Young Writers Society

"Yes, I think so," Jay said in response to the boy. "I'm Jay, and I'm his father. I don't know how. But I just know."

When no one replied, he gestured to one of the doors.

"Would anyone care to tell me how I got here? And what's behind those doors?"

"We don't know," Kira finally said. She was trying to look away from Rex - she knew it wasn't good to keep staring at what should have been her reflection - but it was hard to give up the first time she had seen him in centuries. "We all ended up here just a short time ago without any explanation. And we've only gone through the door that Adam opened - I...I think they're the only thing we can do here."

She wasn't sure if she was saying that because it was what made the most sense, or because it was what she wanted to do the most. What Adam had seen had become twisted, but Rex couldn't possibly do something like that. He was too kind to - he didn't have a single mean bone in his body.

Kira had a point. The mirror-doors were practically the only thing in the room. He wondered if he didn't look into one of them, if it would open up to somewhere else. A not-memory. There had to be something behind them, right? When Adam opened it, he'd only pushed on it. There was no handle on the inside.

Averting his eyes from the reflections, he went up to a mirror and leaned. It didn't give. He pushed a little harder, then tried another one. Still nothing.

Well, it was a good idea when it-

The mirror suddenly gave way, opening up like it was being thrown open. What happened next he wasn't sure he even knew how to describe.

He fell into the room, but on the other side. The mirror(s?) shut behind him, and he landed on his hands and knees.

He stared at the dark carpet floor for a moment, eyes wide.

"There... I don't know how this room works," he said. "But When Adam opened a door, he was looking into it. He saw a memory in the mirror-" he paused, looking up at Adam, being quick to find Adam's face in the small group of strangers.

"-that was a memory, right? Or was it something else?"

"No," Adam said curtly, looking at Jay. "We never did things like that. Together, as a family."

James glanced at Jay. “If it wasn’t a memory, then what was it?”

He knew this was personal, and it was probably worse that Adam’s father was present. He felt bad for Adam being the first to experience what was likely only the beginning of the terrors this mirrored room had to offer.

He tried to speak as kindly and gently as he could.

“Was it something you wanted?”

"Yes," Adam said quietly.

Bobby's eyes widened when he heard that. Something you wanted. His gaze drifted to one of the mirrors. Just as his image began to shift, he looked away. No, no, no, nonononono...

Something touched his shoulder and he flinched, but it was only Queenie. They were nearly eye level with each other, but she was so much more intimidating. If you could see behind that default friendly smile of hers.

"So it will do that for all of us, then," Queenie said, "theoretically." She wasn't really asking, because there was no one here who could answer. Queens hated wasted questions, Bobby remembered.

The reflections were something they wanted.

Kira gave a tiny, sad smile at that. She should have known that was the case. Part of her had been aware that it couldn't really be Rex standing behind the glass, but she wanted to believe it was. She wanted it more than anything in any of the realms.

"When I looked in the mirror," she said, finally finding her voice, "just a few moments ago, I saw something I wanted, too. I don't think it's theoretical. I don't know how, but..."

James looked up at the ceiling. He knew these things shouldn't be possible, but he didn't think they were going to learn how exactly these mirrors worked any time soon, if at all. He kept himself from doing the dramatic eye roll he imagined in his head and instead just sighed.

So, they were stuck here. The mirrors would taunt them with things they wanted, but then those dreams would go sour.

If they did nothing, would anything happen? Or would they all have to... face their deepest desires at one point or another? How much of a choice did they really have in all of this?

"What did you see?" James asked Kira.

She took a deep breath and let it out a soft sigh.

"...I saw someone I haven't seen in a long time," she admitted, knowing she wasn't supposed to say anything more specific than that. "He...He taught me everything I know. He's been missing for years - I know it can't have really been him."

She hesitated.

"...If the only way we can get out of here is by going through the mirrors," she said, "we could go through mine next."

"Be my guest," Jay told the woman. Right now he didn't particularly care about playing nice. Someone had taken him away from his girls.

And supposedly his son was here, even though they were the same age. Imagine that. He walked over to the door and gestured for the woman to open it.

Since no one objected to Kira's suggestion, she went to one of the mirrors and stood in front of it.

It took a moment for Rex to appear again. His hand was extended just like it had been the past two times, and his clothes were just as modern. She gave her necklace one last tight squeeze.

Then she pushed on the mirror.

A moment later, they were standing in some random suburban town. The streets weren't busy, even though they should have been - the time of day was just right, and so was the weather. Rex was standing in the center of the sidewalk in front of them, a warm, friendly smile on his face. She hadn't realized how badly she had missed it until she saw it now.

He was still holding his hand out to her.

She eagerly grabbed onto it.

She knew this couldn't be real - he didn't have a soul in his chest - but she wanted to pretend it was even for just a handful of minutes.

James took in a deep breath as they were sucked into another modern scene. There was no one apart from them, Kira, and the man holding her hand. James wondered why there wasn't anyone else there, but he didn't know what exactly it was Kira was hoping for in her heart. Obviously, she wanted to see him again, but he didn't know what all of this... meant.

He inched closer to Kira, then looked to the man.

"What's your name?"

The moment he asked the question, his clothes changed ever so slightly. Cleaner, simpler, and looking more like they fit in with whatever era this was on earth (likely the one he was most familiar with, not that he even knew the years).

Rex gave a start, almost as if he hadn't noticed that James was there. Kira suspected that he really hadn't; it seemed like the fantasies only registered people other than the one who had started them after they interacted with the scene. That was what had happened back in Adam's fantasy. It made sense that the same thing would happen here.

"It's Rex," Rex said. He was giving James that warm, friendly smile she knew so well, but the smile shifted a little when he glanced over at her. It was a different kind of joy - a kind of pride. "Kira, you didn't tell me you made a new friend."

The words were spoken so quickly that they almost blurred together, but Rex always spoke like that when he got excited. It was one of the things that made him oddly come across as almost childish sometimes, despite being older than she could ever comprehend.

"We only just met," she protested. Despite herself, she found herself falling into her old routines with him. "And you don't have to say my name all of the time, Rex."

"But it's beautiful," he protested, "and you picked it yourself. I said I was going to use it all of the time when you chose it out, remember? I never break my promises - and I'm not going to start breaking them with this."

Kira's smile faltered.

She grabbed her necklace out of habit.

He had broken one of her promises before. Even this fantasy couldn't make up for that broken one. Still, she knew how to act after all of this time. She fixed up her smile and let her hand fall back down to her side. She wasn't going to waste the one time she had seen him in what felt like forever on the Rex-shaped hole in her heart.

Rex turned back to James.

"What's your name?" he asked. "It was rude of me not to ask sooner, but I got carried away with how excited I was for Kira."

James hadn't expected to be so eagerly welcomed into the scene, and he hadn't expected Kira's friend, or mentor, or whatever he was to her to be so eager and friendly. He could see why Kira would've wanted to see him again.

"It's fine. I'm James," he said quietly.