A Distorted Reflection | Virgil Sanders

ADR:_.|2|._: chapter two

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Everything was reversed on the other side of the mirror.

That was to be expected, since it was a mirror.

There were no colors in Virgil's field of vision, the stillness of his old yet same bedroom gave it an eerie feeling. One more of harbored fear rather than silent solitude. Virgil realized just how messy it used to be before he cleaned it up. There were balls of yarn scattered along the floor by the foot of the couch, blankets thrown all around. Dead spider webs hung over the walls and across the stairs and up on the ceiling. The curtains were dusty, the candles nearly burnt out, and scratched CDs would have been playing on loop if the clock wasn't frozen within the barrels of time.

"I don't miss this." Virgil said.

"What do you mean? It's home." Anxiety said, flopping onto one of the purple blankets on the couch, grabbing another to throw on top of himself, cuddling underneath.

"You need to pretend to care a little bit, just a little." Virgil said, making a small space in between his thumb and index finger as a comparison. Anxiety shrugged, leaning back with a sigh.

"Trying to impress Remus won't do anything, it'll only make Roman make fun of you more." Virgil said, caressing the banister of the staircase where he often found himself being heard.

"It's not like either of them listen to me anyway," Anxiety said. Virgil sighed.

"But do you listen to them?"

"But are you listening to me?"

Silence fell between them.

"I'm the only one who understands you,"

"I honestly think you're so absorbed by the attention you're given now you forgot what the feeling of loneliness is." Anxiety said, crossing his arms atop the blanket. Virgil shot him a glare of disgust.

"I don't know what loneliness is?" He repeated. The being on the couch nodded seriously wit ha twinge of a smirk on his lip.

"Being an outcast hurts, I know the pain you're denying, okay? Loneliness is a forever feeling when it comes to you and me, so shut up and realize the truth." Virgil urged. Anxiety chuckled on the couch.

"Yeah right, there's still a little bit of me in there. That anger, it's real sweet of you to hang onto my existence, you're more sentimental than I thought." Anxiety said. Virgil raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?" He asked. The side shrugged.

"Well, anyway, that's not why I pulled you in. You need to talk to yourself."

"Maybe my future self would have been the better option." Virgil said, approaching the mirror that looked back into his real room. The boy got off the couch, hurrying over to all Virgil away.

"No, no. Reflecting and forgiving is what's best, it always has been, right?"

"Than why don't you do it?" Virgil snapped. The figure in the black hoodie shrugged.

"I don't need to." He said, summoning darkness into his hands. Virgil rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, right." He said. The boy hushed him before filling up the mirror with the darkness.

"This is going to take a little bit, you may want to sit down and drink some water or something to calm your nerves." Anxiety said, working his magic.

"You do realize who you're talking to, right?" Virgil asked.

"You sound a lot like you're talking to Patton right now." Anxiety caught on. Virgil sighed.

"It's not my fault that he treats me like a child, always has, and always will apparently." Virgil said.

"Yeah, but I like being heard by him!" Anxiety said, looking back at Virgil. Virgil sighed, looking towards the spider curtains.

"He hasn't been making good choices lately. He's been strict, lying to himself."

"Are you sure that's not-" "I"m more sure than anything, Deceit tried proving that point already. He failed," Virgil gut in.

"H-How could he have failed? He observes them all the time. He's obsessed."

"He's not as good as he says he is. He's a liar."

"Not to me,"

"Stop lying to yourself, you're feeding into it all."

Anxiety looked over his shoulder back to Virgil, who gave him a serious stare.

"What about Roman?" Anxiety asked.

"He isn't being listened to either, he hasn't in a while. He pretneds everything is okay too, he's acting a lot like you." Virgil said. Anxiety sighed.

"Fake it til we make it?" He asked. Virgil shrugged.

"He's going to crack soon, I just know it. Patton's putting him through hell and back by not letting him go to the call back."

"Ooh! I heard somebody rhyme!"

"Not now Remus!"

"Not now Remus!"

The two of them looked at one another, and broke into small smirks of chuckles.

"Glad to see he still does that after whatever you did." Anxiety said. Virgil rolled his eyes.

"He never stops, he's not good at letting go. He eventually left me alone, I think Deceit got him to shut up." Virgil said. Anxiety sighed, having his hands around some more, bending hid fingers awkwardly as if he was using his palms to surge the darkness.

"What are you doing exactly?"

"I have to get us out of here, we need to go through the rounds. Different ones than what you know, so we can get a better gist of what to do." He said. Virgil raised another eyebrow as the mirror went completely dark, and within the darkness swirl of white opened the door to an abandoned kingdom, glistening under its sun with only red to call in its home.

"If Gerard's corpse is in there I'll literally kill you,"

"That's not the way to get rid of me, we both know that." Anxiety retorted. He stuck his right hand through the mirror, breaking the glass, letting it shatter onto the ground of the other side.

"It's ready." He said. He turned back to Virgil.

"Well, now what?" Virgil asked.

"You first!" Anxiety said. Without any hesitation, the black-hoodie figure pushed Virgil through the mirror, letting a new world hold him in its grasp.