Cracks in the Mirror

Teenage Girls and Oily Mirrors

Enough is goddamn enough.

I have to do something, no matter how rash it is.

I have to get rid of this godforsaken mirror.

So I just lift the whole thing up and throw it out my window.

I literally give no shits anymore. I have nothing to lose.

The newspaper on the window rips as the mirror tears it up before landing in our driveway, the sound of it shattering seeming to echo in my ears.

Thank god nobody's home.

I rush down the stairs to see the result of my first experiment.

I clearly heard a very prominent shattering sound, but the mirror seems pretty much undamaged, save the three cracks it already had.

Fuck it.

I hadn't known what to expect, so I didn't have too much hope, but I'm still disappointed.

I just leave the mirror out in the driveway while I hurry back into the house.

Time for experiment two.

I grab a lighter and oil from the kitchen.

I drizzle the oil generously onto the shiny side of the mirror, hoping this is the last time I have to see it.

I light it carefully and step back to save myself from the roaring flames.

There are no flames.

That is, if you don't count the slight spark on the wooden frame which got immediately put out.

For the love of god, what do I need to do?

I fall onto my knees and let out a pained wail.

I wonder what an odd scene this must look like to a stranger- a teenage girl sitting in her driveway, grieving over an oily mirror.

I think I've still got some time before everyone gets home, so I tidy up the mirror and lug it slowly towards the market- where it all started.

The path seems to be hundreds of miles long; even though I know it should only take me ten minutes.

I finally reach the market, and look around for the stupid mirror stall.

I walk down the narrow alley bustling with people.

The book stall, the cupboard stall, the mirror stall is next!

Except it's not.

There is no mirror stall.

Just an empty patch of grass between the cupboard stall and the food stall.

What in tarnation.

Of fucking course.

My only option, and even that's gone.

I question the cupboard stall guy about it, and he says that there was no mirror stall here.

There never has been.

I am beginning to seriously question my sanity and my memory at this point, so I decide to stop by Kate's house once, just to console myself that everything I saw wasn't imaginary.

I stop in front of the weedy gardens where I first saw her.

Even the barbed wires seem like they're telling me to walk away.

I stare at the house with widened eyes.

The house is . . . it is in a deplorable condition.

No weather of any kind could have done that to a house in a few days.

It's abandoned.

I knock on the door, just to make sure.

No answer.

I knock again.

The door creaks open.

Fuck this.

If there's anything that I learnt from horror movies, it's to not go into an abandoned house at any cost.

I slam the door shut and turn on my heel, and run home as fast as my feet carry me. (Which, by the way, isn't very fast.)

I reach home just in time. As soon as I slam the door behind me, the front door opens. I hear my parents chattering in the room below me.

I quietly place my mirror exactly where it was, and throw off my shoes before I go downstairs.

"Hey guys!," I greet them with fake excitement.

I look around the room before looking back at them.

"So . . . Where's Connor?"

"Where's . . . Who?," my mother asks, confused.

I laugh without any humor and look at them.

They glance at each other and then back at me.

They seem serious.

"Y'know . . . Connor! My little brother?"

My mother laughs and looks at me oddly.

"Oh, honey, is this another one of your jokes?"

My father looks at me with a straight face.

"I don't get it."

"That's because it's not a joke! Where's my little brother?," I ask with genuine horror in my voice this time.

My mother just keeps on laughing like a lunatic, before clutching her side and taking a deep breath.

"Oh honey, you're going to make me faint," she giggles.

"You never had a little brother!"

A/N: pLoT tWiSt!!11!!1!

REALLY  hope u didn't see that one coming