Mirrors Don't Reflect; They Reveal

Chapter 1-Fire burns. Always.

I didn't know anything about life until I met him. I learned something about life. Something very important I wish I knew before. Mirrors don't reflect. They reveal. They shatter. They compliment and show and do everything a person can't do. It's crazy. I don't get it. The pain in my head. In my hands. Legs. Arms. Everywhere. It kills me. Well, not literally. But I just don't get it. Why? The pain. Spreading from my heart. To my shoulders and hips. To my elbows. And my knees. Then my hands and feet. And lastly, the tips of my fingers, and the tips of my toes.

What happened? A rope happened. Choking me. Numbing me. Of course, I didn't do this yet. But I tried it before. I know how it feels. I know the pain. I know the numb feeling. Do I know what I'm thinking? No. But it will hurt. I know it will hurt. I just know it. I'm doing this for you, Frankie. For you. For you and the way your eyes always reflected your feelings. Like mirrors. But they don't reflect. Frankie, your eyes didn't reflect. They revealed your feelings. Just like a mirror. Mirrors don't reflect. They reveal.

20 years before

"Mikey, it goes the other way," Gerard says, staring at a book in his hands. Turning it over. "Like this?" was Mikey's response. Gerard sighed, "No, like this," Gerard said, sitting the book down and going next to Mikey, grabbing the pencil out of Mikey's hand and flipping it over so the lead was facing toward the ground. Mikey wasn't exactly taught properly how to read or write, and he didn't show an interest in it until recently. So Gerard had to constantly help Mikey. What each letter looked and sounded like. How to write each letter. Mikey had first used his finger, tracing the letters, to get a feel of them, and was only now using a pencil to write them.

But Mikey was still apparently having trouble with that. But he was getting better at reading. He had trouble telling the difference between 'd', 'b', 'p', and 'q', and sometimes got confused on whether an 'h' was an 'n' and vice versa. But other than that, Mikey has been doing pretty good. The first thing he wanted to learn how to read and write was his name as well as his brother's. So that's what he was going to do today.

"Oh, I thought the pink part was where the lead came from?" Mikey asked, looking at the pencil. He pressed it against the paper with a little too much pressure and accidentally broke the lead off. "No, the pink part is an eraser," Gerard said, taking the pencil from Mikey's hand and grabbing a sharpener from off the table, sharpening the pencil before handing it back to Mikey. "Try pressing down a little lighter," he said.

This time when Mikey pressed the pencil against the paper, he applied less pressure than the first time. He moved the pencil to the right. "Woah," he whispered, watching the line that led from the pencil tip. "Cool."

Nodding, Gerard grabbed Mikey's hand and moved it to a clean spot of the paper. "Remember how to write a capital 'M'?" he asked, letting go of Mikey's hand. Mikey nodded and moved the pencil. The 'M' was a little shaky, but it wasn't terrible. "And then it's an 'i', right?" Mikey asked. Gerard nodded and Mikey began to write a capital 'I', but remembered, "It's only capital if it's the start of a sentence, or a common noun," he whispered to himself. "How do you get rid of the lead?" Mikey asked.

"That's what the pink part is for," Gerard said. "Oh," Mikey said as he turned the pencil over, pressing the eraser against the paper and traced over the capital 'I'. "It's not working," he said, disappointed. "That's because you need to go over it several times," Gerard said as he grabbed the pencil from MIkey and erased the 'I' for him. "That's a waste of time," Mikey muttered. But he wrote the lowercase 'i' over the faint lines of the capital 'I'.

"This is hard," Mikey whined, putting the pencil down. "You wanted to learn," Gerard said boredly, grabbing the pencil and holding it in front of Mikey's face. Mikey sighed and took the pencil from Gerard, staring at the letters he wrote on the paper in front of him. 'Mi'. They weren't exactly spaced well, and they weren't the perfect height, but it was still legible. Maybe all that tracing really paid off.

Sighing, Mikey began to write a lowercase 'k'. "I don't know, it looks weird…" he said, staring at the 'k'. "I think it looks good," Gerard said. Mikey shrugged and continued on, writing the 'e'. He always struggled when it came to writing an 'e', so he took really long so as to not mess up on the 'e'. Finally, the 'y'. He wrote the 'y', then looked at his name written on the paper.

Mikey grinned and sat the pencil down. He just wrote his name! Without any help, too. Well, with some help. He looked at his older brother and smiled. Thank you, Gee," he said as he looked back at the paper in front of him. Gerard simply nodded, humming in response.

After a few minutes of Mikey staring at the paper with his name on it, he grabbed it and stood up, walking off. "I'm gonna put this in the Box," Mikey said as he left the room. Gerard just nodded and went back to where he was earlier, grabbing the book back up from the ground. The Box was a small metal box that Gerard and Mikey referred to as the Box. It contained everything they found special. The first ever item put in the Box was a small glove from Gerard's first victim.

It was a white glove with lace on the base, Victorian era style. Well, it used to be white. But now, it's stained with blood. It's been in the box for about 9 years now. The second item was a rose. Gerard always had an obsession with roses. The first item Mikey had put in the Box was when he was 14. The same age that Gerard had put his first item in the Box. It was the first pencil Mikey had ever picked up. He thought it looked cool, and he insisted on keeping it in the Box.

Mikey returned, sitting down in the red armchair parallel to Gerard. He stared at the fireplace in front of him. It was empty save for the cold, damp wood in the center of it, blocked off by metal bars. The room was too dark for his liking, but Gerard preferred the lights off, so Mikey just went along with it. "Why do we never light the fireplace again?" Mikey asked, staring at the bricks of the chimney leading out of the ceiling.

"We can't get near anything above 90 degrees, remember? That's why we don't have hot water. Or any heaters," Gerard said, not looking up from his book. Mikey sighed, leaning back against the chair and staring up at the ceiling. "But we're fine with candles?" he asked. "Listen, I didn't make up rules about our lives," Gerard said, closing his book and standing up. "The sun is almost up, so I'm going to go to sleep. You should get to bed soon," he said, sitting the book down on the table next to his chair and walking off to his room.

"Okay, have a good sleep," Mikey said, not getting up from his chair. He looked back at the fireplace, staring at the logs. His attention averted to the candle sitting on a table near the fireplace. It…wouldn't be too bad if he just lit the fireplace for an hour. No…he probably shouldn't. The sun wasn't fully up yet. So, that means he could go outside for a few minutes.

Stretching, Mikey stood up and walked over to the back door. An old, gray-brown wooden door that was rotting around the edges. He opened the door and walked out, leaning against the wood railing that wrapped around the back porch. A small opening was right in the middle of the railing, leading out to the backyard. Mikey stared out at the backyard for a few minutes, but heard a sound. A leaf crunching.

Mikey turned toward the noise just in time to see a silhouette of a person hide behind a building. He squinted his eyes and got off the back porch, heading over toward the building. He nearly rounded the corner when he winced in pain. He felt his head hurt, and he suddenly felt extremely dizzy and tired. He sighed. He might as well just go back to the house instead of seeing whoever is hiding just to find out it's another vampire out past curfew.

So Mikey just turned around, heading back to the house. It was a cross. That's what made him feel like shit. Who would bring a cross into Summit? Whatever. Mikey made it back to the house, going inside and closing the door behind him. He went over to the candle and blew it out before going to his room and getting into his bed, not bothering to change. At least he didn't get burnt.