Mirror-Breaker

Chapter 2

Sarah sighed, closing the heavy wooden door behind her. The 21th century had barely touched the Hexhdale Grand Hotel, or so it seemed - no electronic locks with magnetic key-cards, no wi-fi, no QR codes plastered everywhere. She turned the heavy metal key twice, then she placed it on the old-fashioned wooden desk and went to close the curtains.

The room would have definitely been beyond her means under normal circumstances - as a matter of fact, it was larger than most studio-apartments in her price range. It was only her second night there, so Sarah still felt the slightly odd sensation of settling in for sleep in an unfamiliar place, but she had to admit that the room was quite cozy. The old-fashioned solid wood furniture, which would have felt clumsy and out of place in a modern apartment, filled the space nicely; a TV mounted on the wall gave just a touch of modernity to the environment, though Sarah suspected guests never really turned it on - it just wouldn't feel right.

It was raining again. The tall windows, which warmed the room with much-needed sunlight during the day, now let in only darkness and the rhythmic tapping of water droplets hitting the glass. Sarah slid out of her tight jeans, freeing her legs for the first time since that morning, and threw herself on the embarrassingly large king-sized bed. Tomorrow would be as tiring as today, she thought. "I'm not here for leisure".

In her two days of investigation, she had discovered exactly zero clues on the unexplained disappearances that she had been sent there to investigate. The police knew nothing, the newspapers knew nothing, her superiors knew nothing, the sweet granny at the bakery knew nothing, and she herself knew less than nothing, Sarah mused while doing her best snow angel impression on the fluffy bed. The only lead in the story was that all three of them had ties to the local museum, but as her appointment was scheduled for tomorrow and as she hadn't found any way to snoop around, there was nothing to this yet.

The only true lead she had found, if one could call it a lead, was the hidden shard in the book. Thinking about it with a cool head, the events at the library had been quite weird.
A shiver ran down her spine, making her suddenly hyper-aware of her still unfamiliar surroundings. Miss Evans, the last one to vanish (yet), had also stayed at the Hexhdale Grand Hotel. In that light, every piece of furniture suddenly seemed like it could hide a secret door; the paintings on the ceiling felt like an ominous riddle. Were the kind employees actually member of a sinister cult, along with Christine the librarian and the bakery lady? Was the museum a portal to another world? Were the ghost hunters government agents? What was the pouring rain concealing?

With a heavy sigh, Sarah sat up on the bed, watching her reflection on the beautifully framed wall mirror which stood right in front of it. Another old-fashioned piece of furniture whose aura changed significantly depending on the mood of the observer, she thought, watching her reflection. Tired eyes, hair in dire need of a hot shower, half-naked - a wool sweater and nothing else except for her underwear.

She had wrapped the shard and the spooky note that accompanied it in a local newspaper that she had randomly picked up earlier that day, in order to keep them safe from the rain and from other potential accidents, but also because she didn't feel completely at ease around them. Miss Evans had placed the shard in a small glass case, after all, which admittedly was a very odd thing to do - glass inside glass? Why?

And the note, she had definitely made a mistake with the note. She had quickly pocketed it before even reading it, startled by the sudden appearance of the ghost hunters - that had been a reasonable decision for sure, but given its contents it was now clear that the note should be given to the police. How? Sarah decided that she'd think of a way of going about it as anonymously as possible. Also, she couldn't get the warning itself out of her head. Oh well, now it was a bit too late to "KEEP IT SAFE LEAVE IT THERE DONT OPEN IT DONT DONT DONT EVER TOUCH IT". Was the shard made of radioactive ultra-antimatter? Or, perhaps more reasonably, Miss Evans hadn't been in a sound state of mind at the time of her disappearance, regardless of the shard's nature.