Standing before me, floor to ceiling, colossal and beautiful, was the grandest mirror. Behind its glassy surface was a violet fog that seemed to glow and ripple like the muscles of a great beast. I don’t remember exactly how, or why, but I felt compelled to move closer, maybe I had a reflection. And reflect, the mirror did. But the mirror did not reflect an image of me, no, it reflected my silhouette. It moved on its own. I was horrified, but I was still curious. I didn’t come all this way into the depths of the earth for nothing. So, I moved closer. I reached out my hand to feel the glass, and felt my hand pass straight through. This was no mirror, it was a portal.
I clenched my jaw like a fool, and shoved my head in, hoping to be met with a completely different world. Instead, the violet fog burned my eyes and grabbed at my shoulders. I felt that cursed mist becoming grasping hands, their claws digging into my arms and dragging me deeper within itself. I stayed screaming and moaning in pain for what felt like hours as the hands dragged me deeper into the unknown depths of this accursed mirror.
After hours of torment and mindless dragging, I realized I was no longer in the mist. The arms released their grasp on me and withdrew into what I could only assume was an identical mirror. After all, I could no longer open my eyes for fear that the pain I was preventing by keeping them shut would return. When finally the pain of that searing fog left my body, I felt safe enough to move. I tenderly opened my eyes, and felt tears trickle out like rain out of a pair of boots. I saw a blurry sky, in orange hue, with stars during the day and comets flying past every which way. I felt the grass beneath my feet brushing against my leg and looked down, hoping to see that familiar green hue, but saw nothing but a red expanse. My muscles went tense. My situation became clear now. If I wanted to return home, I would have to go through the mist again, and I felt that the hands would not be so kind as to drag me this time.
Looking away from the second mirror, I saw the most awful and stressful thing. Not only was this landscape unfamiliar, it was inconsistent. I was on a high point with a great view. Instead of mountains in the distance, there was a forest the size of a giant, and instead of lakes or rivers there were great swaths of blood. Every sort of thing I could imagine was within view now, A ruined city to the west, a floating mountain range to the east, seventeen suns and hundreds of types of forests. As I scanned the horrid world before me, I spotted a creature sauntering across the red grass towards me.
My vision was coming into focus now, and I found the creature quite odd. It crawled on all fours, and its skin was that of a root vegetable. It was shaped like a clove of garlic, and had a large, fleshy tendril at the tip of what I now recognized as its shell. Back home, we had a creature similar to this that we used in our farms. A garlic-shaped crab, with four legs and insect jaw. It could eat sunlight, but this one lacked the green underbelly. This one had no majestic spearhead at the tip of its shell. This one was fleshy and soft. This one was talking to me!
I clenched my jaw like a fool, and shoved my head in, hoping to be met with a completely different world. Instead, the violet fog burned my eyes and grabbed at my shoulders. I felt that cursed mist becoming grasping hands, their claws digging into my arms and dragging me deeper within itself. I stayed screaming and moaning in pain for what felt like hours as the hands dragged me deeper into the unknown depths of this accursed mirror.
After hours of torment and mindless dragging, I realized I was no longer in the mist. The arms released their grasp on me and withdrew into what I could only assume was an identical mirror. After all, I could no longer open my eyes for fear that the pain I was preventing by keeping them shut would return. When finally the pain of that searing fog left my body, I felt safe enough to move. I tenderly opened my eyes, and felt tears trickle out like rain out of a pair of boots. I saw a blurry sky, in orange hue, with stars during the day and comets flying past every which way. I felt the grass beneath my feet brushing against my leg and looked down, hoping to see that familiar green hue, but saw nothing but a red expanse. My muscles went tense. My situation became clear now. If I wanted to return home, I would have to go through the mist again, and I felt that the hands would not be so kind as to drag me this time.
Looking away from the second mirror, I saw the most awful and stressful thing. Not only was this landscape unfamiliar, it was inconsistent. I was on a high point with a great view. Instead of mountains in the distance, there was a forest the size of a giant, and instead of lakes or rivers there were great swaths of blood. Every sort of thing I could imagine was within view now, A ruined city to the west, a floating mountain range to the east, seventeen suns and hundreds of types of forests. As I scanned the horrid world before me, I spotted a creature sauntering across the red grass towards me.
My vision was coming into focus now, and I found the creature quite odd. It crawled on all fours, and its skin was that of a root vegetable. It was shaped like a clove of garlic, and had a large, fleshy tendril at the tip of what I now recognized as its shell. Back home, we had a creature similar to this that we used in our farms. A garlic-shaped crab, with four legs and insect jaw. It could eat sunlight, but this one lacked the green underbelly. This one had no majestic spearhead at the tip of its shell. This one was fleshy and soft. This one was talking to me!
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