Chloe stepped into the House of Mirrors with her usual swagger, phone in hand, ready to capture the perfect shot for her Instagram feed. 

It was the last stop on her carnival tour, the one place she hadn’t yet immortalized with a pouty pose and a carefully curated filter. As an influencer, her followers craved flawless images of her—each more perfect than the last. Her beauty was her brand, and she worked tirelessly to maintain it.

The door clinked shut behind her, the muted sounds of carnival music fading into the background. She didn’t notice the shift, too absorbed in flipping her hair and adjusting the angle of her phone. 

The first mirror she approached greeted her with her usual reflection: glossy lips, impeccable makeup, a hot body, and the golden glow of artificial lighting. She snapped a picture, puckered her lips, and smirked at the camera.

“Too easy,” she muttered, scrolling through filters to find the one that would make her skin glow just a bit more.

She took a few steps deeper into the maze. The next mirror, slightly warped, stretched her body tall and thin. She chuckled, throwing a hand on her hip, exaggerating her pose. Another selfie. Another mirror conquered.

But then, something odd caught her eye. The reflection wasn’t smiling. Chloe blinked. The figure in the mirror stood frozen, staring back at her, lips unmoving, eyes hollow. A chill ran up her spine. She waved her hand, but the reflection remained still, locked in place. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Stupid cheap carnival tricks,” she muttered, forcing herself to laugh, though her voice sounded too high, too sharp.

She moved to the next mirror, hoping for better lighting and a normal reflection, but what she found stopped her in her tracks. Her reflection was bloated and grotesque. Her cheeks bulged, her lips cracked and dry. Once smooth and polished, her skin sagged as if aging had hit her all at once.

“Is this some kind of joke?” she said, her voice trembling. The mirror Chloe stared back, unblinking, her skin peeling away in uneven patches. Chloe recoiled, stepping backward, but found herself confronted by another mirror. 

And this one was worse.

Her face in this mirror was melted, disfigured. Her eyes were black pits, sunken deep into her skull. Her once-perfect nose was twisted as if someone had taken a mallet to it. 

She gasped, her breath catching in her throat. The figure mimicked her terror, raising a hand to its face, but where Chloe’s fingers were manicured and elegant, the reflection’s hand was mangled, bones protruding through bruised flesh.

“No, this isn’t real,” Chloe whispered, dropping her phone. 

It clattered to the ground, forgotten. She spun around, searching for the exit, but all she saw was herself, distorted in ways more horrifying with each step. One mirror made her gaunt and skeletal, her eyes bloodshot, her teeth jagged. In another, her body was twisted and malformed, her legs at unnatural angles.

Her breath quickened. “I have to get out of here,” she said, her voice shaky. 

She tried to retrace her steps, but the mirrors seemed to multiply, stretching endlessly in all directions. Every turn brought a new horror, a new version of her face that was more hideous than the last.

Her beauty, the thing she had built her entire life around, was vanishing before her eyes.

She reached for the nearest mirror, pressing her palms against the cold glass. “Let me out!” she screamed, but the reflection sneered back at her, mocking her desperation. Her face in the glass was disfigured beyond recognition, eyes bloodshot, hair matted and greasy, lips torn and bleeding.

“Please!” she cried, pounding on the glass. The distorted image cracked a twisted smile as if savoring her fear.

Chloe stumbled backward, falling to her knees. The mirrors closed around her, surrounding her with endless versions of her decaying, nightmarish self. She was no longer in control, no longer the perfect image she had presented to the world.

There was no exit. 

The carnival had faded away. The mirrors were endless, trapping her in an infinite loop of her own vanity. Her desperate screams echoed through the hall, swallowed by the glass, heard only by the reflections that watched her with dark amusement.

And as the last light flickered out, Chloe realized she would remain there forever—lost in her own reflection, endlessly distorted, with no escape.

In the distance, her phone chimed. A new notification. Another like.

But Chloe would never post again.

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The End