Mirrors

The carnival lights were bright against the cobalt sky. Smells of pizza and popcorn wafted through the cooling summer air. The sun was crouching low behind the line of trees that served as a backdrop for the house of mirrors. At the end of the line, amidst the shuffling, laughing, shouting carnival-goers, stood a father waiting for his daughter to finish her cotton candy.

“Hurry up, sweetie,” the father said, “you can’t go in with food.”

“I’m going as fast as I can, daddy!” she said, tearing a large piece off of the pink cloud with her teeth. She chewed with her mouth open, letting the sugar stick to her smacking lips. One of her front teeth was missing, having just fallen out the past week. Her father had missed the event since he had been living in a motel for the past few weeks while the final details of the divorce were ironed out. The trip to the carnival was as much a distraction for his daughter as it was for himself.

“Done, Daddy!” the young girl shouted, holding up the bare paper stick that once held the cotton candy.

“Good job Heather,” he said, tossing the paper stick into a garbage can, “Now remember, this is our last ride before we have to take you back to mommy’s.”

‘Take you back to mommy’s’ still sounded weird to him. The house was theirs. Had been for nine years. They moved in together when they found out that she was pregnant with Heather. That was when they were still head-over-heels for each other- not completely grownups yet. Unaware of the stress that bills and jobs and falling out of love would cause them.

“Here, take your ticket,” he said, handing her the small blue paper.

“You have to promise not to let go!” Heather said, grabbing firmly to his hand.

“I promise.”

The line went quickly. Only a few minutes passed before the father and daughter were staring up at the mouth of a giant painted clown. “House of Mirrors” were spelled out in lights above the clown, the “I” blinking as it struggled to stay alight. A motor made the clown’s eyes gyrate in opposite circles. Its mouth was open in an overzealous smile. Whimsical scenes were painted on the walls of the building. Horses and jugglers and ballerinas. All of them slightly out of proportion and faded from so many hours out in the sun. Their eyes, however, looked fresh and new in the light of the setting sun.

“Tickets. Please.” A young man in a carnival shirt asked unenthusiastically. The father and daughter handed him their tickets, and he raised an arm indicating the set of metal stairs they should use to enter the house of mirrors.

Leading her father by the hand, Heather excitedly ran up the stairs and into the
building.

“Woah woah! Slow down!” He gently chided.

Immediately inside the house of mirrors was a narrow, dark hallway. Metal chains
were hung at random intervals from the ceiling and attached to the floor. Heather had stopped now, narrowing her eyes to try to see what was on the other side of the hall. Her grasp on her father’s hand had grown tighter.

“Come on, aren’t you going to lead me through?” He said to her, playfully shaking his hand that held hers.

Heather’s look of uncertainty suddenly shifted into a look of determination. She raised her free hand and carefully touched the chain closest to her. It had some slack, so she was able to maneuver herself around it. She pulled her father after her. As they moved through the chains, Heather gained more confidence, and began to move faster down the hallway, giggling as she moved.

“Hey, hey! Slow down there! I’m a bit bigger than you!” He said, squeezing between to chains that were close together.

The father and daughter entered a new room. This one was much larger than the chain hallway, and stunningly bright in comparison. Mirrors lined the walls, and strips of lights ran between the panes of glass. There was no visible exit, but the father assumed there must be a turn up ahead hidden by the illusion of the mirrors.

Heather ran up to the first mirror and instantly burst into a fit of giggles. Her reflection was short and fat, and she squatted and jumped to make the meatball version of herself do the same.
“Look Daddy!” She exclaimed.

Her father moved to stand next to her. The mirror across from him made his body appear stretched out and impossibly thin. Heather shrieked in delight, pointing a finger at the reflection. The two of them shared laughs as they took turns moving and making faces in front of the mirrors.

The pair moved through the room stopping at each mirror to discover what effect it had on. Their faces and bodies were stretched, scrunched, swirled and pinched, causing Heather to exist in a state of endless giggles. He was enjoying himself too, the thought of the divorce momentarily banished from his mind thanks to the laughter of his daughter.

“Daddy, what does this one do?” She asked, pointing at the mirror she was currently standing in front of.

He stood behind her and looked into the mirror. He placed a hand on her shoulder and looked himself in the eye. All he saw was a perfect picture of father and daughter, and he allowed himself a smile, something that was rare for him lately.

“Maybe this is just a regular mirror?” He suggested.

But then something caught his attention. Over his shoulder, peeking around a hard-to-see corner in the maze of mirrors, was a dark humanoid shape standing perfectly still. The shape was completely black, a faceless head and thin torso. The father raised his hand, intending to touch the place on the glass where the figure was being reflected- thinking that it must be a sticker or an illusion.

Right before his finger touched the mirror, the black shape suddenly darted back around the corner. The father’s heart leapt, and he sharply inhaled.

“What is it Daddy?” Heather asked quizzically.

“Nothing I-”

“Welcome! Welcome!” A voice suddenly blared- seeming to come from every direction at the same time. The voice was male, and sounded like an announcer introducing an act in a circus.

“To the darkest place in the world!” The voice boomed.

Instinctively, the father tightened his grip on his daughter’s shoulder. The voice had barely ended its announcement when the strip lights between the mirrors started to brighten. The bulbs’ intensity, paired with the reflectiveness of the mirrors, washed the entire room in yellow light. The father gave a shout, seeing in the reflection of the mirror the dark figure, this time standing directly behind him and his daughter. But before he could move, the light bulbs exploded with a series of machine-gun-like pops, blinding him. The pops mixed with the deafening sounds of imploding glass. He tried to cover his daughter’s body with his own as sharp fragments of the mirrors rained on them.

There was silence. The father’s ears were still ringing when he shakily rose from his knees. His daughter was still wrapped in his arms, and he could hear the crunching of broken glass under foot as he found his balance.

“Are you okay Heather?” he asked, trying to make sense in his head of what had just happened. A power surge? Must have been. He couldn’t see anything, and was anxiously waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light.

He could feel Heather against his chest.

“Shhhh!” was all she said.

“We’re gonna go back outside, okay? Let me pick you up, there’s broken glass on the floor.”

The father reached around to pick up his daughter in the darkness. He felt his hands wrap around her small frame as he bent down to scoop her up, her terrified breath on his face. But he froze when a strangely warm, sulfuric smell hit his nose. He swallowed hard, and tried not to gag. The father could not see, even the few inches in front of him where his daughter was, but he knew the smell was coming from her mouth.

Before he could speak, he heard another harsh “Shhh!” from Heather and small, yet powerful hands pressed against his mouth. The father fell back, his hands shooting out to break his fall, which resulted in palms full of broken glass. He heard the crunch as the glass was pressed into his flesh by the weight of his body and the small frame of what he thought was his daughter climbing on top of him. The grip tightened around the lower half of his face.

“You have to be quiet!” a boy’s voice said, inches from the father’s face.

Whatever was strangling him, it was not Heather.

Moving out of instinct, he raised one of his hands and struck, palm open, where he assumed was the head of his assailant. His glass-covered hand dragged across skin, and the creature gave out a barely-human shriek. The thing leapt off of him, and he could hear it scampering away, scraping and crunching through the broken glass.

As he shakily got to his feet, all he could hear was his own terrified breathing. His mind was attempting to rationalize the events that he had just experienced. He remembered the strange black figure he had seen in the mirror shortly before the world went black. And even now, as he looked around him, all he could see was the impenetrable blackness.

“Heather?” He called, at first just a shriveled croak escaped his mouth.

“Heather?!” He called again, louder.

His calls for his daughter sounded small. The sound of his voice was swallowed up.

Inhaling, the father prepared to shout even louder for his daughter, but a sound in his left ear caused the word to get stuck in his throat. The sound was quiet, breathy, and he had to strain his ear to hear it.

“I said,” the voice in his ear whispered, “I wouldn’t do that. He’ll hear you.”

He struck out with a fist in the direction of the voice, but his arm connected only with air.

“Heather?!” He shouted.

And that was when the laughing began. Low at first, the sound of at least twenty people chuckling came from all around him at the same time. They sounded far away, as if he was in a room at least three times larger than how he remembered the room of mirrors. Louder the laughter grew, and more shrill. He spun around, trying his hardest to see anything in the darkness, but every direction was the same endless expanse of blackness.

The laughter grew louder still, shrieks and cackles now, from every direction and appearing to get closer. He was surrounded by an unseen crowd. His fear heightened by the uncomfortable feeling that the unseen crowd was laughing at him. He felt exposed, vulnerable, powerless- a mix of nightmarish fear and social anxiety. They were closing in, sounding like they were mere feet away now. He raised his hands to his ears to drown out the unbearable volume of the shrieking, only to feel his sticky, glass-filled hands pressing against him.

Finally, the sounds became unbearable. When his skin began to crawl with the anticipation of unseen hands grabbing onto him, he broke into an adrenaline-fueled sprint. He collided with what felt like a body. Hands groped at him, grabbing handfuls of his shirt. But he struck out and continued to run, glass smashing under his footfalls. He kept running, propelled by terror, his mind willing his body to move faster than it could.

His sprint was brought to an abrupt halt when his shoulder collided with something metal. His balance was thrown off, and his legs flew out from under him. He landed on his side, sliding across the ground and into a wall.

He held his breath, listening intently for signs of the crowd following him. When he was sure the only sound was of his own heart pounding in his ears, he exhaled. He allowed his whole body to relax, sprawled out on the floor. As the adrenaline left his system, he became aware of the pain in his hands. They were sticky with drying blood, and pincushioned with grains of broken glass, smashed into the flesh. The wounds burned. He attempted to rest his weight on his elbows. He still could not see, not even a few inches in front of him. Trying to blindly pull out pieces of glass was impossible, and his attempts just resulted in more pain.

The father sat up, placing his back against the wall. At least that was one less direction that something could sneak up on him from.

Heather was gone, somewhere out in the impenetrable black expanse. How did he lose her? He had been holding on to her the whole time. Was she just as lost as he was, cowering in some corner? A sob welled up in his chest, but he fought it back, remembering what the voice has said in his ear.

He’ll hear you.

Composing himself, the father slowly got back on to his feet. He needed to find Heather. She could not be too far from the room of mirrors. He thought about the crowd he had just escaped, if Heather would have been able to get away from them. What they would do to her if she did not.

He banished the thought, tried to ignore that as well as the burning sensation of his palms, and moved slowly forward. There was no glass on the floor here. But he still walked carefully, testing the ground with a toe before shifting his full weight onto the foot. He moved with one hand out, injured palm facing inwards, so if he did run into anything, he would hit whatever it was with the back of his hand. The other hand was resting against the wall to prevent him from wandering in a circle. Eventually, if he kept following the wall he would find an exit. Hopefully Heather would be outside waiting for him.

After about three steps, his outstretched hand felt something cool and metallic. He ran the back of his hand gently against the object.

A chain from the dark hallway. He had somehow sprinted back through the room of mirrors and into the hallway of chains. Feeling a little more at ease for knowing he was close to the entrance, he began to carefully press forward, slowly sliding between the chain and the wall. He made sure he guided the chain gently back into place so it would not swing on its own and make noise.

He continued on like this for what felt like twenty minutes. Placing one foot gently on the floor, shifting his weight, breathing shallow breaths, keeping his hand forward. His entire body was tense. His legs were getting sore, his arms tired from being held up so long, his forehead getting hot and sweaty.

He felt another chain, this time too close to the wall to squeeze in between. Carefully, the father shuffled his feet, allowing himself to distance himself from his safety wall. Both hands were out now, moving slowly forward, intending to get right back to the wall once he was past the chain.

One of his hands knocked another chain on his far right.

Clink. Clink.

His insides turned to ice. The beads of sweat that had been on his forehead were now sickly-cool. The father stood in place, completely frozen, ears straining to hear anything moving in the darkness.
He would count to sixty. If a minute passed and he heard nothing he would keep going.

One… two… three…

A bead of sweat tickled the side of his face, but he resisted the urge to wipe it off.

Eleven… twelve… thirteen…

Lungs were full of air, but he was too afraid of exhaling.

Eighteen… nineteen… twenty…

His leg, tense in an uncomfortable position, had begun shaking.

Twentyseven… Twenty-

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The noise came from several feet behind him. The clinking of a chain being forced aside.

Clink. Clank.

Another chain had been moved, even closer than the last. Something was coming towards him.
“You have to move forward!” A voice called from the darkness.

And he did, scrambling, knocking into chains, tugging and pulling them frantically to make his way through. He had completely lost the wall now, all he could do was move as quickly as he could forward, arms swinging out in front of him to detect the next chain.

He could not tell if he was still being followed, he made a great deal of noise as he moved, and many of the chains he had passed continued to swing and clink behind him. He continued going as fast as he could, even when he began to feel glass crunching under his feet once more. The father was frantic, his mind and body simultaneously screaming at him to run until he was out of the nightmare.

Then they had him. He ran into a mass of bodies. Hands suddenly were grabbing him, pulling at his hair, his clothes- even a smaller body was wrapping itself around his leg the way a toddler would do.
He went to scream, but a hand clasped itself over his mouth. He writhed, but in vain, at least twenty hands were on him, keeping him from moving more than an inch in either direction.

“Shhh!” A voice hissed in his ear.

“You have to be quiet!” another voice said, this time from behind him.

“Sorry we startled you earlier,” yet another voice said.

“He would have found you if we didn’t make more noise!” a child’s voice chimed in.

“No we’re going to let you go, but you have to stay quiet.”

The hands released him. In exhaustion and agony, he collapsed onto the floor struggling to catch his breath.

“You have to hurry,” an official sounding voice said from above him, “He’s coming for you. If you make any noise, he’ll start coming in that direction. You have to get out of here before he gets to you.”

“Heather,” was all the father could say, “Where is she?”

“She went further up ahead looking for you,” the voice continued to explain, “We told her to stay silent. Go to her, find her, and keep going forward. Get to the slide, that’s the exit. Get out before he gets you or he’ll take them. If he takes them he’ll make you stay here in the dark and you won’t be able to leave.”

The voice spoke so frantically that he instructions were not completely clear. The hands grabbed the father once more, but this time they lifted him to his feet and released him. He felt that they were still there, the crowd of people, but they remained silent now. He considered asking the official sounding voice to clarify where he was, what was happening, what “he” was going to take but-

There was a shriek from up ahead. The scream of a little girl. And the father was running once more.
He collided with a wall, an audible snapping sound coming from his wrist as it tried and failed to cushion the impact. But he did not stop moving, he shimmied, using the wall as a guide, crunching through broken glass until he found another wall.

“Daddy!” Heather screamed from up ahead. And he could hear the sound of metal clanking and the shuffling of tiny, terrified feet.

He moved along the next wall, running again while dragging his good hand along it. He found a doorway and ran in. His feet banged against metal, and the floor he was on suddenly shifted with his weight. The father tumbled, his shoulder taking a majority of the impact.

She screamed again, this time a few feet from him.

He clawed his way back to his feet and stumbled forward. The floor seemed to be made of metal plates that would tip depending on the distribution of the weight. He tried to run, but as he crossed the center of the plate he was on, the weight shifted again, causing him to topple forward, smashing his shins on the next plate.

There was shuffling sounds to his right, the sound of feet stomping against the metal.

“Heather!” he shouted, “Heather where are you?”

He crawled towards the sounds, ignoring the pain coming from his injured wrist. Something struck him in the face, hard. Instinctively, he grabbed on to what felt like a leg. He pulled, and the metal plate that they were on tipped. The figure toppled over, thrown off balance by the moving floor.

“Daddy?!” Heather screamed.

Her father could hear her terrified footfalls pounding against the metal.

“Here Heather!” He shouted into the dark.

He felt her small frame collide with him in the dark and she instantly wrapped her tiny hands around his neck. But he wasted no time in the embrace, he scooped her up while getting to his feet, and began to slowly but steadily make his way forward across the metal panels.

They had barely made it three steps before the weight of the metal panel shifted again. Whatever it was had gotten back on its feet and was after them. The father struggled to retain his balance. If they fell, they were done. If he moved too quickly, he could upset the balance of the panels or collide with a wall. If he moved too slowly…

“I can see you!” The thing behind them shouted. It was the announcer-like voice, heart-jerkingly loud and menacing- louder than any sound heard in the twisted house of mirrors before. As if this being had disproportionately more power in this strange world of darkness.

“But you can’t see me!” It taunted.

It moved impossibly fast, because it was suddenly on the father, clawing at his back, pulling him with sinewy, claw-like fingers down onto the cold floor. He could feel a cool adrenaline-numbing wetness on his back as the flesh was cleaved open by savage hands. He could hear Heather tumble out of his arms and scurry away, hopefully to safety.

His arms were useless in trying to beat the creature back. It was humanoid, but tougher than human skin and bones. Each strike he inflicted on it just sent jarring pain up his forearms. Adrenaline and desperation prevented him from switching tactics. The creatures hands were working their way up his body, cutting and gashing as they moved. Shoulder, neck, and finally his face.

“Hold still!” the creature commanded, with a voice so loud the father’s eardrums popped.

The pointed ends of its fingers surrounded each of his eye sockets. His stomach sank when he realized what was about to happen.

With a final burst of adrenaline, the father pushed with his legs against the creature’s abdomen. The creature was lifted and sent crashing against the floor.

“Heather?!” He called, half rolling, half standing.

“Daddy!” She sobbed from somewhere ahead of him in the
darkness.

He was in a full sprint now, his shoulder collided with a doorway, but he continued forward into a new room. This one had a normal, non-moving floor.

“Heather?” He called again. His head felt light, and he could only imagine the amount of blood he was losing from the gashes on his back.

“Daddy!” her voice came from right in front of him.

“Hold out your hand honey.”

He grasped her small hand tightly in his, despite the state of his palm. Her shaking sobs made it impossible to hear if the creature was coming up behind them. They had no time. The father began leading her forward, but he only made it a few paces before his knee struck something metal. A railing of some sort. Shaking off the pain, he knelt down, and felt smooth metal at an incline leading away from the railing.

The slide.

“Heather, get down, quick. You’re going to go down the slide,” he picked his trembling daughter up and hastily set her down on the edge of the slide. He then sat down himself, putting an arm around her.

“Ready?”

She just gave a sob.

He leaned forward and over the edge with Heather pulled tight against him. They were going to be out of this nightmare, just one quick trip down the slide and it would all be over. They began to slide. The father exhaled- a sigh of relief- but his arm around Heather was suddenly and painfully jerked backwards.

She screamed, a sound that would be forever burned into the father’s ears. She screamed as the creature grabbed hold of her. She screamed as she felt her father helplessly continue to slide down the slide away from her, despite how hard he tried to claw his way back up. She screamed as her father left her in the darkness.

The father slid down with tears burning from his eyes. The metal tugging at the raw flesh on his back. His broken wrist protesting as he continued to try to slow down his descent with his arms and legs. But gravity pulled him all the way down until he was deposited in a patch of grass outside the house of mirrors.

There was light. The final rays of light from the setting sun. But still, it burned his starved eyes. He was thankful to be able to see his surrounding once more- but only for the fraction of a second. Because the thought of his daughter came flooding back. He turned, ignoring the carnival lights and sounds of happy families, to look up at the house of mirrors. He saw the paintings, the clown with the motorized moving eyes. There was a window at the very top- maybe some kind of maintenance or supply room- with a light on. In the window was the tall, dark figure. Next to him stood Heather, meek in comparison. She was staring out the window. Except instead of eyes she only had two crimson, empty sockets. Even still, the father could identify the terror on her disfigured face. The lights went out almost instantaneously, leaving only darkness where his daughter once stood.