Chapter 3: The Woman in the Mirror

Lin Xue stood frozen at her doorway, the knocking sound continuing—soft, sporadic. But it wasn’t coming from her door. It echoed from the end of the corridor—from the emergency exit on the fourth floor, a door that had been sealed shut for years with a building management notice plastered across it.

She turned stiffly and walked toward the elevator entrance, cautiously poking her head out to look. No one. The white overhead lights cast a cold glow on the concrete floor, illuminating only her own solitary figure. The silence was so complete she could almost hear her own heartbeat.

Biting her lip, she forced herself to stay rational. She pressed the down button for the elevator, planning to visit the property management office to look up records about the fourth floor. But when the elevator doors opened, she hesitated.

She wasn’t the only one in the mirror.

Clearly reflected behind her stood a shadowy figure, head bowed. No facial features. No clothing details. Just a vague silhouette, as if it had been carved out of the night itself.

Whipping around, she found the elevator empty.

Fear pushed Lin Xue inside. She slammed the "Close Door" button, not exhaling until the doors sealed shut.

She looked down at the control panel—only to see that the button for the first floor wasn’t lit.

Instead, the number “4” was flashing in an icy glow.

She hadn’t pressed it.

Lin Xue nearly screamed, but clamped her mouth shut and jabbed at the “1” and “Open” buttons repeatedly. The elevator ignored her. It was no longer under her control.

The next moment, the elevator began to descend—then stopped on the fourth floor.

Ding. The doors opened.

She instinctively backed up two steps, refusing to look at the mirror again. The fourth-floor corridor was pitch black as always, not a single light on. The seal on the emergency exit remained, and the floor was thick with dust—as though no one had set foot there in a decade. But this didn’t calm her.

She stood frozen in the elevator, unable to step out.

That’s when she heard it.

"...give it back... what you promised... give it back..."

A rasping, broken voice—like an old radio playing a station barely coming through. Faint, fragmented, but thick with resentment.

Cold sweat drenched her back. She didn’t move, praying the doors would close and take her away from this place.

Then the reflection in the mirror—moved.

She saw her “self” in the mirror slowly lift its head. But the face wasn’t hers. It was deathly pale, features blurred, twisted with pain and hatred.

Finally, she screamed.

Lunging forward, she frantically pressed the “Close Door” button.

The doors finally shut.

The elevator resumed its descent. Lin Xue collapsed in the corner, tears streaming down her face. She had no way to explain what she’d just seen—no clue what the voice wanted “returned.”

But she understood one thing—no one lived on the fourth floor not because they wouldn’t, but because they couldn’t.

When the elevator doors opened into the lobby, Lin Xue stumbled out, nearly falling into the couch in the corner. Her heart still pounded as she clutched her chest, gasping for breath.

The security guard, Xiao Li, startled by her entrance, rushed over.

“Miss Lin? Are you okay?” Xiao Li, a young man in his twenties, quickly poured her a glass of water when he saw how pale she looked.

Her hands trembled so much she could barely hold the cup. She nodded weakly. “I... I want to check the records for the fourth floor. Is there any info about past tenants?”

Xiao Li looked surprised and hesitated. “The fourth floor? That place’s been sealed off for ages. After the family that lived there moved out ten years ago, no one’s stayed there since. Some say it’s haunted. We’ve had a few owners try to move in, but they all backed out. Management avoids that floor now. The elevators are even set to skip it by default.”

“But it stopped there today.”

Lin Xue’s voice was hoarse.

Xiao Li blinked, then frowned. “Are you sure? The elevator system is programmed to bypass the fourth floor—unless someone overrides it or there's a control malfunction, it shouldn’t stop.”

“I saw\... someone.” Lin Xue’s voice dropped, her eyes still wide with lingering fear.

Xiao Li’s face darkened. He hesitated, then reached under the desk and pulled out a printed log sheet. “This is the backup log for elevator activity. Take a look—here, it shows one unusual stop this morning. The system registered a button press on the fourth floor.”

Lin Xue’s eyes fixed on the numbers. The elevator had automatically stopped on the fourth floor at 7:26 a.m.—the exact time she’d entered.

But she hadn’t pressed it.

Who had called the elevator... from the fourth floor?

She stared at the log, dread coiling tightly in her chest. This eerie morning was only the beginning of something far more terrifying. She had to find out who that “woman” was—she needed to know what had happened in this building’s past.

That wasn’t a hallucination, or a stress-induced illusion.

That “she” had been real—or still was.

And Lin Xue, somehow, had become the next unwilling character in a story that refused to end.