Chapter 1
People always say that everything happens for a reason or so everyone has been told to believe, that life is what you make it to be and whatever you do affects it. And there are such things like coincidence that happens when you least expect it, just because it can. To be sure I don’t know which side to believe because what I know can equally be the truth, that coincidence makes us the way we are and the way we think. It all started when I was eight, when I had a brother, a twin brother in fact, and even though we were not considered old enough to be making lifelong decisions, it made all the difference in the world. You’ll never know it until coincidentally they’re gone.
-Shelby
“Move over Smelly” Timothy said as he shoved his way over to the sink in the bathroom and reached for his toothbrush, but she had gotten to it quicker and grabbed it before he could. “Hey, give that back!” Timothy yelled as he tried to get the toothbrush from her.
“Not until you apologize, Freckled Face!” she taunted as she finished brushing her teeth and stood on the sink’s counter to get as far away from him as possible. Timothy struggled to get it back by pulling at her legs but she alternated them and started to air kick his face.
“Mooom! Shelby called me a Freckle Face and now she’s kicking me!” Timothy screamed as Shelby stuck her tongue at him while waving the toothbrush in her hand.
“No I didn’t he’s lying, like he always does, he just mad because he’s younger than me and can’t go to the sleepover because I will be near Lillian and he won’t because he’s a boy.”
“Shut up, I’m not younger than you, I’m your twin and I don’t want to go to your friend’s stupid sleepover!”
At that last outburst Mom finally came to the bathroom door to find Shelby on the sink counter, with an annoyed expression on her face she placed her hand on her hip. It was one of the many fights that she and Timothy had today and he just had to ruin everything, if he kept picking fights with her she would never go to her friend Lillian’s sleepover tomorrow. With her free hand Mom pointed her finger to her as Timothy ran over to Mom’s side. Coward she thought as she looked at her mom.
“Shelby! Get off of that counter and give your brother his toothbrush right this minute,” Mom said in a serious tone, taking that as a warning Shelby immediately got down from the counter, “Tim get your toothbrush from your sister and brush your teeth, Shelby go to bed.”
She dragged her feet to the bedroom and tucked herself underneath the flower printed bedspread her mom had gotten for her when they remodeled half her side of the room. “But Mom, Tim, he’s the one that started this and he called me Smelly again...”
“Well...you called him Freckled Face so now you’re even, get into bed before I change my mind about Lillian’s sleepover.” Mom threatened as Timothy squeezed past her and looked at Shelby with a taunting grin as he tucked himself away in bed. In turn she sneered at him and then hid her face in the pillow as her mother frowned in disapproval.
“Well, Tim, Shelby, goodnight try not to kill each other in your sleep.” She said jokingly.
“Okay...Good night Mom!” Both Shelby and Tim called from underneath the covers, both of them already tired and ready to go asleep. Mom smiled as she turned off the light and closed the door.
In the middle of the night both Shelby and Timothy were startled awake by the sound of the blizzard wind coming from outside their bedroom window. It had become cold, like winter had snowed right through their bedroom.Even their thick flannel pajamas weren’t warm enough to withstand the cold. Shelby’s eyes adjusted to the darkness but she could see that something was outside the window on Timothy’s side of the room. It seemed to have been there for quite some time. As soon as Timothy followed her gaze and realized that there was a shadow outside his window he immediately jumped up from underneath his covers and ran over to her.
“What was that?!” he asked as he got underneath the covers with her, the thing seemed to disappear in a flash as if it never was there. Before she could answer, a warm bluish green glow coming from their dresser’s mirror lit up the room. It rippled like the glass had become liquid water and started to form and stretch across the room as it moved in front of them. As they both stared at the form in horror as it started to turn into an inky black blob and started to come towards them. Timothy clutched his arms around her and she did the same to him.
“This is not real, this is just a dream Tim, just close your eyes and go back to sleep, Okay?” she yelled over the howling snow blizzard, somehow it had found its way inside of the bedroom from outside. She barely heard Tim’s muffled voice before she shut her eyes as the snow blizzard engulfed them. It seemed like hours had gone by until finally the snow blizzard around them had slowed down and she could finally hear herself and her brother crying.
“Are you the humans that summoned me?”
The slithering voice made them open their eyes and find a man with the head and tail of a dragon and the reddish black mane of a lion standing before them. His long black talons glistened against the mirror’s rippling warm bluish green glow of the glass and his scaly skin was covered in an armored robe made of linen, iron, wood, and stone. The dragon-man stood there looking at them through the silts of his dragons’ yellow-orange eyes.
“I demand to know if you are the humans that summoned me from the Land of Nnox?!” The creature questioned again but this time the temperature changed instantly from cold to stifling hot as he showed the inside of his razor sharp incisors. Timothy, the most chicken person and the bravest person she ever known stood up and walked up towards the dragon-man. He was the least intimidated by this creature even when the creature looked down at him, Tim made a stance in front of him with his chest puffed out and fisted hands on his hips like a superhero.
“I’m sorry creature but we have never heard or summoned you from your land.”
The creature cocked his head in uncertainty as he replied in his slithered voice, “Are you certain human, I am sure I have heard the call for the land of Nnox in one of your hearts. But I do not hear the call in your heart young one, perhaps...” The dragon-man moved closer to her, his dragon eye examining her, “Yes, he said with his slithering voice, “You are the human heart that summoned me, Shelby shall I grant you the wish what you always desired after we enter the land of Nnox to dine?”
Without a word she stood up and Timothy seemed happy as well, she wanted to go, the thought of having the best time at Lillian’s sleepover and bragging about it later on to Tim she seemed to consume her mind in its entirety. It was as if she were giddy with joy and thoughts of the soon to be sleepover spilled over like a washing mood. She and Timothy placed their hands on the dragon-human, they gasped as they touched him and he was scorching hot but at the same time was cool as water to touch. Together they walked hand in hand towards the mirror until the dragon-human stopped and the bluish-green liquid reached out to them and consumed them. The liquid was cold as ice as if they were frozen in time as they passed through, slowly Shelby and Timothy grew weary as they continued to pass through the mirror until they could hardly keep their eyes open.
Shelby woke up to find that she was sitting at a table in the middle of a gray room with a bountiful feast with different varieties of meats, cheeses, fruits, and flavored water. Unlike the table she looked up to see the rest of the room, its dull lifelessness made her shiver as the she noticed that all around her were mirrors of all different shapes and sizes on the walls of the Land of Nnox. They were strewn in all different directions, upside down, sideways, anyway that could be thought of and they had different colors and led to different places and dimensions. She looked back down to find that the feast was replaced with human bones and that Timothy was beside her and awake as well. She immediately felt her face, the lightness and warmness she had became icy and cold. Her mind hummed with emptiness as the consuming desire she had felt before was gone, as if she had been under a spell this entire time. She could feel the creature walk up behind her and she flinched as she felt Timothy grasp her hand. “Smelly” she heard Timothy whisper to her, the sound of mischief she thought of it when she knew that they had to leave before they were eaten as well.
“WAIT!” She yelled before the creature could get to her she needed to distract him, “you were the shadow outside our window and you created the snow blizzard to confuse us and now you are trying to eat us like all of the other children you lured here to the Land of Nnox.”
Puzzled the dragon-human seemed to stand there for a brief second like he was caught off guard but instantly he recovered. From where Shelby sat at the table she could feel Timothy grab her, she jumped a little as she realized the metal plate he concealed in his pajama shirt.
“It was your heart that I wanted in the first place, so nice so warm with confusion just like the other children, my trophies.” The dragon-human said as he sprang forward but he wasn’t quick enough but his fire breath was and she was expecting that.
“Freckle Face,” she called as Timothy through up a metal pan to block the heat in front of them as they ran into the nearest mirror and crashed all of the way back home. “Timothy were back, were back,” she yelled, “We did it, we escaped Nnox.” She said tapping her brother but when he didn’t move peeled back the bed covers they landed on only to find him lying stiff and cold in a pile of broken glass. “Timothy?” she called as she turned him over and pressed her ear to his chest, but she couldn’t hear a heartbeat, Timothy was dead.
