The Other Side

Chapter 4

This is going to be a lot of dialogue, so don't expect much.

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"Shh...don't cry sweetie."

       Helena jumped away from the person comforting her. She looked at her up and down. She was wearing paint-covered pants with an old white T-shirt, like one of those young artists on TV. She had long brown hair like hers that was let down and much longer. Her eyes were the same blue as hers, only a deeper shade. She looked a bit older than her, around her late 20s.

"Who are you!? I thought everyone was gone!" Helena tried to stop crying, her nose was red and puffy.

"You don't know me but I do know you Helena. I've watched you grow up into the beautiful young woman you are now. But I regret not being able to comfort you when you were sad like this."she said with a sad smile.

"Who are you!? How do you know my name!? Where am I... please ju-just tell me where I am." Helena cried more and this time, did not reject the strange woman's comfort. 

"There, there... don't cry sweetie,"she caressed Helena's hair,"it'll be alright."

Helena looked up,"I'm sorry, I'm just really afraid." She sniffled trying to stop her tears."But, first of all, who are you and where are we?"

" Well, you see, this is kinda hard to believe, but we're in a sort of mirror world. Like an exact copy of our world, but there are only the few souls that get trapped here, like us."

"Wait, what do you mean souls? And how did we get here?"

"Well it varies on different areas, for us I believe it was from that old mirror in that old house. By souls, I literally mean souls, when you come here, your soul leaves your body behind and comes here."

"So my body is still in that house!?"

"Yes, I'm afraid that you're almost half dead in our world, because you're here now."

"SO I'M DEAD!?"

"No but anyone who finds your body will think you are"

"My family will think I'm dead! They don't even know where I am, and then they'll just find me dead!"she looked at the woman,"is there any way I can contact them from this 'mirror world'?"

"I'm afraid not. I have tried but to no prevail. Actually I think they think that when you try to contact them, it's a ghost."

"Can I use my cellphone? If we can't contact them through the mirrors, maybe I can use my phone."

"Well I never though of using a phone, let alone having one. All of them seemed to have vanished"

Helena looked around as was right, all of the house phones weren't there. She checked her pocket looking for the familiar bump.

She sighed with relief and got out her new iPhone. She started texting her mom:

Me: Mom I'm staying over at Lucy's  house, we're going to study for a test together.

Helena waited to see if her mom would respond.

Mom: Alright sweetie, just don't stay up too long.

Helena was overwhelmed with joy. She couldn't tell her mom where she actually was. She would sound crazy and her mom would come to look for her.

Me: Okay, we won't.

"That should buy me some time to get out of here. But first things first, who are you?"

"Now that has to be the hardest part to explain."she chuckled a bit,"you see, I'm your mother."

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15 years ago...

      A young woman looks at her new house. Her eye's were filled with dreams of the future for her and her newborn daughter. It was a two-story Victorian style house. It was painted an ugly green color, she was going to paint it a nice light blue. She walked inside, it was huge and had a lot more space than she and her daughter needed, but it still was nice. Much better than the tiny apartment she used to live in with... She was over that, this was a new start for her and her kid.

     She put the baby down in her new room. It was painted a green color with un-opened boxes and some small piles of  toys. The crib was in the middle of the room along with a dresser and bookshelf which was half-filled with children books.

      She walked over to her room. It had a Queen-sized canopy bed with a fancy comforter. It even had its own bathroom. She sat down on the bed and sighed. It was hard to believe that they went from a tiny apartment to this huge house. After making that one choice, her life changed for the better.

She decided to start painting the house.

6 hours later...

     She sighed, it was exhausting work to paint the house. She walked back into the house and collapsed on the couch. She heard the baby crying upstairs. It had woken up from its nap and was probably hungry. She went upstairs into the baby's room to bring it some food. She walked into the room. The baby was gone.

      She dropped the bowl she was carrying and ran downstairs. Not there. She ran into her room. Not there either. She ran around the house frantically looking for the baby. She stopped and looked in the corner of her eye. There was a door that she had not noticed before and was  slightly opened. She cautiously opened it. She saw a mirror looking at her. She dropped to her knees in shock.

       There, in the reflection, was her baby sitting upright while her baby's body was laying limply on the floor. She ran to the mirror and pounded against it, trying to get her baby's attention and picked up its body. She sobbed in front of the mirror for awhile while clutching the motionless body close to her. She gently touched her baby's reflection and said,"Take me. Please take me and give my baby back! Give her back to me!"

         As if in response, the baby disappeared from the reflection and reappeared in front of her. She felt the body in her move a bit and hugged the baby tightly, then felt the feeling disappear from her arms. She looked up, this time she was the one in the mirror and her body was limp with the baby still in her body's arms. On the other side the baby was crying . She couldn't do anything about it, her baby would stay in the real world while she was exiled in this strange one.

        "Hopefully she lives a happy life without me." She closed her eyes and felt a breeze around her. When she opened her eyes she was sitting in an empty lot where the house should have been. She scrambled up and looked around. The house was gone and so was her baby. She just sat there and cried.

         Meanwhile in the real world, the baby feels the emptiness of its mom and cries. Another woman nearby walking home from the store, hears the crying and the open door. She goes inside to find a crying baby and dead mother. She ran towards the woman and to check her pulse: nothing. She called the  police to report the dead body and baby. After a lot of fuss and reports, they bury the dead mother.She eventually adopts the baby after a lot of paperwork.

              She takes the baby into its new home and looks at it with loving eyes. She sits down to her 5 year old son on the couch with the baby in her arms.

"Look, it's your new little sister. We're going to name her Helena."