My life started off pretty cliché. You know how it goes - kid gets orphaned as a baby when his parents die in a car crash; he’s shuffled from one abusive foster home to another; he inevitably runs away; steals food to survive; becomes a problem for the police, etc. That part is boring though, so let me begin my story on the day everything changed. The day I discovered a new world. 

It happened one cloudy morning in March. I was fourteen years old and homeless on the streets of Portland, Oregon. I had spent the night sleeping under a bridge, and then stole some breakfast from a market stall. Of course, somebody whined and now the badges were in hot pursuit. I ran into a park to hide in some bushes. 

“Come on, kid,” one of the officers called out in an annoyed tone as he searched for me. “Make this easy on all of us. You know theft is wrong. Come on out.”

Screw you! I said to the cop in my head. A guy’s gotta eat! 

I peeked through the branches and when I saw my opportunity, I ran out of the park and into Downtown Portland. I looked around frantically for a better place to hide and spotted an old antique store. 

They won’t think to look for a kid in there! I thought to myself as I scrambled through the door. I skidded to a halt as the shopkeeper snapped his head up to glare at me. 

“Can I help you?” the old man asked, clearly bothered by my rapid entrance. I imagine he didn’t like some homeless teenager wearing dirty jeans and a hoodie rushing into his store. 

“I’m homeless and I stole food to eat and now the cops are after me!” I blurted out honestly. “Can I hide in here?”

The old man sighed and his expression softened. 

“You can hide in the back storage room,” he pointed to a door behind the desk. “But do NOT touch anything in there, ya hear?”

“I hear ya loud and clear!” I said quickly as I rushed past him. “I won’t touch anything. Thank you, sir!”

Right after I slipped into the storage room, I heard the police enter the shop. I began looking around frantically for a good place to hide as I overheard them questioning the shopkeeper.

What if he changes his mind and turns me in? I kept thinking to myself. I gotta get out of sight in case they come in here!

The room was overflowing with old trinkets and knick-knacks. A lot of the stuff was covered in cobwebs and dust. Geez, how long has all this junk been here? I said internally as I kept searching for a place to hide. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as the voices of the cops drew closer to the door. 

There! I spotted an ornate wardrobe concealed behind a stack of rolled up rugs in the corner. I climbed through all the junk to the wardrobe and was able to open the door just enough to slip inside. Ha! No way they’ll find me in here!

The inside was pitch black at first, but then something behind me started to illuminate. I snapped my head around to see a huge mirror attached to the back wall of the wardrobe. The frame of the mirror was some kind of crystalline material and it was glowing bright white. 

It must be a motion-activated light, I thought to myself. I then took a closer look at my reflection. I brushed my dirty black hair out of my face and stared closely at my brown eyes. Except… They were changing colors? Becoming lighter? What the hell?

I yelped out as I felt a sharp burning sensation in my eyes. I rubbed them frantically, then looked back in the mirror. I watched in shock as my irises became a greenish-yellow color. My attention was then drawn to my ears as I saw them grow to a point like an elf. But that wasn’t even the biggest change. 

“Ow! Ow!” I tried to stifle my yelps as I was still worried about the cops hearing me, but it was difficult - it felt like every inch of my skin was crawling with bugs that were biting me. My reflection revealed why - my skin was changing from its normal fair complexion to light green. My hair remained unchanged though. 

What the hell! I look like a goblin now or something! I was beginning to panic. And if that wasn’t enough, I began to hear voices… from the mirror?

“Oh wow, that’s a nice wardrobe!” I heard a man say. 

“Isn’t it, though?” replied a woman. Their voices echoed and sounded far away. “I got it at the auction. That crystal frame wasn’t glowing before, though…”

I leaned closer to the mirror to see if it was actually some kind of two-way glass like they use in police stations. Imagine my surprise when I suddenly fell through the mirror as the surface rippled like liquid. It felt like I was covered in a cold mist for a split second, and then I stumbled back out of the mirror into the inside of the wardrobe. I noticed the doors were open and thought for sure the police had found me. 

But when I looked up, I saw the wardrobe was in a completely different antique store. And then I saw them - the people I had heard speaking. The man was a humanoid ostrich wearing a butler’s suit. The woman was a humanoid elephant wearing an elegant dress. And of course, I reacted the only reasonable way someone in my situation would - I screamed like a little bitch.