Wandering Girl

Reflection

Princess A kept her eyes and mouth tightly shut as she churned downward with a whirlpool of soot. She tried not to breath in, as she figured soot was not the kind of thing one wanted inside their nose.

When the girl finally begun to panic that she might suffocate, did she drop down from the ashes onto a pile on the ground, as if she had just reached the end of a very steep slide.

Ash fell on top of her head from were she sat, sputtering and coughing. She stood up and brushed the stuff off her face and hands, still hacking up a storm, it felt like her lungs had been filled with sandpaper.

How terrible that had been! She thought, feeling very much worse for wear.

The girl looked around, trying to find out where she was. It was dark. She supposed she was now on another floor, lower than the one she had just been torn from. Perhaps in a place underground?

She didn't know. The whole building she was in could be underground for all she knew.

As her eyes began to adjust, she realized she was in a room full of mirrors.

Well, Princess A didn't know that at first. At first she thought she was in a room full of all-identical girls, downright grey with ashes covering them.

"Oh!" She said upon this realization. "Are you all what real people look like?" She walked close to one of the grey girls, and they all followed her movements to the exact point. Especially, it seemed, the one in front of her.

"Are you ok?" There was ash caked on the girls', sprinkled in their eyelashes and smashed on their faces, it was very alarming. The girl in front of the girl copied the girl's words.

It made her head spin.

Princess A looked down at her own skirts. They were grey and cracked like stone from all the ash. She felt very grimy.

"Well, I don't know why you keep copying me, but I think I know how you feel." Princess A reached out to the girl in front of her-who was promptly doing the same thing- when her hand felt smooth, cold glass.

"Hm?"

The girl in front of her reflected the expression that Princess A was feeling.

Reflected.

"Oh!" Princess A said. "You're not a stranger, you're my reflection." She turned in a circle, pointing to all the mirrors. "And you and you and you and you are my reflection." She returned back to the one in front of her. "I'm sorry I thought you could be someone else."

Curiously, she wiped the ash off her face, and dusted her dress of. This took a long while, as there was much to clean off.

She looked at her face in the mirror. "Well," she said, watching her eyes widen. "That settles it! I do think I am a real person. What with picture of mine that I drew, the one I found, and the one standing in front of me there are too many similarities."

Princess A carefully made her way out of the hall of mirrors (as she might accidentally walk into one).

In leaving, heard the mirrors ring as they  all crumbled to the ground.