The Mirror Realm

08.

  The skies are illuminated with street lights and bright oriental carnival rides and games. Columns of games and rides are spread out everywhere, children and young teens with smiles spread across their faces, reaching from ear to ear. Couples walk hand in hand, feeding each other popcorn and cotton candy, pointing every which way at what they want to do next.

  "Well," Oliver states, walking up to the entrance of the carnival with Amy's cold hand in his. His parents trailing closely behind. "Here we are!" He opines rather erratically, a smile of his own painted on his Indian red lips.

  "Thank you," Amy states, clinging to Oliver's arm and resting her head on his shoulder.

"Of course!" He states, his excited demeanor never flattering once. "Tonight, we celebrate your success in getting the job you wanted!"

"I was the only one who applied for it," Amy retorts, her tone doubtful of her own greatness.

"You were the only one who had a heart big enough to help people in need, Amy. No other person wanted to do it but you!"

Amy's lips curve up, her cheeks lighting up in a beautiful crimson red. She averts her eyes from Oliver to the magnificent sight in front of her.

A Ferris wheel stands tall over the scene, ring toss and water gun games scattered everywhere. The sky is set dark, the crescent moon shining brightly in the cloudless atmosphere. Amy turns her torso just a bit, and her attention immediately lands on the one thing she wants to do.

The fun house.

She instantly grabs Oliver's hand out from his pocket and starts at a bolting dash towards the structure with red and yellow stripes. The pitched tent settled high above their heads, Christmas lights are draped around the tent, the bulbs luminously glowing.

  They stop their racing figures at the sight of a pay booth set up in front of the tent. They walk up to the table, an elderly man with a long white beard standing and staring down at the young teens.

  "Two dollars each," he happily says, gazing at them with expressionless eyes.

  Oliver gracefully reaches to his back pocket, pulling out his umber shaded leather wallet that he has carried around with him ever since the age of nine. Opening the money pouch, he reaches for four dollars, acting quicker than Amy, who struggles beside him to find her own wallet.

  "I got it," he whispers to her, handing the crinkled and beaten down money to the man.

  "Go ahead," he says, gesturing his hand back to the tent as if opening an imaginary door that fails to be seen by anyone else's eyes.

  Oliver expeditiously grasps Amy's hand, racing around the pay booth and into the dark tent. The sounds of laughter crowd the small space, though it seems as if the sounds are vibrating from speakers. As if they were recorded laughs. The two jaunt into the tent further, the place still unlit by any perpetual light.

  "Where are the lights?" Amy asks, speaking her mind.

  "Where is everyone else?" Oliver adds, his retinas scanning the caliginosity of the space that seems to be getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller.

  Suddenly, a small portion of the tent is illuminated by two stage lights swinging back and forth from the unstable rafters. The light penetrates the small space brightly, revealing three funhouse mirrors, their glass all warped and misshapen.

  The border surrounding the mirror is cracked in so many places. The white and red stripes old and busted; the paint peeling off the wood, conveying the years and years of use.

  Oliver languidly strides to one of the mirrors, he stares at himself up and down. His body is warped, seeming lanky and skinny, his head squished at the top.

  "Man," he begins to say, "I look hot!" He finishes. A large grin takes over his features as he glances back at Amy, whose struggling to hold back a smile. She clicks her tongue and parades closer to the mirror, pushing Oliver out of the way playfully.

  She peers at herself deeply, the glass reflecting something completely different than what it had looked like for Oliver. Amy is now staring at something reflected within the glass, rather someone, who she has been afraid of since her early teen years.

  In the glass, her eyes flicker back and forth, gaping at her body, which is stretched at the sides, displaying a stubbly looking figure. Her stature shrunken immensely. The laughing coming from deep within Amy's throat stops, as she stares back at the monster she has feared in the mirror. Other laughter immediately erupts, laughter that doesn't belong to Oliver, but the laughter that belongs to strangers. Complete strangers.

  It grows louder, more perpetual, more hungry. They laugh at her, these voices belonging to invisible beings laugh at her projected image. She feels a single tear drop down her checks, but it is only a feeling. The tear isn't there, and neither is the monster she sees within the glass.

  "Wow, look how tall you are!" Oliver exclaims from beside her, catching her mind off guard immediately.

  She reaches her hands up to rub at her eyes, and observes the funhouse mirror again, this time...the reflection different. Amy's body now stretched high. Amy narrows her eyes in confusion, staring at the new reflection.

  What happened? She questions, one minute it was her fear and the next it's what's really reflected in the mirror.

  What's happening? Her mind grows more frantic, her heartbeat picking up two and three beats faster every second. She continually scrutinizes her reflection, nothing changing at all.

  That is until something moves from out of the shadows.

  Her chest hitches loudly, her breath cut off as the sinister figure gradually stalks towards her in the mirror. The figure that she keeps seeing, over and over again. 

  Beads of sweat gather just below her hairline, dripping down her face like a waterfall. The being stops a few feet away from Amy's head, the face hidden from the drawn hood. She tries to inhale a breath, but nothing comes, almost as if being suffocated.

  The figure begins to lift his arm, holding up his hand, all five fingers present. Then, slowly, he puts them down one by one...until only two are left.

  Two.

  Amy opens her mouth and lets out a piercing scream, one that can shatter windows. The sinister being disappears back into the smokiness of the tent without a trace, the motion is reflected in the mirror in entirety. Amy drops to the ground, her legs instantly becoming weak as she continues to scream out of horror and total terror.

  "Amy!" Oliver shouts, kneeling and grabbing her figure up in his arms.

  "Oh my gosh, Amy!" He hugs her head to his chest, holding her tight.

  "It's alright Amy, baby, it's alright!" He coos in an effort to calm her down, which works. Her horrific screams decimate, as her tantrum slowly dissolves into salty, hot tears.

  It's getting closer now...closer than the day before.