❛ 𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔰 𝔞𝔦𝔫'𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔠𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔰𝔢 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔨𝔦𝔡𝔰. 𝔦𝔫 𝔣𝔞𝔠𝔱 𝔦𝔱'𝔰 𝔠𝔬𝔩𝔡 𝔞𝔰 𝔥𝔢𝔩𝔩. ❜
→ * . & ━━ the ability to push
through mirrors into other worlds usually
puts young girls into i...
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━━ ,∙˚✧ oo. prologue. hawkins, 1974.
THE DIRTY, LOOMING face of Five glimmered in the reflection in front of her: childish angular cheeks and small brows all squashed in the mirror which was imprinted with small, cracked dents. They must have told a story—that time she'd been thrown face-first into it; the punch the soldier had aimed at her, which had missed her by inches and struck the glass instead; that time she'd tried to smash it open with her fists for a darker purpose. Her entire life could have been marked out in those constellations of dents.
She spent a lot of time in this room, staring only at herself until they half-hoped it would drive her insane—because as far as everyone knew, she was a girl named Five with no abilities to account for, and she was worth nothing. The penny that the scientists had tossed around, that landed on the floor and ran into one of the drains, was more important to them than she was.
There was a man gripping the back of her hair, forcing her to stare at herself in the reflective surface—she didn't remember his name now; funny how insignificant names became in the grand scheme of things—and keeping her from prying her gaze away. Her neck strained a little, but he held her still. "Look at yourself. Look at yourself!" The man shook her like a doll, until her small head spun, and her brain felt like it had been right shaken about. "You don't pick up the slack," he said, "you join the others." And Five knew what that meant, because she'd seen the white rooms in the basement and seen the little body bags be carted past—and she was only named Five because there was a One, Two, Three and Four somewhere around. And that frightened her. She did not want to be the fifth one of something—whatever this something was. There was a scientist, who did not hit her quite so hard as the others, whose pretty name of Alice Five had decided to steal. The name was fun to say, it curled her tongue in her mouth when she spoke it. So, Alice she was, she'd told herself, because she liked the name much better than Five.
His grip tightened in her hair, causing the girl to wince and stare at herself harder. She had hollow, dark eyes which sparkled like the crystalline surface of black-shelled beetles. Her lips were twisted in a way that gave her a permanent frown.
"Learn something useful," he told her. "Give us something to work with." The man with the greying hair threw her down, so her head slammed hard against the white brick walls. There was a shattering of pain which shot through forehead and nose like a bolt of lightning and manifested somewhere deep in her skull. It hurt so much that she cried out. Her knees buckled with the man's force and they struck the ground. By the time she pulled herself up from the floor, the man was gone, and the door was sealed.
Alice spat a little bit of blood onto the floor and wiped her nose, where it was bleeding from being struck. She wanted to cry, but didn't let herself, pressing the backs of her knuckles against her eyes. When she felt the tears subside, the little girl managed to get to her feet. She wiped away any strays that had gotten on her cheeks. It was better if she pretended there were never any there.
The mirror hung tall and mocking in front of her. It revealed every one of her flaws, and she hated it. She touched the dirty, bloody reflection of herself, as if doing so would give her comfort. Alice expected her fingers to press against the cool, glass material—like it always did and like physics told reality it was supposed to. That was not what happened.
Where her fingers reached the mirror, they dipped into it, like she was touching the water in a bathtub. Startled, she quickly pulled her hand back and clasped it to her chest. Just as bloody and raw as normal, with no indication that it had just been inside a mirror. When she stretched her fingertips in front of her, she peered at them. Curious. The girl touched the mirror again, wondering if it was all a dream. But they slipped through the same as before. Where they touched, the mirror moved like liquid mercury, sending ripples reeling across the satin surface like puddle waves. Alice continued to reach forward. Her arm drifted through with no effort at all. It sunk into the watery material, until the mirror reached her bicep, and leaning in any more would mean falling into it. How peculiar. Alice drew her arm back out into the cold air. There were droplets of water on her skin and she shivered a little. It was as if she'd just gone for a swim.
Alice took a glance back at the sealed linoleum door, which would stay latched shut for twelve-or-so hours, until her powers manifested or until her throat was raw from slamming her fists on the metal and screaming, begging for food. She did not like this world. Not one bit.
Her eyes planted firmly back on the mirror, within which she could see her own reflection rippling in liquid waves. Alice took a deep breath and slipped through the mirror's surface.
