The Room of Mirrors

Lena found the room by mistake. She had taken a wrong turn backstage during the school play rehearsal, following a side hallway that most people ignored. At the end of it was an old door with peeling paint and a metal sign that read simply: *Reflections.*

Curious, she opened it. The room inside was quiet, dimly lit, and full of mirrors—tall ones, cracked ones, narrow ones, and some curved at odd angles. They weren’t placed neatly. They leaned against walls and each other, creating a maze of shifting images. When Lena stepped inside, she saw not just her reflection, but a hundred versions of it—some sharp, some warped, some shadowed.

At first, she laughed. The mirrors were like those in funhouses, stretching her legs or shrinking her head. But as she looked longer, the laughter faded. One mirror made her look older. One made her look uncertain. Another showed her with an expression she didn’t recognize—but somehow believed.

She returned the next day. And the next. Not for fun, but for thought. In each mirror, she saw different parts of herself—not in appearance, but in emotion. Fear. Confidence. Doubt. Joy. The room didn’t change her. It revealed her. Or perhaps, it helped her admit what she already knew.

Outside the room, she was always performing—being smart enough, kind enough, strong enough. Inside the room, she didn’t have to try. She just had to look.

One afternoon, she brought a notebook. She started writing small notes beneath the mirrors. *This is how I feel when I try to please everyone.* *This one is who I am when no one is watching.* *This one is not me—but I’ve pretended it was.*

Eventually, someone painted over the door. The hallway became storage. The room was forgotten again. But Lena didn’t need the mirrors anymore. She had found what she needed—not in the glass, but in the questions the glass had asked.