The final room does not have a number on it, but it is right at the end of the hallway. I walk towards it, each step more apprehensive than the last. The first four doors filled me with a sense of love, a sense of yearning and desire. What will this door present?

The door swings open before I can grab the handle. I peer in and see nothing but an empty room, vacant save for mirrors that hang from corner to corner. I saunter into the room hoping to find beauty, but all I see is a woman staring at one of the mirrors, her hair grey from age.

“Welcome, Melissa,” she says, as she turns around. Her face is unmistakable. A fusion of my own and my mother’s.

“Who are you?” I ask, my voice strained with disbelief.

“I am every facet of you turned old.”

I see it now. The mole on her cheek, the scar on her hand. She is an older version of me. But why would I find this in a hotel room?

“Why are you here?”

“Because I am unhappy, Melissa. Unhappy that you may never see these versions of you. Never see yourself old. Never experience life because of what you have done,” she replies.

The cold fills the air again, but this woman does not flinch. She merely stands unperturbed by it, yet my teeth chatter as I try to speak, fearful of what might happen.

“What are all these mirrors for?” I ask.

The woman moves to the first and I follow her, curious to see what they are.

“Each mirror represents a possibility that you have had or will have in your life. From the day you were born until this very ripe age,” she intones.

My eyes dart from one corner of the room to the next, following each mirror carefully. When I stare into the first, a woman wearing a doctor’s coat stands before me. When I gaze into the next, a teacher standing in front of her students gazes back at me. The third is woman on a hospital bed, a baby in her arms and a woman beside her.

Each mirror has an image of me as a different person, whether an athlete or a famous writer, but they all exist in this room. But when I move to the middle of it, the mirror suddenly darkens at the edges, like the darkness creeping up on the sunlight.

“Why has it stopped?” I ask, quivering as the cold now wraps itself around me.

“You have cut your life short, Melissa,” she responds. “Every possibility you may have no longer exists.”

I want to respond, but the earth-shattering sound of the mirrors cracking fills the room. The shards of glass fall to the floor like sharp raindrops, torrentially dropping all at once.

The door shuts behind me and the room is completely dark. I cannot see anything as I try to rush back to the door, but I trip over my feet. The room grows colder, and darker still. How much darker can a place get?

I try to scream but it feels as if my voice is ensnared by the knot in my throat. I crawl towards the door and bang as loudly as I can when I reach it. The footsteps echo loudly on the other side. The door swings open.

“Miss Swartz,” Mr. Val says, “What a pleasant surprise.”

Tell us: What do you think will happen next?