This was originally just supposed to be a free-write durring a class in school, but I decided to keep going if it worked out. I'm turning it in tomorrow, but it could be interesting as a flash-fiction deal... please help me out!
“What’s it gonna be?” demanded Shane.
Mara spun around, trying to get a good look at, at least, one of his reflections. But he was everywhere. He reflected in every mirror around her, as though he couldn’t be in just one place at one. Of course he couldn’t, but it was still unnerving.
“Well?” he demanded hotly, his reflection jumping from mirror to mirror. She could make out at least a little bit of what he was—black and blue hair dye, gray jacket, green jeans—but he was mostly out of focus. Shane hadn’t been in focus since she met him.
“I don’t know. I… I can’t let you hurt someone,” she said.
“Liar!” he yelled. “You told me to kill him! I heard you, Mara! You said you wanted him to die! Did you suddenly change your mind? Why? What could he possibly have done to make up for what he did?”
Mara wanted to die. She had said that, but she hadn’t meant it. “Shane, don’t do it!” she said shakily.
“Don’t do what?” Shane growled, raging through the mirrors again. “Don’t make him pay for what he did to you? He put you in the hospital for three months! They didn’t think you’d survive!”
Mara faltered. She’d known that she’d been in a coma for two of the months after the accident, and Shane told her he’d been there the whole time. But while she’d survived through a shattered femur, two broken ribs and an almost punctured lung, Shane hadn’t been so lucky. He had died when the cars started to pile up.
“But I’m alive, Shane! It’s not his fault, not really!” she protested. “I was only mad because he’d killed you and three other people in that crash.”
Shane jerked to a stop and shimmered in place. “That's right, Mara. He killed me. And he wasn’t even ashamed! He didn’t want to make any amends, or even beg ‘not guilty’ in the court!” His form flickered from his obvious rage, and Mara had to look away. Shane was right — the man didn’t deserve to live. But he was in prison for life, and Mara had to be satisfied with that. She was almost back to normal, though she could no longer play sports after the crash.
Mara caught a brief flashback, but shook it off before the fear set in. She didn’t want to think about the crumpled steel lumps that were cars, or the crazed man who caused it all. She knew Shane could hear her thoughts playing out, and he was probably the only one who could make sense of them.
“I’m not going to let you hurt anyone,” Mara said firmly.
“You couldn’t stop me,” Shane said testily.
“I could. I’ll destroy the mirrors; I’ll send you away,” Mara warned. But she knew she wouldn’t. She needed Shane around; she didn’t think she could do it on her own yet. It had only been a month since she’d come home from the hospital.
“You won’t do it though,” Shane said. This time, Mara wondered if he sounded almost scared. Maybe he didn’t know he was right, but that was a good thing for Mara.
“I would,” she argued.
“You won’t. You know you can’t live without me,” he said. Coming from most people, that might sound sensual and possessive, but coming from Shane, Mara knew he had read her thoughts and was using them as leverage. He wasn’t flirting, he was fighting.
Mara was torn between what she thought she had to do, and what she thought she needed, wondering when those two had become different. She knew Shane would probably kill him, and she thought she had to do something. But she also didn’t think she could make it through the sleepless nights, and agonizing flashbacks without his help.
“I’ll do what I have to do,” Mara said, her voice cracking. Though she wondered if she actually could do what she had to do.
“You can’t stop me, Mara,” Shane hissed. And without another word, Shane vanished. He wasn’t in any of the mirrors — Mara felt a quiet she’d often come to fear start to set in. Slowly the mirrors began to dissolve, fading into the blackness of silence.
The next day, Mara read in the newspaper that the man who’d caused the crash had died. He’d suddenly stopped breathing, they’d said. But Mara knew they couldn’t find his killer, because it was Shane, looking at him through the mirror. It was Shane, who’d lurched from the mirror like a phantom and clogged the man’s esophagus with a ghostly hand through his throat.
And Shane still wasn’t back.
