House of Mirrors

For what it's worth, I hated Jody. I hated her the second I saw her. She was so charismatic. Charismatic people always have something to hide, y'know? They're never that way naturally. They are always trying to compensate for something. Usually, it's that they hate everyone, or that they love everyone.

Jody didn't just hate everyone, she despised them with a fury.

I could tell right away. She looked at me and grinned and she talked in a high, sweet voice. She was very theatrical and made big, sweeping gestures with her hands as she talked, and she looked right at you. They way she said things made you feel like she had the world in common with you. Like you were special.

I wasn't fooled though. Really, I wasn't. I knew what she was. I knew that something had happened to her to make her this way.

But I didn't figure out what it was 'til it was too late.

But I guess it was OK because I didn't really have anything to live for.

It was New Year's Eve, and I mused that I would spend another night in no-one's arms as the bells went and I'd have no-one to kiss and drink champagne with and I would break my resolutions within the first day, as per. They say I'm too cynical for my age, but they were the ones that made me that way. I'm fifteen. I'm not supposed to care about things, apparently. I'm not supposed to be able to understand people or rank anywhere above airhead status. I just don't get that.

"Enjoy your teenage years while you can", they say. What's to enjoy about them? Every little thing that goes wrong feels a thousand times worse; you're constantly plagued with the idea that nobody loves you; your spare hours are devoted to worrying - either about the drama and angst of everyone's lives and relationships, or about exams or homework; you're self-conscious about your looks. A sick joke, made by an adult who has conveniently forgotten everything and anything about what it is like to be us.

So I wasn't feeling too great, as you can imagine. I lay down in bed and held onto a pillow and closed my eyes. And I started to have the weirdest dream. I dreamt that there was a square room, and only me and four others I didn't know were locked in it. They were singing the national anthem and I didn't know why. I sat down on the floor and waited for something to happen. Then, completely out of nowhere, a huge wave swept the door down and our room was flooded out. I caught the eyes of someone on the other side of the room. A guy. His eyes were wide, but not with fear. He was coolly taking in the situation, though he was about to be drowned. We looked right at each other for one whole second before I was overcome by the water. And I stopped breathing.

I woke up, my head underneath the duvet, arrested by a sense of panic. But I couldn't move. It felt like something had me pinned down. My heart began to beat faster and faster.

And it was then that I saw the witch's withered, clawed fingers climbing up the side of my bed, and under the duvet.

More than anything I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I couldn't move.

The witch's head poked through the covers. I saw that her face was grey and scarred and covered in crusty dried blood. Her eyes were horribly bloodshot and her skin sagged. Her mouth was split into a smirk, though her face was so mangled by scars it was difficult to tell which emotion she was attempting to express. I felt nausea fighting to get out of me. The witch crawled nearer and nearer.

Then her claws rested on my stomach and suddenly I could move again and I writhed and I closed my eyes and I screamed and screamed and screamed----

The witch had me in her claws, I was being dragged across the ground--

I couldn't see.

This puzzled me greatly.

"What's going on?" I said aloud.

There was a little pause, and my reply came.

"Kayla? Is that you?"

"Jody?" I said incredulously. "What the hell is going on?"

"They got you, Kayla. I knew they would eventually."

"What?"

"You had sleep paralysis. You were having a hallucination. And then He dragged you off."

She said "He" in the sort of way that would require capitalisation. But it wasn't reverence in her voice. It was a sort of awed hatred. Almost fear, but not quite.

"Who is he?"

"That's a long story."

"Certainly is," drawled a third voice.

"Huh? What? Who's there?"

No reply.

"Who's there?" I said, more clearly.

Nothing.

"I said, WHO'S THERE?"

The darkness vanished.

Jody looked dishevelled, her hair a tangle, her make-up smeared halfway down her face. She smiled weakly at me. I didn't smile back.

"Where is this?" I said, looking around.

A house of Mirrors

"It's a house of mirrors," said Jody. "Like in a carnival."

"I see that," I said. "But what is it for?"

She didn't answer.

Suddenly, someone else did.

"It's for fun, of course!"

And I was mauled aside.

I couldn't see the person''s face. They were wearing a hood. They whipped off their trousers and my clothes and began to play with me, feel me. I closed my eyes and pretended I wasn't really there. That this was all a dream.

But then it became all too real.

Jody told me the truth after that. She'd been five when it had happened. Only five, and it was her uncle. He came back for her, occasionally. That was one of the worst times.

"But not the absolute worst," she said.

"Not the absolute worst."