Demon's Hide

Requiem the Mirror

Female Main Character x Nonbinary Monster
(MC is Blind)

I haven't been back to the old house since I was little before I lost my eyes. The old house, well, it was a mansion really, had been in the family for generations. My grandmother grew up there, my great-grandfather grew up there. It was a place as old as the
town it was built in and carried the most stories with it.

As a little girl, I spent many summers there. My eyes had just started failing, and I would become lost in the endless hallways and rooms. Not that I minded it much, I actually enjoyed getting lost in the old house.

Although, my grandmother forbid me from going into the basement. She was adamant about it and got confrontational whenever I brought it up. She was always down there though, going up and down the stairs at strange times. She would take vases full of flowers downstairs and come the next day, she'd bring them up, dead and wilted.

My father talked about how his grandfather, my great-grandfather, would do the same thing. He would take guests down there in the evening, but no one would leave until the next morning. And usually, after that, those people never returned to the house again.

The last time I was in the house, I was sixteen. My grandmother was throwing me a birthday party, something she said was just like the old days. By then, my eyesight was pretty much gone. I could see vague shapes and colors, but beyond that, I was technically blind.

Of course, the birthday party my grandmother threw for me was mainly full of old people. Her friends, wealthy associates, blue bloods from wherever. Basically, my grandmother was trying to get me married off to a rich, appropriate suitor. Those who weren't put off
by my eyes were ones after my money. They were after the old house, my inheritance, my family's name and everything they worked for. I wasn't into it. Even if looks weren't a factor for me, I wasn't into sniveling, two-faced, pasty fancy boys, who would sooner
shoot school children than give up their father's gun collection or whatever.

Needless to say, my patience was as thin as tissue paper. I snuck away, able to slip out shockingly easy. I went inside and to the kitchen where the chef and staff were happy to have me. The chef had known me since I was a baby and used to prepare my blended baby food.
She gave me a tray of hors-d'oeuvres and let me be.

As I was stuffing my face with some sort of shrimp tempura magic, I noticed a bright, painful glow in the corner of my eye. I rubbed my eyes, and to my shock, when I opened them again, I could see as clear as day. I had never, in my entire life, seen so clearly as
this. I was in awe, I stared at my hands, the plates of food, all around the kitchen. I then saw the bright light again. It flickered and flashed from the stairwell, calling for my attention.

I went to it, following the light down the stairs and into the basement. It was a solid, cold room. Nothing but a concrete floor, cement blocks, and a forest of support beams. I walked across the room and saw that the entire south wall was nothing but a gigantic mirror.
It was framed in pure silver, which was intricate and jagged. From far away, it looked like a mess of vines and thorns. But upon close inspection, the details of the frame were striking. There were ghastly faces behind the thorny vines. They looked pained and in
anguish, their mouths open in ghoulish screams, and their eyes gouged, hollow sockets.

All around the mirror were vases filled with dead, wilted flowers. Flowers I had heard were delivered that very morning. Sure, the basement was cold and dark, but that shouldn't have signed the end for these blossoms for at least a few days.

I then heard breathing. It was soft and whispering, a sigh here and there, a low gasp. I looked around, feeling as if the sound was coming from everywhere and nowhere. I then turned and looked at the mirror, seeing my reflection. It waved at me.