Till the End of Time [Bbangsaz & Daerin]

16 | Mirror, Mirror in the Hand

| In Haerins cell |

No one could say how quickly or how slowly time passed in here. Without any indicator, it wasn't easy to tell anyway. The only thing Haerin knew was that she had cried herself to sleep at some point, only to wake up on the ground again. Of course, it wasn't exactly comfortable here and theoretically she had a bed in here, but she didn't feel like moving from the spot. Haerin just lay here in her seat and pondered what was waiting for her. Her eyes fell on the hand mirror she had been given so that she would 'not be alone'. She still didn't understand what the gesture was supposed to be, why were they playing such messed up games with her? Haerin stretched out her arm towards the object and pulled it across the floor towards her. She held the mirror in front of her eyes and saw her own reflection. Crying eyes, messy hair and snot crusted around her nostrils ... she looked like a kindergarten child who had been crying all day. And to be honest, she didn't even mind at the moment. "...what am I supposed to do with you anyway?" Haerin sighed and closed her eyes again, there was no way out for her anyway. "Are you sure about that?" The sudden answer to her thoughts snapped her out of them and her eyes snapped open again.

She sat down again and wandered around the room with her gaze, but there was no one to be seen. Where had the voice come from and why could it read her thoughts? "Look in the mirror," the voice echoed in her mind again and Haerin hesitated greatly before actually daring to take another look in the mirror. Unlike before, she now appeared completely different and so ... graceful? Had she suddenly changed her clothes? Immediately her attention jumped over her own body, only to realize that nothing had altered about herself and she glanced back into the mirror, "Don't freak out now" Her reflection's lips moved at the exact same time as the voice rang in her head and at that very moment ... she threw the mirror in a high arc once across the entire room. "WHAT THE FUCK!" came out of Haerin, but actually not just from her, at the same time the other version of her yelled, "are you mental? I'm trying to help you, pick the damn mirror back up, by heavens, it better not be broken!" How else was she supposed to react? She was just talking to her fucking reflection, that's not normal! "Do you want to get out of here or not? If so, take the fucking mirror and don't act like that!" The voice in her head resonated with frustration and Haerin could feel the annoyance building up inside herself.

It was nothing short of a miracle that no one checked on her when she was playing so crazily in the cell. Presumably they really weren't at her door all the time? But Haerin didn't know whether she could trust the game here either. However, she needed all the help she could get... she really couldn't believe she was thinking that right now. She scrambled across the floor to the hand mirror and turned it towards her. Luckily for her, it hadn't actually cracked and was completely intact. "Good, now let's calm down," again this exact yet altered likeness of her was in the mirror, looking at her with a raised eyebrow, "...I don't know how you got the mirror, but this must be your lucky day." Haerin drew her own brows together and tilted her head. What exactly did she mean by that? "Listen, this is probably going to sound even weirder than it already is, but we have a special ability," her other self put on a serious expression, probably hinting that the next thing she was going to say wasn't a silly joke, "...we can interact with mirrors more specifically than others. Well, at least I can, for whatever reason, but that must mean you're able to as well." And with that, she had already lost Haerin again. Interacting with mirrors more specifically, what does that mean? 

The woman in the mirror sighed heavily and raised her hand into view, beckoning Haerin closer. Unaware of what was about to happen, she raised the mirror closer to her face and before she knew it, a hand suddenly shot out of the same mirror and flicked her forehead. "Ouch," her own hand swung up and she rubbed the spot on her forehead, "what was that about... wait, how did you do that!!!?" Her reflection shook her head slightly, unable to believe how stupid her other self was, "I just mentioned that, aren't you listening?" That was clearly too high-level for Haerin. First someone talks to her through a mirror or in her head and now her reflection could attack her too? She was about to throw the mirror against the wall again and just before she did, the mirror lit up blue and a person appeared in front of her. "...what the." The same reflection suddenly stood in front of her. In flesh and blood. What kind of witchcraft was at work here? "I'm Princess Kang Haerin, basically you from another timeline... so trust me... or yourself, ok?" She raised her hands in a calming gesture and pointed at the mirror, telling her to just give it to her before anything else happened to it. Haerin was far too stunned to react at all and left it to her... to herself? It was all really confusing.