In the abandoned glassblower's district of Verre Hollow, where the streets glittered with perpetual frost and the lamplight fractured into prismatic ghosts, there stood a window that refused to break.
The locals called it Mother Mirror , though it was neither mother nor mirror—just a single warped pane still clinging to the skeleton of the shattered greenhouse. Its surface rippled like liquid when touched, swallowing fingerprints whole. Children dared each other to lick it in winter, returning with tongues stained blue and memories of places they'd never been.
Here’s what the glass knew:
— It showed lovers their reflections aged fifty years, still entwined (but never happy)
— It caught the exact moment a heart broke, replaying it in endless refraction
— Sometimes at dusk, it would spit out physical echoes —a button from a suicide's coat, a wedding ring still warm from its owner's hand
Old Man Driscoll, the last glazier, claimed the pane was the final work of the mad artisan Guillaume Le Verrier, who'd blown it from liquid cemetery silence and his own vitrified breath. Driscoll tended it with vinegar and stolen street signs, whispering secrets too terrible for human ears.
Then came the night the glass screamed .
A sound like a thousand shattering church windows tore through the district. When the townsfolk arrived, they found Driscoll halfway inside the pane, his flesh merging with the glass in swirling patterns. His remaining hand pressed against the surface from within, leaving foggy prints that spelled:
"IT'S COLD IN HERE."
Now the children bring it offerings of broken bottles and their own held-back sobs. Sometimes the glass gifts them something back—a snowflake that never melts, a reflection that winks when you don't, a sliver that cuts only the lies from your tongue .
And if you press your ear to it during a thunderstorm, you can still hear Driscoll
