Mirror, Mirror (On Hiatus)

Chapter Eight

(Very short a/n, the people in the mirror universe are now called "The Mirrors" or "Mirrors" with capitals as opposed to "mirrors" to avoid confusion with the physical, look-at-yourself-in-me mirror.  Dan's mirror persona will be referred to as "the Mirror," unless it's specified otherwise.  I'll be changing this in the last seven chapters when I find time, I hope this is helpful / not life shattering!)

"Howell, Howell, Lester," a guard barked, waking me from my sleep.  I groaned and got off the floor, feeling the effect of sleeping on cement.  Light was sparkling in from the window and my eyes hurt from staring so long, but the intake of sunshine was much needed.  Granted, it (relatively) hadn't been so long since I'd seen it last, it was still nice.  I looked around the cell to find Dan leaning against the opposite wall, looking through the bars, then presumably at the guard and the window, then through the bars...

Oh.

The Mirror was staring through his bars the same way Dan was and I nearly jumped out of my skin because that was one of the scariest things I'd seen.  The two looked dead-on and it was almost like there was actually a physical mirror reflecting back at us, except my reflection wasn't there--as with the window and the same clothes Dan was wearing.  The Mirror saw me staring then smiled and waved as I sat both groggy and awe-struck at the resemblance.  What else could I expect, though?  They're Mirrors for a reason...  I'd seen my own Mirror, too.  Why did it shock me?

The guard who spoke not a minute earlier stood in front of our cell and looked Dan dead in the eye.  "The ruler and our scientists are going to speak to you."  He looked burly and many times stronger than me and Dan put together; he could break our bones with one hand if he wanted, probably.  That worried me, especially given how the Mirror told me they hurt him.  He turned to me and snarled.  "What are you looking at?"

My eyes darted to the floor and I pretended I wasn't ever.  I heard the loud rattle of the door opening and looked up again to find the man beckoning me and Dan out.  Our eyes met for a moment before we walked to the door and near the man.  Though he seemed tough, I felt slightly less threatened--we were both taller than him and he didn't look that harmful up close.  He opened the Mirror's cell door and told him to get out.  He complied, standing next to Dan.

As with the guard, I had clearly misjudged the Mirror from a distance--he looked far skinnier and more exhausted than Dan did.  For some reason, I didn't quite expect him to hug me, however, I returned the gesture, strongly holding him in my arms.  After all, it was Dan, in most ways.  The only difference was the universe.

"Break it up," the guard demanded, ripping us apart.  "Do that again and I'll break your neck."  I shuddered and they looked worried.  The Mirror mouthed an apology and I replied with whispering, "don't worry."  The hallway was dim, only lit by flickering lights hanging from the ceiling.  Eyes followed us down the corridor, watching and murmuring over the three of us.

"No one's ever gotten out before."

"I've never seen a Mirror before..."

"What makes them so special?"

"Do you think they're going to kill them?"

"Probably."

I shuddered and kept walking, though my knees were growing wobbly from worry.  The thought of dying was not one I was very happy with thinking about.  We were too young for that, we didn't have it coming.  What kind of death would that be, anyway?  We weren't capable of anything there, were we?  We only had control over the radio and millions of teenage girls and a portion of the internet--yeah, okay, maybe we had some capability.  It never seemed to work before for these people anyway, though.  We couldn't make a difference, could we?