Arthur Pendelton had always been a man of lists. His life, much like his warehouse, was a place of ordered chaos. In the fluorescent-lit aisles of “Pendelton’s Oddities & Acquisitions,” everything had its place. Boxes of vintage toasters sat beside crates of Victorian-era doorknobs. A taxidermied badger stood guard over a stack of 1970s vinyl. It was a graveyard of forgotten things, and Arthur was its solitary curator.
His days were a predictable rhythm of dusting, cataloging, and the occasional sale to a nostalgic collector. But lately, a discordant note had crept into the symphony of his routine. It was a feeling, a prickle at the back of his neck, a sense that he was being watched from the moment he unlocked the heavy steel door each morning. He’d put it down to the long winter and a touch of lingering flu.
The source of his unease was a corner of the warehouse he actively avoided. Deep in the back, past the mannequins and the dusty medical models, was a section he used for overflow. It was a jumble of the truly unsellable, a place where items went to be forgotten entirely. Among them was a large, ornate mirror in a tarnished silver frame, its surface as dark and impenetrable as oil. He’d acquired it from an estate sale years ago and had never been able to clean its surface. Any cloth he used just seemed to smear the grime, and eventually, he gave up, turning it to face the corrugated metal wall.
Today, however, the feeling was stronger. It was a low hum in his bones, a static electricity that made the sparse hairs on his arms stand on end. He finished his tea, squared his shoulders, and decided to confront the unease head-on. He grabbed a powerful LED flashlight and marched towards the back.
The air grew colder as he navigated the labyrinth of junk. The silence was absolute, broken only by the soft squeak of his trainers on the concrete floor. He rounded a stack of suitcases and there it was: the mirror. It was no longer facing the wall.
A jolt of pure terror shot through him. He was certain he had left it turned around. The frame seemed to gleam with a faint, internal light, not reflecting the warehouse’s dim bulbs, but emanating its own. He took a hesitant step closer, his heart hammering against his ribs. The surface was no longer murky. It was a swirling vortex of muted colors, like oil on water, but deep, impossibly deep.
He raised the flashlight, its beam cutting through the air. As it hit the mirror’s surface, the light didn’t reflect back. It was absorbed, swallowed by the silent, spinning void. He stood mesmerized, a mixture of terror and an overwhelming, inexplicable curiosity rooting him to the spot. This was no trick of the light. This was… something else. He had spent his life cataloging the forgotten, but he had just stumbled upon something that had never been, and could never be, forgotten. His warehouse, his quiet, ordered world, now held a door. And he was terrified of what might be standing on the other side.
How did this make you feel?