Categories > Original > Fantasy > Tradewinds 06 - "Falling"
II
And had a dream, this one having nothing to do with malls:
His friend John walks into a bathroom, one like in an old mansion or something. Beyond the door, all Shades can see is a glimpse of yellow-and-ugly-green flowered wallpaper and off-white fixtures before the door shuts. And just a sliver of what he somehow knows is a very large mirror above the sink.
After John enters the room, clouds of steam start wafting out from the cracks in the door. Shades can tell it’s steam, and not smoke, because of the condensation dripping down the edges of the door. Just hovering in a dark, golden-lit hallway, waiting. Out of idle curiosity, he takes a look out the window, seeing only snow blowing around from what appears to be an upper floor of some place in the mountains.
No matter how long Shades stands there, John never comes back out— just steam issuing from the room.
Eventually, there is a skip, and John again comes through the hall and enters the bathroom.
This time, though, Shades’ mind’s eye gets an inside view. He watches John step up to the sink and splash his face a couple times. But when he looks up, he sees that his friend’s reflection doesn’t look very healthy. The face staring back across the sink looks pale and dead, rotting like a corpse. Glazed, murky zombie eyes gazing back at John from deep within sunken sockets.
Shades doesn’t like it, especially after he notices that his own reflection is nowhere to be found.
Then another skip.
Again out in the hall, and again John enters that creepy bathroom. This time even slower, and Shades realizes that this whole routine has been slowing down each time, building up a disturbing sense of suspense, as if something is going to happen one of these times. And, sure enough, as John washes his face again, something very different happens this time.
John again looks up at his reflection, and at least this one doesn’t look like the walking dead. This one actually looks normal. Yet there was still something about this one that Shades likes even less than Cadaver John.
Then it finally hits. John’s reflection doesn’t move with him!
Instead, it reaches out for John, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. Pulling him through the mirror like it isn’t even there. His friend seems reluctant to move, but offers no real resistance. He just sits there and lets his reflection haul him over the counter to the other side, where he simply stands there, right where his reflection had, staring out through the looking glass like a puppy at the pound.
John’s reflection, meanwhile, climbs over the counter as if it is nothing more than the world’s most realistic-looking optical illusion. Even though this other looks identical to his old friend in every way, there is still something about this one that Shades trusts about as far as he could throw him.
For its part, Looking-Glass John stands in the same place the original had stood, just smiling back at him with a devious gleam in his eye.
“Shades…” the real John says quietly, eyes pleading to him from within his bizarre prison.
The last thing Shades remembers before snapping out of the dream is seeing his own reflection step in through the door on the looking-glass side, and somehow, even from behind those opaque lenses, he could feel his reflection’s eyes lock on to him…
And had a dream, this one having nothing to do with malls:
His friend John walks into a bathroom, one like in an old mansion or something. Beyond the door, all Shades can see is a glimpse of yellow-and-ugly-green flowered wallpaper and off-white fixtures before the door shuts. And just a sliver of what he somehow knows is a very large mirror above the sink.
After John enters the room, clouds of steam start wafting out from the cracks in the door. Shades can tell it’s steam, and not smoke, because of the condensation dripping down the edges of the door. Just hovering in a dark, golden-lit hallway, waiting. Out of idle curiosity, he takes a look out the window, seeing only snow blowing around from what appears to be an upper floor of some place in the mountains.
No matter how long Shades stands there, John never comes back out— just steam issuing from the room.
Eventually, there is a skip, and John again comes through the hall and enters the bathroom.
This time, though, Shades’ mind’s eye gets an inside view. He watches John step up to the sink and splash his face a couple times. But when he looks up, he sees that his friend’s reflection doesn’t look very healthy. The face staring back across the sink looks pale and dead, rotting like a corpse. Glazed, murky zombie eyes gazing back at John from deep within sunken sockets.
Shades doesn’t like it, especially after he notices that his own reflection is nowhere to be found.
Then another skip.
Again out in the hall, and again John enters that creepy bathroom. This time even slower, and Shades realizes that this whole routine has been slowing down each time, building up a disturbing sense of suspense, as if something is going to happen one of these times. And, sure enough, as John washes his face again, something very different happens this time.
John again looks up at his reflection, and at least this one doesn’t look like the walking dead. This one actually looks normal. Yet there was still something about this one that Shades likes even less than Cadaver John.
Then it finally hits. John’s reflection doesn’t move with him!
Instead, it reaches out for John, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. Pulling him through the mirror like it isn’t even there. His friend seems reluctant to move, but offers no real resistance. He just sits there and lets his reflection haul him over the counter to the other side, where he simply stands there, right where his reflection had, staring out through the looking glass like a puppy at the pound.
John’s reflection, meanwhile, climbs over the counter as if it is nothing more than the world’s most realistic-looking optical illusion. Even though this other looks identical to his old friend in every way, there is still something about this one that Shades trusts about as far as he could throw him.
For its part, Looking-Glass John stands in the same place the original had stood, just smiling back at him with a devious gleam in his eye.
“Shades…” the real John says quietly, eyes pleading to him from within his bizarre prison.
The last thing Shades remembers before snapping out of the dream is seeing his own reflection step in through the door on the looking-glass side, and somehow, even from behind those opaque lenses, he could feel his reflection’s eyes lock on to him…
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