Mirror World, page 18
Olivia wiggled, her hands clawing at Mirror Chloe’s. She managed to yank her mouth free and then let out another blood-curdling cry, “Help! Help me! He—”
Another thunk silenced her attempt at the final word. It wasn’t a punch to the face this time.
When Chloe blinked, Mirror Chloe was holding the hilt of the knife pressed against Olivia’s gut. It took Chloe’s brain a small eternity to understand that the blade had been sunken into Olivia’s stomach.
Mirror Chloe pulled out the knife. Blood coated the once-pristine blade. Then she drove it into Olivia’s gut again. A gasp escaped Olivia’s mouth, one Chloe imagined was of shock and not pain.
Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk.
Mirror Chloe continued pulling the knife out and driving it back down. Each stab pushed the air out of Olivia’s lungs in the form of gasps that grew more and more feeble. Olivia’s hands pressed against Mirror Chloe’s chest in an attempt to push her away—a gesture that did nothing to stop the flurry of stabs.
Please stop, stop, stop, stop! This isn’t happening! This can’t be happening! Please just make it stop!
Chloe didn’t realize until then she was crying.
Olivia’s mouth hung open, her eyes staring at the ceiling. She looked dead, but the twitching of her body that each stab made, and the steady gasps that came out of her throat were indicators that she was still alive, even if her vision was dark and she was no longer aware of what was going on.
I have to stop this. It’s still not too late. I have to stop this now!
But Chloe couldn’t move. She knew that, with each passing second, Olivia’s chances for survival were dwindling, but her feet were cemented to the floor.
“I told you to shut up!” Mirror Chloe shouted as she continued driving the knife into Olivia.
Dozens of holes riddled the cheerleader’s shirt. Her hands finally dropped onto the floor and her head lolled sideways. Then, just as Mirror Chloe raised the knife for what seemed like the hundredth time, Olivia’s body exploded into a million glass shards that flew all over the bathroom.
The tip of Mirror Chloe’s knife clinked against the tile floor. She remained on her knees, panting, her hand wielding the knife covered in blood.
Chloe watched as Olivia’s remains dispersed like shiny snowflakes. Some of them latched onto her clothes like glitter, making her want to scream at the top of her lungs.
This isn’t like snow or glitter. It’s like the ashes of a cremated person.
Even as she thought that, the pieces that were once Olivia disappeared, one by one. Where? Chloe couldn’t tell. Like snowflakes that melted upon touching the asphalt, the shards were gone. Soon, the ones that still floated would disappear, too, erasing all traces of Olivia ever having existed.
It’s too late. I can’t put her back together. It’s too fucking late.
Mirror Chloe stood up on heavy feet. She waltzed over to the sink, dropped the knife inside, and ran the water. She remained leaning over the sink for a little bit and then thoroughly washed her hands. Water turned into rivers of blood as they drained down the sink.
Once no more traces of red remained on Mirror Chloe’s hands, the knife, and in the sink, she turned the water off. She dried the knife against her jeans and concealed it behind her back. When she looked at Chloe, Chloe expected wrath. Instead, she was back to herself—the old, friendly Mirror Chloe—the demon that had taken her over just moments prior gone.
“I think I’m done with school for the day,” she said. “Let’s go home and chill.”
She approached the door, opened it, and was out before taking another glance at the crime scene, as if she just finished using the bathroom and not killing a person in cold blood.
26
“Hey, come on. You can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that even a little,” Mirror Chloe said as they walked down the street.
Chloe refused to respond. No, she did not enjoy seeing the life drain out of someone in front of her eyes. She didn’t want to say anything because she couldn’t tell what Mirror Chloe’s reaction would be.
The scene in the bathroom had convinced her that her more confident counterpart was a lot more than just confident. Mirror Chloe was capable of anything, and as much as Chloe hated to admit it, she was afraid of her.
Back in the bathroom, she’d turned into a monster, and not just because of the murder she’d committed.
She saw us together, dumbass. Mirror Chloe had never spoken to Chloe like that before. She had jokingly said it, yes, but not with such callousness. It was so unexpected to see her so volatile. At one point, Chloe thought that Mirror Chloe would stab her next. Was she even her friend still?
“Maybe one of us should have stayed at school. We’re going to be suspicious like this,” Chloe said.
“Nah. You go back if you like,” Mirror Chloe retorted. “I need a day off after this.”
Chloe bit her lip. She couldn’t go back to school. Not today. She wouldn’t be able to look at Olivia’s empty desk. She thought about going back to school in her own world just to not have a full day of skipped classes, but that was no option, either. The thought of looking Olivia in the face terrified her because she had a hunch the cheerleader would know something. If she did, she wouldn’t hesitate to accuse Chloe.
When they arrived home, Mirror Chloe played music on the laptop and plopped into bed, exactly how Chloe did it after a hard school day.
“I don’t know about you, but Fall Out Boy really inspires me to write poetry,” she said.
“Uh-huh.” Chloe nodded, but she wasn’t really listening as her mind was still stuck on the bathroom scene.
“It’s like I get all these ideas, but then when I start writing, it’s like it fizzes out. You know what I mean? Do you ever get that?”
“Sure.”
“I tried writing with the music on, but it just distracts me.”
“Uh-huh.”
Mirror Chloe propped herself up on her elbows. “Hey, what’s the matter with you? You don’t look so good.”
Maybe that’s because we just fucking murdered a person.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Chloe said. “We just ki—” She lowered her tone. “We just killed Olivia Hubbard.”
The scene that had unfolded in the bathroom kept replaying in her head. Olivia’s screams were so loud that Chloe wanted to hunker down and press her palms against her ears.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to escape them, though. After all, the screams were coming from inside her head. Worse than the screams were the gasps that came out of Olivia’s mouth each time the blade sank into her gut.
Olivia had woken up that morning, thinking it was going to be a normal school day, that she would go back home, do her homework, maybe hang out with her friends or watch some Netflix. Instead, she died in the school bathroom. What happened to mirror people when they died? Did their mirror souls leave their mirror bodies and go to mirror heaven, or did they simply… cease to exist?
“People will wonder where Olivia is. What happens if the cops come looking for us? Oh god.”
Chloe felt sick. She hadn’t realized until then that she would be involved in an active police investigation in a day or so. People who cared about Olivia would post pictures of her on social media, asking anyone who had information to help. Her family would hold onto the hope that she was still alive and that she would come back home alive and safe.
“Oh god…” Chloe slapped a hand over her mouth because she felt a wave of vomit preparing to shoot in a projectile.
“Hey, relax.” Mirror Chloe swung her legs off the side of the bed and got into a sitting position. “Why are you so bothered with it? She was just a reflection of the real thing.”
“That doesn’t make it right! You’re a reflection, too. Does that make it okay for someone to kill you?!”
Mirror Chloe’s face went dark at that. Chloe regretted her words, but it was too late. The damage had already been done.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”
“No. You’re right. I am a reflection. Your reflection. You’re the real thing. But compare the two of us. Who feels more like a copy, huh?” Mirror Chloe shot up to her feet.
The words stung. Chloe was too dumbstruck to counter Mirror Chloe’s argument. “Okay. You know what? I’m just gonna go home now.”
She turned to go into the bathroom.
“You can’t run from everything in your life, Chloe,” Mirror Chloe called out. “You had a chance to stand up to your bully today. You chickened out. Your problems won’t fix themselves. If you don’t seize them by the throat, you’ll remain Frightened Chloe for the rest of your life.”
Chloe stopped and faced Mirror Chloe. “You know what? You’re right. You’re better than me. But if I need to become a murderer to become like you, then I’d rather stay Frightened Chloe.”
“Oh, fuck you. I solved your problem for you because you were incompetent to do so!”
Chloe went through the mirror into her world without so much as saying goodbye, wondering whether that was the last time she’d see her doppelganger.
***
Chloe kept the bathroom locked that day. When she needed to go, she used the one downstairs. Even the reflection in the downstairs bathroom mirror seemed hostile. As an act of defiance, Chloe flipped herself off. Her reflection did the same without delay.
Music didn’t help that day. The dust had settled, and the images of Mirror Chloe stabbing Olivia were a lot more vivid. It wasn’t just the images, either. The sounds from the bathroom haunted Chloe, no matter how loud she turned up the volume.
The frenzy in which Mirror Chloe stabbed Olivia seemed so unlike her that Chloe couldn’t help but wonder whether she’d been possessed by some evil at the time.
The Shadow Fiend.
No, that was ridiculous. Mirror Chloe was responsible for her own actions. Not some imaginary monster.
She saw us together, dumbass.
Compare the two of us. Who feels more like a reflection?
Mirror Chloe’s words stung even harder than when she said them, like a poison that took time to devastate a nervous system. Chloe hadn’t realized how much she looked up to Mirror Chloe until the jab skewered her heart later on.
This entire time, Mirror Chloe had had a bad opinion about Chloe. She viewed Chloe the way Chloe viewed herself—as a loser.
She had been right to think so because it was the truth, but it still hurt. Ever since Chloe met her doppelganger, she felt less lost, like she’d found a sister she’d been searching for her entire life. For the first time, she could be herself with someone.
Or, at least, she tried to. She had been working toward it, but then Mirror Chloe went and gave her such a low blow. That alone was enough to halt Chloe’s peek outside her cave and have her retreat even deeper inside.
Sure, the sunlight outside the cave was tantalizing, but it was also dangerous out there.
This happened every time. Chloe spent a long time in her cave and, after a while, she figured she might see what was outside. She would then get hurt one way or another, which would prompt her to return inside.
Never again, Chloe thought to herself just like last time, but she knew she would break that promise sooner or later. Despite hating the world, she still wanted to be a part of it; to be accepted by it.
She thought she was used to being a loner by now. A part of her had already accepted her life as such, but she was only fooling herself. Her feelings toward Brent were evidence of that. So was the friendship she’d developed with Mirror Chloe.
And with all of it gone and Chloe’s life back to the way it was before she ever discovered the mirrorverse, the jaws of loneliness bit down on her much harder than before.
Chloe sniffled. She rubbed her teary eyes with her palms.
Why? Why does this always happen to me?
A certain need came over her. Chloe loped to the desk and pulled out the bottom drawer. She lifted the papers and located the pack of razor blades sitting at the bottom. It felt like ages since she last looked at these. It was like staring at an old addiction—one that brought her both comfort and pain at the same time.
Chloe drew one razor out of the packaging and slammed the drawer shut. She sat on her bed, folding her legs, morbidly exhilarated by what she was about to do. She pulled up the wristband on her right arm and stared at the crude scar in the shape of the word UGLY.
She had covered it to stop reminding herself it was how she viewed herself—and to escape judgmental eyes. Staring at it in that moment was soothing. The self-deprecation made her feel good.
Chloe pulled the wristband back down. She would not be cutting that arm anymore. Instead, she set her left forearm on her knee and pinched the razor blade between her thumb and forefinger, looking for a spot to sink it into.
She had no particular goal in mind when she drew the first line. She winced, unused to the pain after such a long time of not cutting. The thin blade left a red streak across her forearm. Droplets of blood oozed out, and the burn that came with the open wound caused ecstasy to bloom in Chloe.
The second line next to the first one came with more ease. Chloe already knew how deep to cut to cause the pain but not excess bleeding. She drew the third line across the first two, slowly, in order to savor the beautiful pain. Dragging the blade across her skin made her feel like an artist running a paintbrush across a canvas.
She thought about Mom. Funny how she never knew about Chloe’s unhealthy addiction. If she paid just a little bit of attention, she would have noticed something. For example, she might have found it suspicious how Chloe always wore the wristband or how she hid her forearms with long-sleeved shirts during summer after a fresh cutting session.
Her mom would have freaked out if she knew. Surely, she would have sent Chloe to a psychiatrist. Her panic would have been misplaced, though. Chloe wasn’t cutting to kill herself. She was doing it to cope. It wasn’t always the tremendous emotional pain that made her do it. Sometimes, it was the numbness.
Those were the worst times: the ones when she felt, in a literal sense, dead inside. Cutting made her feel like she was still alive, like poking a foot of a traffic accident victim to see if they could feel anything.
The burn on her arm was becoming too intense. It had subtly crossed the threshold of masochistic pleasure into the domain of pure, unfiltered agony. Chloe stood up and walked up to the bathroom door, carrying the bloodied razor blade in her hand.
Holding the stained object gave her a sense of accomplishment—like a surgeon discarding used tools after a successful operation. She twisted the doorknob and almost ran into the door nose-first when it refused to open. She forgot that she’d locked it earlier.
She turned the key and went inside. The first object her eyes fell on was the mirror. Her reflection was there—an actual reflection, and not Mirror Chloe—much to her relief. Chloe dropped the blade into the sink and put her cut-up arm under the stream of cold tap water.
She winced as the jet came in contact with her open wounds. She forgot all about the pain when she realized how familiar the blood mixing in with water draining in the sink looked.
Mirror Chloe dropping a bloodied knife into the sink and turning the tap water on, rinsing her blood-soaked hands, streams of red coming in what seemed like endless flows.
Chloe tossed the blade into the trash can and dried off her arm. What little the wounds bled stopped entirely, leaving pink gashes. To avoid infections, Chloe retrieved the first aid kit from the compartment under the sink and pulled out the alcohol, gauze, and bandage.
First came the painful part, which Chloe both dreaded and looked forward to. She uncapped the alcohol bottle, held her arm above the sink, and poured it over the wounds.
“Mother of all dicks!” she hissed as the intense burn enveloped her arm.
That part always made her feel like an action hero in a movie. They always made it look so easy, though.
A bullet to the shoulder? No problem. Dig that bitch out with a knife, then pour alcohol on the wound like it’s nothing, stitch it right the fuck up, and you’re good to go shooting baddies for the rest of the movie.
As someone who often searched morbid facts on YouTube, Chloe knew how much Hollywood deceived its audience with its glorious scenes. People still enjoyed the movies, no matter how unrealistic they were.
Content, Chloe removed all evidence of her cutting and put on a sweater to cover the bandages, just in case her mom wanted to speak to her. She lay in bed, the excitement from cutting keeping her mind busy, making her feel alive.
It would subside soon enough, in just a few hours—maybe even sooner—and she would be back to being miserable Chloe.
Frightened Chloe.
“I’m not Frightened Chloe. You’ll see,” she said.
She fell asleep with those words on her lips.
***
When she woke up, it was pitch dark in her room. Chloe got into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. What time was it? She patted her pockets for her phone but couldn’t feel it there. She walked across the room to the light switch and flipped it on.
She didn’t know if she should scream or gasp. The sound that came out of her mouth was something in-between.
The entire room—the ceiling, the walls, the furniture, the floor, even the window—were covered in mold.
Not mold. It’s the black stuff from the mirror. She knew that because the walls looked like they were moving: the black growths expanding and contracting almost as if the room was one big lung that inhaled and exhaled.
It’s the Shadow Fiend!
Even as Chloe thought of that, something at her feet caught her attention. Black wisps curled around her ankles toward her knees like overgrowing roots. She couldn’t move out of fear and the things that entrenched her.
No! No!
A loud groan diverted her attention to the open bathroom. Thick darkness hung just past the threshold, the light from the bedroom unable to penetrate the invisible, black veil. Only one thing was apparent in that inky blackness—a pale, red glow emanating from the mirror, growing more luminescent with each groan.
