I slowly walk toward the mirror searching for any sign of the strange image that I had just seen, but only my reflection stared back at me. I stalk closer toward the mirror, my green eyes wide and alert as I continue to scan the surface.
“God, I must have finally lost my mind”, I mutter to myself when I stop inches away from the mirror.
It must have been some trick of the light or maybe I dozed off a bit, it has been almost three days since I’ve had any sleep. I know there must be some logical explanation for what I saw, I know that I don’t have a forest growing in the middle of my bedroom but for some reason I can’t seem to look away from the mirror. A part of me feels drawn to that image, almost like I had seen it before somewhere. I stand rooted on the spot holding my breath for what feels like ages, the anticipation hangs heavy in the air. I am not sure what I am waiting for but somehow, I know that something is coming. I lift my fingers and begin to graze the surface of the mirror as if in a daze. Suddenly my vision begins to cloud, my room seems to shrink around me and the noise from my TV show fades away. I feel inexplicitly light, almost like I’m floating, I try to look around me but darkness envelopes everything and I slip into a peaceful sleep.
*****
I shot up and gasped for air. My head throbs painfully as I slowly sit up in my bed, my hand mindlessly reached to snatch up my cellphone but all it grabbed was air. I freeze in place not only was my bedside table missing but my whole bedroom seems to have been misplaced. Instead, I am sitting on a plush canopy bed with purple silk sheets wrapped around my body, there was a giant armoire in the corner that was brimming with elegant dresses that would have seemed extremely out of place next to the various band t-shirts that hang in my closet. As my eyes swerved around the room as a pang of dread aches in my stomach, where was I? The last thing I remembered was me sulking in bed after another counterproductive day, fear grips my chest as I try to think back on the events of last night but shooting pain from my head makes it impossible to concentrate.
Hello”, a chipper voice rings from beside me
I swerve my head quickly to see who was there, the fast movement sending a new wave of pain rippling through me. I groan and push my hands against my eyes as if to stop the pain, once the soreness subsides I gazed up at the mysterious person sitting in the corner watching me. He was a tall and lanky man looking only a couple years older than me. His long chestnut hair covered the majority of his face but I could see a slight smile playing at his lips, he wore a long black cloak which looked comically big on him. His piercing blue eyes watched me intently never blinking.
“So how are you feeling?” he questioned kindly
A million thoughts buzzed through my head and I realized that all of the crime shows I watched didn’t prepare me for what to do when waking up in a strange man’s house. So I did the only logical thing I could do and sprang from the bed running from the room. The long satin night dress I just realized I was wearing clung to my body making it difficult to move, “where the hell were my pajamas!” I mentally cursed that creep for undressing me. I reached down to rip the bottom layer off the dress like I had seen many a badass girls do in movies but instead I tugged the fabric from under my feet and tripped landing face first.
“Are you okay?” I heard the stranger shout from down the hall, “You know I am not going to hurt you…maybe you could just calm down so we could talk a bit maybe introduce ourselves, I’m Finnian and you are?”
I scrambled to my feet ignoring him and continued my less than daring escape down the hall, I ran passing a number of doors I could hide in but was too scared that if I stopped to enter one he would catch up with me. As I wobbled around a corner I saw a large wooden door with ornate decorations and carvings and I sprinted toward it.
“You know it is kind of dangerous out there I would prefer if you stayed inside” he shouted as I slowly pulled the door open revealing a vibrant green forest. Towering trees surrounded me and there wasn’t a soul in sight, my heart jumped to my throat as I realized that no one was here to help me. I darted from the house and glanced backward to see my capture closing in on me.
“I’m not going to let you kill me and dump my body in the middle of nowhere!” I screeched backward at him, hoping my false confidence would throw him off.
“Why would I bring you to the middle of nowhere put you in a bed and wait for you to wake up before I killed you, I know we do not know each other but I hoped you assumed I was smarter than that” He called out in a mockingly offended tone.
I turned my head to watch him chase me as I hurried forward, unlike me his enormously long trench coat was not hindering him at all and he was easily catching up to me. He freezes for a second a look of complete horror painted across his face.
“Watch out!”
It was too late though the second I turned around to see what he was looking at I stumbled to a rushing brook. I pushed against the water struggling to get out but it was as if the water had come alive and began to pull me down deeper into the darkness.
My chest burned agonizingly, screaming for oxygen. I tried to move my arms but the water pressed against them, locking them to my sides, I opened my mouth to shout for help but the cool water slid down my throat filling my lungs. I looked up at the dark shadow standing above the water and tried to reach up to them but my arms stayed firmly pressed against my body, and just as a haze of darkness began to cloud my eyes I felt a strong tug against my body that sent me whizzing out of the water. I landed hard on my back sending a crippling pain shooting through my body, I wasn’t sure if it was from almost being swallowed by a psychotic river or the questionably graceful rescue from my mysterious hero.
“Are you okay? I am so sorry about the rough landing I was just trying to get you out quickly before…it was too late, I wouldn’t try to hurt you I swear!” the warm and calming voice of my capture/hero burst out quickly.
The strange man, Finnian began to pull out even stranger bottles from within the pockets of his pants that seemed way too big to fit in there, once he was done pouring a clumping brown mixture with a shiny blue liquid that he later poured into a bowl that looked strangely like a misshapen skull he began to fret over me. He pushed the wet hair that stuck to me off my face and began to dry my body, I squirmed slightly trying to put some distance between myself and the stranger.
“Right I am so very sorry but please stop fidgeting you will only cause yourself more pain.” He sighed impatiently, “I have never really been one to say I told you so, but I did ask you very kindly to stay inside but let’s just put that behind us. I know you can’t speak right now but I made you a drink to help with that!” He held up the skull shaped bowl and smiled happily.
I tried to shout out for help because I was obviously in the company of a crazy man but he was right my throat was raw and throbbing and I couldn’t speak. He moved closer and handed me the bowl and since I had no other clear options I took a sip of the bubbling black liquid that looked suspiciously like tar. For a moment it felt soothing and then the moment passed and a intense painful burning sensation spread through my whole body, I opened my mouth to scream but all that came out was a large billow of steam. Finnian burst out laughing making his light blue eyes shine with a childlike delight, his smile lines and crow’s feet became more prominent making him look much older than I first thought he was.
“That’s my favorite part!” He explained beaming from ear to ear.
*****
Finnian explained as he was carrying me back to his house that he did not bring me to the forest he only saw me lying unconscious in the dirt and thought it only right to bring me back to his house to take care of me. At first I only listened because although his weird concoction helped my throat a little it was still too raw for me to speak. I couldn’t help but believe that he was telling the truth, as he continued to ramble on he seemed less like a scary kidnapper and more like an excitable puppy. When we arrived at his house I realized that in my haste to escape I didn’t get a good look at it.
His house looked like something straight out of a fairy tale, it was an adorable little cottage. The front of the house was covered in vines with dozens of beautiful white flowers blooming from them. He had a small garden on the left side of the house with all kinds of strange vegetables that I had never seen before growing out of the ground. Next my eyes fell on the giant door in the front of the house, it was gorgeous. The door was round like from a Hobbit’s home and was made from a strange red wood that seemed to sparkle when the sun hit it, it was carved with a bunch of intricate and beautiful symbols that I didn’t recognize. Unfortunately, the one thing that the door was missing was a doorknob, I shifted my questioning gaze to Finnian, wondering how we were going to get inside. He looked undisturbed by the inability to enter his home and hummed quietly as he gently set me down on the ground.
“I just need to find my key, I seem to always be misplacing it though” He informed me as sensing my brewing question.
He begins to pull out all the weird things that he carried around in his pocket. I sat quietly as I watched him pull out the skull bowl that I drank out of, the bottles he used to make the mixture, a small red rock that buzzed persistently like it was reminding him of something, some strange looking nuts that seemed to change shape every time you looked that them, and a small pink caterpillar, who he winked at and asked politely to stay there. After what felt like twenty minutes the floor was littered with weird objects that whizzed and hummed and glowed he finally pulled out a small white object that resembled a piece of chalk.
“Eureka!” Finnian exclaimed excitedly.
“Chalk, that’s the key?” I wheezed gruffly, wincing with pain at the effort of talking.
Finnian’s face spreads into a magnificent smile, “Well it is special chalk of course, and now since you have the ability to speak perhaps would do me the honor of telling me your name”
“Octavia, but everyone calls me O” I answered roughly, but Finnian was already putting all his junk into his many pockets and didn’t seem to be listening.
He walked up to the large red door and began to draw a bunch of lines connecting the different carvings to one another, each time he finished drawing one line the mark from the chalk would disappear, making it impossible for me to keep track of the pattern. The second he finished, the door seemed to melt away leaving a giant hole in the wall where it stood. Finnian scooped me up and carried me through the hole into the house.
As soon as we passed the threshold the door instantly reappeared behind us. As Finnian walked me deeper into his home I realized that it didn’t look at all similar to what I remember from when I was running. I didn’t quite know what the first room we entered was exactly because it was filled with a bunch of weird and unnamable objects, I figured it was the living room and it was bigger than my whole apartment. The walls were draped with long velvety carpets that stretched from the floor all the way to the never-ending ceiling, a large and an ornate chandelier hovered a few feet above my head shining a beautiful silver light around the room. Shelves filled with strange colorful bottles and dusty books popped up out of nowhere only to disappear seconds later. Even though Finnian’s house was just one of the extremely weird things I saw today it finally hit me how strange it all was. I know that I should have been freaking out about everything that was going on but for some reason I didn’t seem as startled as I expected I should be when seeing such strange and unexplainable things.
Finnian placed me down on a chair that wasn’t there a minute ago and sat opposite me.
“So I am sure you have many questions”.
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