Through the Dark Mirror

Prologue - The Seven Statues

The next morning, Serena was rudely awoken by the ghosts from yesterday, who apparently decided to come back. She was not a morning person, not at all... If she could, she'd sleep through the day and be active at night like a vampire.

By the time Serena came downstairs, Naomi had already continued cleaning the parlor. "Morning, sleepyhead." Naomi said, smiling at Serena, who just yawned. "At least one of us got a good night's sleep." She grumbled.

Serena headed to the kitchen, which was just as shabby as the rest of the building. "I swear if I find a roach in here..." She mumbled as she checked the cabinets for anything edible. Expectantly, there was nothing. At least that meant there wouldn't be pests, Serena figured.

"I hope we get paid daily, because there's nothing to eat in this house." Serena said as she came back into the parlor. "I wonder if the kitchen is even safe to use..."

"We'll figure it out." Naomi just said. "Oh, Headmage Crowley came here earlier. He said we should clean the main street today. Also, we can have lunch in the cafeteria."

"That's nice." Serena said. "We should probably get started then. If we push through, we might finish before lunch and have the afternoon to relax."

Serena had said that so confidently, that is until she saw how big the main street was. "Push through until lunch, huh?" Naomi chuckled. They had already grabbed brooms, trash bags and claws to pick up the trash. "It's doable. We're three people, after all." Serena insisted. They just had to sweep and pick up trash, and it was only the first day of school so it shouldn't be that much trash in the first place.

"So this is the main street, huh? This is incredible!" Grim said, claiming he didn't see much of it yesterday. Then they noticed seven statues standing at the sides.

"This lady here looks like she's got some reeal anger management issues." Grim said and Serena chuckled.

"You don't know the Queen of Hearts?"

A boy in school uniform approached them. He had red, unruly hair and a big, red heart drawn on the left side of his face. Serena startled as she heard him mention the Queen of Hearts. As in, the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland?!

"Queen of Hearts? Is she famous?" Naomi asked. The boy explained how she was a strict ruler who ruled over a kingdom of madness, and was able to get it under control through her strict punishment: Decapitation.

"Wah! That's seriously messed up!" Grim exclaimed. Serena was shocked when the boy found it cool and claimed that nobody would follow a queen who's kind all the time.

"She's a tyrant." Serena said bluntly.

"Hey, don't insult the Queen of Hearts like that!" The boy huffed.

Trying to defuse the situation, Naomi changed the topic: "I don't think I caught your name. Who are you?"

"Name's Ace. I'm a first-year student here, as of... today! Pleased to meetcha!"

Grim also introduced himself, calling Naomi and Serena his "hench-humans." Naomi quickly corrected him: "I'm Naomi and this is Serena. We're more like Grim's caretakers, honestly."

The conversation shifted to the other statues. There was the King of Beasts, who Serena only knew as Scar from the Lion King, who was apparently celebrated for letting the hyenas into his land. That he killed his own brother and chased away his nephew to become king was completely left out of this narrative. Serena bit her tongue. She didn't want to cause unnecessary drama.

Then there was the Sea Witch, clearly Ursula from The Little Mermaid. She was celebrated as an excellent businesswoman who could make every wish come true. That her deals had a backdoor was left out.

That was the case with all seven of them: The Sorcerer of the Sands, Jafar from Aladdin, is celebrated for exposing a fraud, but they forgot he tried to overthrow the sultan and marry the underage princess and the Evil Queen from Snow White became the Fairest Queen who did everything she could to remain fairest of them all, though they didn't mention she'd also kill for it.

The king of the underworld, Hades from Hercules, surprisingly mostly stayed the same, they only left out that he waged war against the other gods for selfish reasons. Serena didn't mind that change so much since the original Hades from Greek mythology was pretty chill in general.

Lastly, there was the Thorn Fairy, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. She was celebrated for being noble and elegant, and a master of magic and curses. But Serena knew she was so petty she cursed a baby to die on its 16th birthday just because she wasn't invited to its party. Like the baby was at fault.

Serena was trying really hard not to call Ace out on all the bullshit, remembering that she was from another world where those people were just characters from movies. How was she supposed to know if they were just as bad as her world's counterparts?

That's when Ace decided to tease the three of them about the ruckus they caused during orientation and how they were janitors now. Serena huffed and Naomi crossed her arms. Somehow, Naomi looked like a teacher about to give a stern lecture.

In the end, Grim was the one to blow up at Ace. He shot fireballs at him, which Ace redirected with wind magic. Naomi and Serena tried to grab Grim to make him stop, but couldn't get close because his fire balls were flying everywhere.

In the end, Ace redirected a fireball onto the Queen of Hearts statue, making it look charred. The headmage intervened, scolding all four of them.

"Why are we being punished?! We tried to stop them!" Serena complained, feeling like she and Naomi were being treated unfairly. How were they supposed to stop them when they didn't have magic?

"I told you to keep an eye on Grim, and you clearly failed." Crowley explained. Serena huffed. "What were we supposed to do? Step in the line of fire?!"

"Serena." Naomi placed a hand on Serena's shoulder. "Remember we're lucky to even get to stay here. Let's not start unnecessary fights."

Serena huffed and crossed her arms pouting. "Fine... I guess you're right."

Begrudgingly, they accepted their punishment: cleaning 100 windows after class. Serena's mood was down for the rest of the day, while Naomi didn't seem bothered. Or if she was, she didn't let it on.