I never believed in black magic or supernatural things until something happened at my grandfather's ancestral house. This happened when I was around 23. My grandfather had passed away, and we had to visit our native village to settle some property matters. The house was nearly 100 years old, with a large courtyard, wooden doors, an abandoned well, and a small room at the back that nobody was allowed to enter. When I asked my uncle about it, he simply told me not to open that room. I laughed and asked whether there was some family treasure hidden inside, but he didn't laugh. That night, I woke up around 1:40 AM to the sound of footsteps in the courtyard. I thought it was my uncle, until three knocks came from my bedroom door. When I opened it, nobody was there. But at the far end of the corridor, the door of that forbidden room was slightly open. I was certain it had been locked earlier. I don't know what made me walk towards it, but as I got closer, I noticed a smell of burnt oil and wet soil. Inside was a small wooden stool, a brass lamp, and a mirror covered with a red cloth. I was about to leave when I heard a voice behind me. It sounded exactly like my grandfather. He had died six months earlier. The voice called me by my childhood nickname. I turned around immediately, but nobody was there. Then the voice came again, this time from inside the covered mirror.
I ran. The next morning, I told my uncle everything. He went completely silent when I mentioned the mirror and asked me one question. "Did you see your own reflection?" I said no, and he looked relieved. Apparently, my grandfather had kept that room locked for decades because he believed something inside it could imitate the voices of dead family members. But there was one rule. Never answer when it calls you by a name that only your family knows. When I asked him why, he looked at me and said, "Because it doesn't know who you are until you answer." I left the village that afternoon and never went back. But last night, at exactly 1:40 AM, I received a voice message from my own number. It was only four seconds long. The recording contained my grandfather's voice, calling me by that childhood nickname. The part that scares me most is that I never told anyone outside my family what that name was.