Sweet Escape

I soon found out that I really would regret my words. My world seemed to be falling apart at the seams. There were new creatures running around attacking the beautiful peaceful ones I had created when I first came here. These were ugly things that used black magic against the white magic my magicians and witches used. They were horrible things and I was scared that it was my fault they had come here to being with. They showed up because I said I didn’t care if the world went to hell. And here it was going to hell right before my eyes.

I was cowering in the corner of my cabin eyes squeezed shut, tears running down my cheeks. I had my arms wrapped tightly around my legs as I shook with every breath. I was scared; no I was beyond scared I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do with myself as screeches and cries of terror came from just outside the cabin.

“Please stop, just make it stop.” My voice comes out in choked sobs. I wipe my nose roughly on the collar of my shirt and run my hands through my hair.

“You’re the one that made it this way, you know that.” I lift my head and stare at the mirror hanging from the wall. The stupid mirror that I made in a vain attempt to see my family and all it did was ruin my little world. All it did was ruin whatever little comfort I had before.

“You did this, not me.” My voice trembles and I stand on shaking legs looking toward the door and windows waiting for some sort of demon to come barging in and kill me right then and there. I move until I stand directly in front of the mirror glaring at its non-reflective surface.

“I did nothing, it is not my fault that you don’t know the power of the world you are in and the power you hold over it. The slightest miscalculation of words and you change everything. It isn’t my fault that your world is now quite literally going to hell.” That all knowing annoying echo of a voice. I had only had to listen to it once before and I was already something I never wanted to hear again. For some reason it sounded like it was condescending you. It made you feel stupid or like you were in trouble. It could be mumbling like an idiot and still seem smarter.

“Oh shut up, it is so your fault. If you had just shown me what I wanted to see. You know what, I brought you here I can make you go away.” I close my eyes forcing the image of the mirror away, it needs to be gone. I open one eye and look at the now blank wall smiling slightly.

I grab my boots and shove my feet into them starting toward the door. I take a deep breath grab the book and step outside. I see a few people running for cover and others lying on the floor lifeless. I feel tears prick my eyes again and force my mind to expand my world. I watch as the coast shifts, moving inland quickly. It takes over the sand washing away some of the bodies and confusing some of the demons. I squint my eyes in concentration and watch as the water forms a towering wave. It would scare me senseless if I didn’t know I had control.

I let the water crash down on the pine trees and try to ensure that the good people aren’t swept up in the power of it all. After a few seconds of chaos and the sound of crashing water everything starts to fall back into place. The water line goes back to normal and the few people that were running and going into hiding are now back. They get back to life walking along doing nothing other then what they have always done.

“I want my world back to the way I had it before it went to hell.” I’m not sure if that phrasing will work but I pray that it does. I look toward the forest and close my eyes slowly forming something else. I need to restart. I need a blank sheet again. And I definitely need to find a way to get out of here. The coast line starts to change, the people walking down the coast slowly start to fade away, and everything that I worked so hard to make falls away. The world around me is starting over. I think of what I started out with, of the plain simple green grass hill that all of this used to be.

When I open my eyes that’s what I find. I am standing on that green, green hill. My eye burning in the sunlight, but one thing is different. I am not alone; leaning against the tree is the mirror. But now it isn’t cracked, it is new, fresh. It no longer looks old and no longer has a crack running down its center. It shines in the sun but still doesn’t reflect anything, its glass is fogged and I stare it squinting. Leaning over my face mere inches from the glassy surface of the mirror, I wait for the face of whatever it is to show up but it doesn’t come. I think for a second that maybe I’m supposed to call to it like in the cartoons. The whole like mirror, mirror on the wall type thing.

“Uh mirror guy, face thing? Are you there?” I ask, tapping my finger against the glass and waiting. I sigh and lean back on my heels. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. I don’t even understand why it is that the mirror is suddenly fixed. I thought it up the first time and it was broke and this time it just shows up and it’s fixed. It’s all better and that hardly makes since to me. “Please mirror-person-face-thing can you come and talk to me.”

“I’ve got a name you know.” The face shows up, or I guess his excuse for a face shows up in the center of the mirror. It’s twisted vein covered face surrounded by fog.

“Oh really then what would you like me to call you?” I ask sitting cross legged on the floor. I stare toward the mirror the sun beating on my back.

“Call me Bayard or mirror or something. I don’t care as long as it isn’t ‘mirror-person-face-thing’.” His voice doesn’t have quite the same effect outside as it does inside. Outside it spreads, it carries on the wind and I feel like everything we say to each other is out in the air for everyone to hear.

“Is Bayard your name that you were really given?” I ask because there was a trace of doubt in his voice when he told me what it was.

“No not exactly, it’s what the first few people liked to call me. It just sort of stuck. I don’t actually have a name, but I don’t mind Bayard.” I still don’t know whether it is a he or she or what but Bayard sounds like a guy’s name.

“How many people have been here before?” I ask my voice shaking with the idea of it all.

“This book has been around since the beginning of time and every few hundred years it seems that there is a pattern.” My eyes widen.

“Did you say every few hundred years?” I ask my voice cracking. The face in the mirror moves up and down in a nod. “I feel like I’m going to be sick.” I clench my stomach in my hands and lean over trying to think of any way out. “There has to be a way out.” I start to shake and look around the new world with a fear I never had before.