s fingers trembled as they shoved the rusted padlock open. The antique shop basement smelled of dust and something rancid, but all she saw was the glint of silver. The mirror had been locked away, its surface cloudy, shapes shifting in ways the dim light couldn’t explain. <\/p>\n
She hesitated. The old man upstairs, his one good eye darting toward the floorboards, hadn\u2019t met her gaze when she\u2019d asked about it. His shaking hands had made no effort to name a price. She should have left it alone. <\/p>\n
But it was valuable\u2014too valuable to pass up. <\/p>\n
Avery wiped the glass with her sleeve. Her reflection cleared but didn\u2019t quite match her movements. Her breath hitched. She stepped back. A sigh, not hers, echoed softly. <\/p>\n
Then the mirror-hand shot forward, gripping her wrist. Cold, damp fingers dug into her skin. Avery tried to scream, but it pulled\u2014pulled until the shop basement was gone. <\/p>\n
The old man never heard a sound. Only glass settling into stillness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some mirrors show reflections. Others take them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-horror"],"_wp_attached_file":null,"_wp_attachment_metadata":null,"_thumbnail_id":"813","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}