Dreamer

Chapter 5 - The Mirror

Thank you guys so much for almost 4K reads! That's more than I ever thought I'd get with this book, and I feel so guilty for not getting more chapters to you guys! Unfortunately, I'm about to be super busy again, even after I'm recovering from a long case of writer's block. Finals are coming up, and then I have a camp to go to in late July and the beginning of August before school starts again, but hopefully, I can develop the story a bit more by then.

I think I need to give you guys a name, like something to address my readers as a whole. Any ideas?

Hope you guys enjoy!

"Hello, Little Fay."

The appearance was that of a woman's, and if it weren't for the horrific scars along her face, she would have been strikingly beautiful. One stretched from the top of her right cheekbone to her left jawline. Another rested from her left cheekbone and looked sickeningly painful as it put a gouge in the side of her nose. Her ginger hair nearly fell to the length of her knees, and her eyes were warm, golden chestnuts. Small scars replaced the wrinkles of her smile around her eyes. Her smile, however much I wanted to be kind, was menacing, and her teeth seemed to have rotted over the course of the years wherever she had been. However gentle her voice was, and however welcoming her eyes seemed, an electric and threatening aura gave me the strong desire to wake up.

"Who are you..." I attempted to ask, but my voice failed me and I tried again. "Who are you?"

For a moment she smiled, then mocked disappointment. "Oh dear, the poor Princess doesn't know her own mother. How..." The woman looked at her hands, which I realized held a small mirror, then her gaze returned to me. "disheartening."

Her words were nothing less than startling, and they captivated my full attention, even distracting me from the burning instinct to leave. "Why are you here?"

She chuckled, then suddenly all life around us was gone, replaced by an empty abyss of darkness. The grin that was once on my mother's face had disappeared, a cold glare taking hold of her facial features. "You did this to me." She growled. "You did this to me!" Without another word she began to charge at me, the silver mirror raised in her left hand and prepared to strike down on my head. Before she could even get a yard away from me, our surroundings melted away once again.

I was relieved to find that I had woken up, yet I was also shocked to find that the mirror my mother was holding was now in my hand. A small intricate symbol was etched on the handle, just below where the glass met silver, a symbol that was unfamiliar to me. Yet, I understood the symbol as if I had seen it before.

None of this made sense. How did I have it? Why did she visit me? I had to find Ahkmenrah. I stood out of my bed and made my way to the section of the wall which held the door. Before I could open it, the door swung open to reveal Ahkmenrah, along with Larry, Attila, the man in khaki, and a new woman wearing tan dress.

"What happened?" Ahkmenrah asked in a rushed tone. His eyes were wide, small beads of sweat beginning to form on his forehead and his right hand clutching the Tablet.

"Yeah, you uh..." Larry added, "You were kinda screaming a bit."

"I was?" I questioned with disbelief. With all that had happened, I reasoned with myself that I probably screamed subconsciously when my mother ran at me. "Well, I met my mother, and she didn't seem too glad to see me, for reasons I am still unsure."

"That's a strange thing to do in your sleep, little lady!" Said the tiny Western man.

"I don't believe I'm the one who's little."

Larry's expression changed from humored to concerned as both tiny men began protesting violently. "Okay, why don't you guys pay a visit to Attila's friends?"

"I don't think I'd enjoy that very much, Larry." The one dressed in red, Octavius, said.

"Too bad. Go." The woman said. The two men protested to her once, whose name I learned to be Sacagawea, then complied, grumbling to themselves along the way. After they were out of earshot, Ahkmenrah took the mirror from my hand, turning it over in his and examining the symbol engraved on it.

He ran his fingers over it, then looked up at me with a worry filled gaze. "Where did you get this?"

I shrugged my tense shoulders. "My mother was about to strike me with it in the dream, but I woke up with it in my hand."

He looked to Larry. "We need to go to the library again, I'm afraid."

Larry immediately grew even more concerned. "That doesn't sound good."

"It isn't."

* * *

The library was small, compared to what I knew when I lived at home, but if it was enough to obtain what we needed, then it would do.

"Okay, what are we looking for?" Larry asked, turning to face Ahkmenrah.

"I believe something about hieroglyphics." He replied. He gestured to the mirror. "It should have an answer to why this mirror says what it does."

Larry glanced at me, then back to the king. "Well, what does it say?"

Ahkmenrah scrunched his face in thought. "I don't feel that it's smart that I tell you, but it means 'certainty of war'."

The tension in the room suddenly spiked, and both Larry and I looked to Ahkmenrah in alarm.

"What is that supposed to mean? Does my own mother wish death upon us?" My heart began to race, along with my thoughts. The possibilities of what would happen coursed through my imagination, and the only thing to stop me from facing far more horrifying thoughts than death was Ahkmenrah's voice.

"That's just what we're here to find out." He said calmly, resting a hand on my shoulder. My nerves subsided immediately at his touch. That's odd. I thought.

Larry led us through various shelves of neatly organized books, then told us to spread out to quicken our search. Our group split into twos, Teddy and Sacagawea, King Ahkmenrah and I, and Larry and Attila.

It was soon after splitting up that Teddy called out that he may have found something of use. Ahkmenrah and I were the first to get to them, quickly flipping the book open and skimming through the pages. About three-fourths of the way through, when I was close to giving up hope on this particular book, Ahkmenrah pointed to a paragraph in the center of a page.

"This is it."