The Looking Glass

It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. Like it was fireworks made of memories flooding my brain, overcoming anything I'd previously been thinking. The stadium under my feet fell away and I became weightless in flashbacks. The first one I saw was of meeting Robbie yesterday, telling him my nickname. Then of the other classes, the other teens labeling me an outsider before they even met me. Lunch, the rest of the classes. Meeting the dark-haired girl on the bus, but through the window. My shoelaces being tired again when I tried to see what she said. Rushing home--

I felt myself gasp as I saw my Dad in the window and I tried to think about it, remember as much about it as I possibly could, but it was as if I were on a train, and there was no emergency stop button. The images flying past were not under my control, they just were. Then I was running upstairs, seeing him as a ghost-like image on the window. The crushing emotions of my own head betraying me, it rattled me to my core, all over again. The pandemonium all round me as I rushed through the woods. This time, I could see what directions I took. Had I been more aware, then, I could have made my way home just fine. But Robbie found me, tried to help get me out of there. I still didn't understand how throwing me in the mouth of the lion was helping, but I couldn't ask him, couldn't control my mouth as the flashes kept coming. Then there was the goth girl, flicking her eyes up to reveal them being silver. Earlier on the bus, when I'd thought of the sleepwalking dream I'd had, it clicked into place that I'd remembered. Then I was running through the woods, climbing the tree, then back down when I heard Robbie. Then she was there, and she bit me.

She killed me.

I woke up some, to the motion of being carried. My head was heavy, and everything was upside down, swinging back and forth. I was being carried. Things got slower and I passed out, again, waking up to the sound of my front door creaking open. I was carried upstairs to my room and laid on my bed. Robbie stood over me, saying things, but they couldn't be heard over the rushing in my ears. I couldn't decide whether I'd been hearing it then or now, but then I was starting to pass out, again. He shook me awake, pressing his hand against my mouth. I couldn't breathe, but he kept pulling me back awake. It looked like he was saying, 'poison' and 'Mary' more than anything. It wasn't his hand against my mouth, it was his wrist. I could breathe through my nose, kind of. There was something cold against my cheeks, and my mouth was filling up with honey. I drank.

I woke up the next morning, not remembering anything.

---

Suddenly, his forehead broke free of mine and I gasped as the present world overcame my senses once more. My knees fell weak under the pressure of gravity, and I leaned into the railing beside me for support. I tried to find words, but my mouth was numb, and so were my fingers. I didn't understand.

He stole my memories? And... gave them back? Nothing was sane, anymore, especially knowing what I did now of what had happened the day before. I felt as though I was living a nightmare. Everything happening at once, all out of my control. There was a buzzing in my ears and I tried closing my eyes to ground myself, but it just made me get an instant of overwhelming nausea. I emptied my stomach onto the concrete step below, keeping my eyes open to not let it happen again.

After several minutes, the buzzing, numbness, and pounding headache from the nausea subsided and I stood up straight, keeping my breathing steady. Robbie still stood there, looking at me with such an apologetic expression, I felt like he needed to sit down more than I did. We both walked a few feet away from the bile and sat down. I didn't know what to say, where to start. What I'd seen... was it all real? How did I forget, and how did he make me remember? I don't know what to think. I looked at him, his worry circles prominent still, and his messy hair.

"I..." I shook my head, not knowing how to find the words. "Wha..."

"Here." he said, holding his hand out. I just looked at it, not understanding, then placed mine in his. He put his other hand on my forehead and closed his eyes. I hoped he didn't do what he just did again, but I simply tried to prepare myself rather than trying to break away. I wasn't sure whether I needed to close my eyes or not, but I didn't want to puke, so I just stared at him. He looked so deep in concentration, I didn't want to bother him with my questions. Though I was courteous, I couldn't help my mind from wanting to ask questions. Was the goth girl's name Lylith? And she was a vampire? What was wrong with that forest, because it sure as hell wasn't normal. Were all the kids in the school.. weird? Weird wasn't the right word, but the more I thought the word 'vampire' the crazier I felt. At the thought 'crazy' I felt the sting of thinking of my Dad. My eyes fell, heavy with tears. I couldn't help but allow myself the feeling of ultimate hope that he was back, in my room, like he'd never been gone in the first place. Me seeing him had nothing to do with the fact that the rest of the town was nuts, too, did it? Maybe it was just this place. I hoped Mom didn't have to deal with anything I'd had to.

Would the other kids try to kill me, again? Or was it like a one-time thing? Or would I turn into one of them, like he'd said I would?

He took his hand from my forehead and picked up my free hand, placing it on his forehead silently. He closed his eyes and waited. When I just stared, he peeked, then looked at me funny, waiting for me to follow suit. I closed my eyes and tried my best to relaxed, but I was too busy bracing myself for whatever else he was going to do.

But this time was different, the world didn't explode or anything. I could still feel the metal bench beneath me, his hand on mine, my hand on his forehead, I could still feel the world. And this time the images weren't images, they were more like words, or thoughts. Like my thoughts, but.. alien. Not only in the fact that they felt odd in my head, but they... sensed odd, too. Different wavelengths or something. I didn't question, I just paid attention.

The 'goth girl' was indeed named Lylith and she was the most powerful vampire of the entire coven here, which consisted of around two hundred members, or vampires. She was the only pure blood, thanks to a very rare ritual that allows vampires to become fertile for the full cycle of a moon, a special one, of course, that only happens once every half a millennium or so. This makes her the only truly immortal vampire in the world right now, since the others had been killed. Regular bitten vampires can survive for about two hundred years.

The forest by my house was unlike any other forest around this town, it was cursed, thanks to a witch-fey, or so it's been rumored. He cursed it to try and stop Lylith from being born, since he'd prophesied she'd be the beginning of the end of the human race. What the forest had to do with he birth, it was the only place that'd been untouched by any being not supernatural, it was pure. The witch had tried to summon humans, and wound up summoning demons. They'd vanquished the demons, and Lylith was still born, with seemingly no scratch no thanks to the witch guy.

Everyone in the town was a supernatural, and I'd walked in on a gathering of the young vampire coven last night. Robbie was a woodland fairy, of sorts, and was on his way to cast a protection ring around my house when he ran into me. He was careful to cloak himself against the vampires, but wasn't planning on me. Since he couldn't cloak both of us, he decided to just cloak me and wait silently until a vampire lead me back to the road, but when I'd made a conscious decision to make myself know, by trying to approach Lylith, my protection slid away like paint that'd been washed away. Since no one liked me, being not of the folk, they were already contemplating coming after me. Lylith bit me, trying to snuff my life out like a candle. Robbie came in, all kinds of knight in shining armor-like, reminding them of how much trouble they'd get in with the Enclave if they killed me, and they all left. He carried me home, and fed me some of his.. blood isn't the right word, but it's close enough, it had healing qualities, and he cast a spell, knowing that if I had his blood in my system, it'd put a better memory block on me. He didn't know that it'd not work that well, and that it'd cause me pain when I broke through it.

I felt his sorrow as he tried to answer my last worries. He didn't know why I was seeing my Dad, and it hurt him to tell me, but he didn't think it was related to the town.

Then he took my hand from his forehead and a tear fell from his eye as he looked at me with more sadness than I thought possible, for sympathy, at least. I looked away.

Clearing my throat, I tried to make light of things, "On the plus side, at least things can't get weirder, right?" I laughed, but when he didn't join in, my humor dried up fast and I looked back at him. He shrugged, as if to say, sorry, but what can you do?

I sighed. "Shit."