The Man Behind the Glass

Chapter 1: Darkness & Small Details

The photograph was found inside the wall behind the old fireplace.

Nobody remembered putting it there.

That was the first thing my mother said when she held it in her hands, standing in the dust-filled living room of the farmhouse that had belonged to our family for nearly a century.

The picture was small and faded, the kind that had once been kept inside a wallet or tucked between the pages of a book. The edges were curled, and the faces in it had almost disappeared beneath years of darkness and moisture.

But one thing was clear.

There was a man standing in the hallway.

He was smiling.

My mother noticed him before I did.

“Who is that?” she whispered.

The question sounded strange because the man was not supposed to be there.