He'd only leant on the mirror by accident. The mansion had been crowded with tourists, hungrily snapping photo after photo of the old lavish interior that they'd dream about but never possess. They'd not given him any space at all, just shoved him against a dull but antique mirror and he'd somehow fallen through.
From his side he found himself in a world where the sky was a swirling fusion of black and grey smoke. The mirror looked the same on his side and all the tourists on the other side looked the same, only duller somehow. It was like he was seeing them through a thick layer of plastic which he may well have been as he tried to reach back through and met with a cold, hard surface.
He realised he couldn't get back that way and with the black streaks in the sky growing thicker he presumed that night was coming in whatever place he'd managed to find himself in. Glancing around for another mirror or doorway he saw that he was standing in the ruins of some enormous stone building much like the mansion he'd previously been in only much, much larger.
Skeletal trees and bushes were scattered around the crumbling bricks, moving in an unfelt wind as he trudged along crumbling staircases and seemingly endless pathways in search of another mirror that would hopefully take him back home. Night was coming fast and with it the air began to turn colder and harder to breath.
He must have walked for hours but he didn't feel tired or hungry or thirsty. He did feel like he was being watched from around every corner. After a while he took to slinking along in the hopes that whatever was following him (or was he following it?) wouldn't notice his presence.
He'd found traces of it along his explorations, little hints of another living being here and there.He soon took to leaving his own, hoping against hope that the other being was at least friendly, if not human or human-like. From the footprints he'd seen in the snow it had ape-like feet, almost thrice the size of his own. It sometimes seemed to climb the walls, leaving damp prints along those and even along what remained of the ceiling in some places.
Following these took him far from the mirror where he'd begun, along the parapets and down to the remains of a basement. Through day and night he walked endlessly after this other creature, hoping it would give him the answers he needed, help him escape and not follow him through into the mansion where this had all begun.
At some point he'd gotten distracted by what appeared to be writing along the wall. It looked English in some places but was mostly a mixture of scribbles and thumbprints. What little he could read told him that countless people had come before him, stumbling through mirrors and other reflective things, some in search of treasure and adventure but most by accident, just like him.
He didn't notice when the footprints stopped being in front of him and dropped to behind him.
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