The Forty-Ninth Attempt

At exactly midnight, a young man found a strange wooden box buried beneath an old tree, and carved on the lid were the words:

Do not open unless you are ready to know the truth.

But the young man is known to be stubborn and strong headed that anytime someone tells him not to do it, his brain processed it as “Do It”, which he did.

The moment the boy lifted the lid, he was disappointed as the box did not reveal gold, jewels, or anything valuable. Instead, it contained a small cracked mirror that showed a reflection of him standing in a place he had never been, wearing clothes he had never owned.

He gasped as he was surprised to see himself, though it looked exactly like him, He looked like an older version of him.

He instinctively touched his own face, staring at the unfamiliar version of himself as if trying to determine whether the person in the mirror was really him.

Then something happened that made his stomach tighten. The older version of himself moved, but not in the same way he did.

Instead of copying his movements, the figure slowly raised his hand and placed it against the glass from the other side.

Curiously, the young man slowly placed his own finger against the mirror.

For a moment, nothing happened, but after he drew his hand back, the figure disappeared, his reflection was normal again.

Confused, he stared at himself and thought he might have imagined it, or maybe his eyes were deceiving him due to him being tired and lack sleep.

But then he noticed something impossible, there was a small scar on his cheek, which he didn’t have before.

Slowly, he touched it while looking at his reflection on the mirror, as it also touched the same spot. Except...the reflection smiled.

The young Man blinked, and for a few seconds, he simply stated, finally concluding he had absolutely no interest in figuring out whatever the hell was happening, as he placed the mirror back inside the wooden box, returned the box to its original location beneath the tree, covered it with soil, and left.

He continued his journey home, doing his best to forget the entire thing.

That night, he lay in bed, convinced that the strange mirror had been nothing more than a trick of the light. However, just as he was about to fall asleep, he heard a faint tapping sound coming from outside his bedroom window.

Tap... tap... tap...

He slowly opened his eyes and froze. Sitting on the windowsill was the same cracked mirror from the wooden box, except he was certain he had left it buried beneath the tree.

He glanced at the clock on his bedside table, which read 4:00AM. Confused with a mix of worry he got up, His mind immediately began playing possible scenarios.

How did it get here?

Who brought it?

What the hell was that thing I saw earlier?

What could possibly happen,

While slowly making his way to the window, eyes fixed on the strange object.

When he finally reached it, he stopped.

The mirror was no longer sitting on the windowsill.

Instead, it was hanging from the tree outside by a thin, black thread, swinging slowly in the wind.

But what made his blood run cold wasn’t the mirror itself. It was the reflection inside it.

The mirror wasn’t showing his bedroom, it was showing the exact same room...except it looks like years had passed.

Dust covered the furniture, the walls were cracked, and everything looked abandoned. Then, from the corner of the reflection, a figure slowly walked into view.

It was him,

An older version of himself,

with the same scar he had gotten from the strange encounter earlier.

The older version looked directly at him, then mouthed three words:

“You shouldn’t have.”

The young man blinked, and the reflection returned to normal.

His bedroom,

His face wore the unmistakable expression of someone silently asking, What the hell is going on?,

And the mirror.

Except now, carved into the bottom corner of the glass were three words that weren’t there before:

SECOND CHANCE DENIED.