The old mansion stood at the edge of the town, half-hidden by a tangle of ivy and overgrown trees. It had been abandoned for decades, its windows shattered like the eyes of a long-dead creature. No one dared to approach it after dusk, though some claimed they had heard whispers coming from within. The townspeople spoke of strange lights flickering in the upper floors, of shadows that moved when no one was there, and of a woman who supposedly wandered the halls in a white dress, never speaking. Elias had always been drawn to the unknown. He was a quiet man, a photographer with a fascination for forgotten places. One rainy afternoon, he found himself standing before the mansion, his camera slung over his shoulder. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and something older, something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He took a deep breath and stepped through the rusted gate. The front door creaked open as if it were expecting him. Inside, the air was colder than outside, and the silence was so complete it felt almost alive. Dust motes swirled in the dim light filtering through broken panes. The floorboards groaned beneath his feet as he moved deeper into the house. A grand staircase led upward, its banister cracked and splintered. At the top, a hallway stretched into the darkness, lined with portraits whose faces seemed to follow him. He climbed the stairs, each step echoing louder than the last. In the middle of the hallway, a door stood slightly ajar. He pushed it open, revealing a bedroom frozen in time. A four-poster bed sat in the center, covered in a thick layer of dust. A mirror hung on the wall, its glass fogged and cracked. As Elias approached, he noticed something strange: the reflection in the mirror did not move when he moved. It simply stared back, eyes wide and empty. He turned away, heart pounding, but the moment he looked back, the reflection was now moving. It smiled, slowly, and then pointed toward the window. Elias spun around, but the window was closed. He reached for his camera, snapping a few photos, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that the images would be wrong. As he descended the stairs, the temperature dropped further. The hallway seemed longer than before, and the door he had entered through was gone. He tried to retrace his steps, but the layout of the house had changed. Walls shifted, corridors twisted, and the air grew heavier. He could hear soft footsteps behind him, slow and deliberate. He quickened his pace, but the sound never disappeared. Finally, he stumbled into what appeared to be the entrance hall. The front door was still there, but as he reached for the handle, a voice whispered in his ear, “You should not have come.” He spun around, but there was no one there. The whisper echoed again, softer this time, and then faded into silence. He rushed out, slamming the door behind him. The rain had stopped, and the sky was clear. But as he looked back, the mansion stood exactly as it had before, its windows dark and lifeless. He turned away, but the image of the mirror’s reflection lingered in his mind. He had taken pictures, but when he developed them, the only thing visible was the empty room, and in the corner of one photo, a figure in a white dress stood watching from the doorway. That night, Elias dreamed of the mansion again. This time, he saw the woman clearly—her face pale, her eyes hollow. She reached out, her hand brushing against his cheek, and whispered, “You will return.” When he woke, the memory was still fresh, and the photograph sat on his desk, untouched. He never took another picture of the mansion, but sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night, he could swear he heard footsteps in the walls.