Smoke, Mirrors and Masks

Act 1: Part 2 - Smoke in the Mirror

The floor grew cold as Edward drifted back into a hazy state of consciousness. A thick, damp musk flooded his nostrils and he coughed. He tried to lift his head from the floor, but a deep pounding flooded from the space between his ears which caused an aching in the back of his eyes. Edward gave up and left his head resting across the floor's cold concrete. He closed his eyes and waited for the throbbing to settle.

Time was null in the black. When Edward opened his eyes again he had no idea how long he had been laid there. He tried sitting up once more, his head having settled. His limbs were afflicted with root-like stiffness and it was only with a great amount of effort, accompanied by a drawn-out groan, that Edward managed to peel himself from the floor and sit upright. He coughed, clearing his lungs of damp. The darkness was so thick that not even the faintest silhouette gave clue to his surroundings. He cast his hands ahead of him; his trembling fingers found an assortment of materials. Soft fabrics, cheap metal and large sheets of wood were to name a few. But what these objects were remained a mystery, regardless of how close Edward clung to them.

The quaking in his fingers ceased as they crossed some flaky brickwork and wrapped around a sharp, plastic cube fastened into a vertical beam. He ran his palm across its front and flipped a small switch. A bulb above him spat begrudgingly into life and bathed the room with deep orange, shedding light on the previously hidden secrets.

It was a flea market of forgotten objects. Damp stage curtains folded and stacked into tall towers; stage backdrops with their settings obscured into curls of peeling paint; suits of tinny armour, period costumes and no apparent way of getting out. Edward began to sift through the history of objects, in search of something that would allow him to reach the trap door above. In his search, he pulled at a thick quilted blanket which concealed an enigmatic treasure.

Edward saw himself - reflected in the centre of a large mirror. It was encased in a thick golden frame, which was inscribed with lines of mystical, foreign writing. Words from far away. Curiosity quelled his fear as Edward reached out, tenderly running his fingertips across the frames writing. He narrowed his stare as his fingers found a small face carved within the gold. It had empty eyes and a banal expression, beneath it sat an uninspiring rod and beneath that – an upright semi-circle. Twisting writing flowed on all sides of the markings, reading up, down, left, right Edward could not say. He took a step back and rubbed his chin, catching his perplexion in the mirror.

Then his reflection snapped from existence. Panic punched his heart as the glass flooded with smoke. Great, hissing plumes shot out from the fog, twisting like snakes within the mirror. The billowing threads intertwined with one another, forming a collection of knots that culminated into a hazy figure standing in the mirrors centre. A young girl.

Smoke bled out from her body, settling around her like a sprinkle of black snow that formed the lacey-folds of black, ballet dress. Locks of black hair poured out from her head before folded themselves into a tight bun. A single plume of smoke remained, a tower of grey that gushed out from the back of her head and stretched into the air above.

"Hello. I'm Sophia, it's nice to meet you." She spoke with a soft, icy coolness.

Edward couldn't reply, with his face draining to a sickening white. They were true, the playground whispers, the black ballerina! He unknowingly crept backwards; his arms locked defensively across his sketchbook. Run! Run! His mind screamed. And he would have, given the choice, but his back knocked into a wall of items behind him. A disturbed cardboard box flung itself from its perch at the top of a tall stack and projected its innards out across the floor. The room rang with a painful rattle as the glass chalices it once held struck the concrete. They each cried out, suffering chips and splinters before quietly settling at the foot of the mirror. Edward lost his breath as his lungs shrank like raisins.