Smoke and Mirrors (1)

One

Smoke and Mirrors

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I panicked.

I jolted from the couch, blood rushing in my ears as I held the fork like a weapon. At first, I was too frightened to even notice the small dribble of steaming broth that was running down the side of the bowl and over my hand. Once I'd recovered, I quickly sat the hot bowl on the floor.

Stepping sideways, I kept my eyes trained on the doorway and ducked behind the sofa before sinking to the floor. I reached into my pocket and quickly fumbled for my phone, my heart pounding. My hands were weak and trembling with fear as I dialed 911 and hovered my thumb above the button.

I didn't hear any further noises. Should I call them? I'd hate to pester them if nothing was wrong. Maybe it was nothing after—

"Get up."

I shrieked and sprang to my feet, jabbing the fork for a foreign pair of the most silver eyes I'd ever seen in my life. And that was a lot coming from someone who also had silvery eyes. Well, silver-grey.

One swift motion captured my wrist and knocked the fork from my hand. He used his other hand to grab my phone and throw it to the floor. He stepped on it, crushing it to pieces. Pieces! I had some really important photos on there, not to mention my notebook app!

I dropped my legs in an effort to get free, but he easily held my weight.

"Let go! Let go or I'll scream!"

He wordlessly released me before stepping back, his eyes narrowed as he took in my appearance in all my pajama-ed glory. I was too scared to be embarrassed.

The guy had to have been albino or something because he had the weirdest hair in the world. It was like snow, but dipped in silver, and his skin?! I could almost promise that it shimmered with silver. Not in a sparkly way or anything like that, just in a. . . faint metallic way. Sort of. But not exactly. Like he had a light sheen of frost. Or glass.

He glanced over the apartment and started walking around like he owned the place. His hands were tucked into the pockets of a silver jacket that was embroidered with some kind of white, shining thread that made an arrangement of elegant swirls across his shoulders and chest.

He looked like a freak. Okay, granted, he was a very handsome, well-dressed freak, but who in the world wore dumb, extravagant outfits like that to go break into someone's apartment?!

"Wh-what do you want?" I stammered, internally cursing my voice for its weakness.

He curled his hand over an hourglass that my mom had given me just a few months before she passed away. It had been a Christmas present. He examined it closely, tilting it from side to side before gently setting it back on the table. He remained noticeably silent as he picked up my special edition DVD of Casablanca.

"Hey, careful with that! That movie's in perfect condition and I don't want a single—" I stopped at his hard gaze. His eyes were like looking into two mirrors, and they startled me. "Okay, that's fine too."

When he replaced Casablanca, I glanced at my phone on the floor, smashed into pieces, and said, "Why are you here? I'm literally broke! I just quit my job, which was at Sonic, by the way, and trust me, I, like, never buy anything nice. The nicest thing I own is my TV over there, and it's from, like, the early 90's. And Casablanca. Most of my money goes into rent. Besides, you look like you're doing pretty well for yourself! Just look at that fancy getup you got on! You literally could go to a king's court and fit right in. Seriously! There is no need to rob me. I have nothing! I'm—"

"I'm not here to rob you, Miss Yincovich." His voice was very smooth and very deep. Dude, he could be a narrator with a voice like that! It almost sounded like it was echoing inside his chest. I couldn't help raising my eyebrows.

"Then why are you here?" I demanded. My eyes grew wide. "You're not going to hurt me, are you? Or kidnap me?! Or both?! I have friends! People! Who will, uh, miss me!" Nope. If I died right then, I might have had a few ex-coworkers who would have realised something was wrong, but because I quit my job, I had no-one except maybe my landlady—which I was actually in debt to, so there's that.

He squinted at me. "I'm still trying to figure out if I'll bother with the second one."

Kidnapping. "If you touch me, I'll—"

"Yes, yes. Scream. I'm aware." He shook his head. "Your screams are meaningless. They would do nothing, Miss Yincovich."

I was too panicked to ask why he knew my name. Probably a website called stalkscaredpeople.com or something like that.

"I can scream pretty loudly though. And these apartment walls are thin."

The mirror clock on the wall behind him rippled. Rippled. Then it started to slither outwards like silver taffy that was being pulled by some invisible force. More branches began to stretch outwards from the other random mirrors around the room. I never realised how many mirrors I had until I saw them all twisting and rippling at once.

He spoke every word deliberately and harshly. "Nothing you do can save you now." His voice was low and commanding. "Unless I choose differently."

My face paled. My heart beat faster. My skin pricked with goosebumps as every hair on my body stood at attention. I opened my mouth to scream, but a silver tentacle from the mirrors wrapped around my head like slick gel and silenced me.

I clawed at the gel-like mirror around my face, but my nails barely bit into it. More tentacles wrapped around me. I stared at the man with wide, pleading eyes.

His own didn't soften.

Suddenly, a thick cloud of black and glitter began to swirl in the center of my room. When it evaporated, a woman stood there. Her black hair flowed down to her waist like fluid ebony, and her skin was pale and porcelain. She looked Asian with her dark, monolid eyes and her heart-shaped face, but she also had an otherworldly quality that had nothing to do with the long, black-and-white silk hanfu that swirled around her like a rippling lake when she moved. It was mostly white, but covered with a thousand music notes.

"Stop!" she yelled. "You can't do this! You're supposed to—"`

"Silence!" his deep, commanding tone shouted. "You know nothing! You think all is well, that I just get to go live happily ever after? I cannot."

"You can!" she protested with a soft-sounding accent, raising her slender hands. "Rewrite your own destiny! Change what's been written!"

"It's not that simple!" he shouted, and the mirrors tightened around me. I let out a muffled cry and struggled to get free before he cut off my air. I was powerless here. Never before had I felt so helpless—so defeated.

She turned to me with wide, dark eyes and raised her hand. She still spoke to him as she said, "I won't let you do this. We need her!" She flicked her wrist and suddenly—

I was gone.