Prologue
1991.
The gray-haired man sat on his saggy mattress, a cigarette between his rough fingers. He takes a deep puff, inhaling the grey stench before releasing a wisp of smoke. The man finishes his cigarette and tosses it into his pile of cigarettes before lighting another one.
The man had nothing better to do except drown his despairs in smoking and drinking. He thought it was the only way to numb himself. The man had stopped feeling anything other than emotionless for a long time. He couldn’t; each day to him just passed by slowly and bleakly, each minute the same. The memories of his short moment of happiness seemed too faint in his mind, and he had given up all hope for anything good to happen to him anymore.
His childhood was a nightmare, his parents always arguing. When he was just 10-years-old, his mother died from cancer, leaving him with his abusive father. He was always teased and beaten at school because of his poor status, and at the age of 16, his father was arrested. He was taken into an orphanage where he was switched to five different families in the course of two years. As soon as he turned into an adult, he headed off to university, determined to bring a good future for himself. And for a while, there was hope.
He met a young lady at the university. Her name was Molly. And she was beautiful. The first thing he noticed about her was her fresh green eyes. The two of them grew close quickly. He graduated with her. He spent many days of laughing until his ribs hurt and dancing and traveling with the love of his life. They even wed and birthed a beautiful baby girl. But one day, his wife has mysteriously gone missing, and his daughter died in a bus crash to school. The man had fallen quickly back into his pit of misery.
The man lazily let out a sigh, throwing his head back and watching smoke emerge from his lips. He rolled his neck a couple of times and looked around his room. His bedsheets were crumpled and stained from a large number of times he ordered takeout and ate straight on the bed. All around him was littered with empty bottles, takeout containers, tissues, and cigarettes. The room had a foul stench to it that nobody would ever dare to linger a moment with it, but the man had gotten used to it and barely noticed it.
He frowns as he realizes his cigarette was already finished, and he reached automatically at the pack, only to realize it was already finished. Didn’t he just buy a new pack yesterday? He got up bitterly, tugging at the hem of his white- practically gray- t-shirt, that was all sweaty. The man leaves his room, thinking perhaps there was another pack in another room. He knew there wasn’t, but he wasn’t in the mood to leave his house so soon again.
He trudged into the kitchen where the garbage can have piled up and leftover pizza still in the boxes across the counter. He yanked out a drawer, scuffling through the messy space of utensils. The man checks his cabinets- nothing. His cupboards- still nothing.
The man stops at the entrance leading down to his basement. Maybe there was a pack down there. He didn’t like to go down there a lot. It wasn’t because he had a fear of basements as some people did; it was because he had a fear of the memories the basement contained. The man had thrown down all his wife’s and daughter’s belongings down there. When they had both left his life, he had looked at their belongings every day, crying to himself. A month in, he got tired of seeing them and shoved all of them downstairs. But the man was desperate. So desperate. He craved just another cigarette. It was ingrained in his brain to get one.
So down he went. He tried turning on a light, but it didn’t work. Must’ve been because he hadn’t been down here for so long that the lightbulb died out. The man suddenly spotted a familiar pack across the room, and his eyes shine in anticipation. The stairs creak beneath his steps, and he makes his way across the dark room, shadows from all the objects looming over him.
Something shiny catches the man’s attention, and he stops mid-step. He glances to his left and sees it is a mirror. Ah, yes- he recognized this mirror. It was his wife’s mirror. She had brought it from the local thrift shop. He couldn’t help it. The man takes a step forward. He gingerly lifts a hand to touch the gold, dusty frame. The man looks at his reflection; his sullen face stared back at him. All life looked trained from his face, and he looked pale with tired brown eyes. The man scowls in confusion as his brown eyes suddenly appeared bright green.
Look at me, the man thought, almost laughing to himself. I’ve stayed by myself for so long that I’m seeing things.
He blinks a few times. The green eyes do not disappear. The eyes were so green. So green that they almost reminded him of-
The man suddenly lets out a yelp, and he stumbles backward, falling onto the ground. He looks in the mirror, his eyes wide as he finds himself not staring at his own reflection anymore, but his own wife.
No, I’m just imagining this, he thinks, but the image of his wife does not leave. It was her. The same red hair. The same eyes. Except her hair had streaks of gray and torn at random areas, leaving big bald patches. Except her eyes didn’t look focused or bright with bliss. Except her skin was pale and tight around her face and bones. Except her clothes were torn and her head looked positioned wrong and uncomfortable on her neck. Except her smile was no longer gentle and stunning, but peculiar and stretched in a painfully tight way.
"Molly?” he rasped, trembling. The man was petrified, frozen to the bone. His wife- no, she did not seem like his wife at all, she was some woman, eccentric of all sorts. The woman didn’t say anything to his words and to his horror, she stepped through the mirror, her body phasing through the glass, appearing on the other side.
His wife let out a shriek, almost like it was meant to sound happy, but to his ears, it made his heart hammer against his chest. The woman staggered toward him, the joints cracking, and her bone-thin fingers stretching for him. The man tried to move- every part of his brain and body was screaming for him to run. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, but he could barely move a muscle, let alone utter a scream. He could barely think, for the horror had contained his mind too much, paralyzing him.
The woman lunged at him, a terrible noise emerging from her throat. That was the only thing that finally made him move, but it was too late for the man. The woman’s fingers clawed at him, the nails digging into his skin. The man screamed and moved in vain against the grip of what he thought was his wife. The woman grabbed him by the neck, the coldness of her fingers pressing into his airway.
“Finally!” she screeched. The man thought he would die for sure. Maybe death would have been better than what was to come. He yelped as she shoved him back.
The surface slammed into his back, and he scrambled to his feet. He ran forward and ran harshly into something. The man grabs his nose as pain racks his body and looks up. He sees his own reflection staring back at him, the same stretched smile he saw earlier on the woman.
"Thank you," she- he- whatever- said. "Now it is your turn."
"My turn for what?" the man said through chattering teeth.
It doesn't reply but instead continues smiling, then turns around and walks back up the same stairs he had just come down a few minutes ago. The man bangs on the surface- screaming, pounding- anything. It is useless.
The man falls backward, and the thought hits him harshly but clearly.
The woman was right. It is his turn.
His turn to be stuck in the mirror. Stuck, yearning for death, only to receive the same space for years. Stuck, falling deeper and deeper into the arms of insanity.
Stuck until the end of time until he found someone to replace him.
