OOC - ES DREAM - Reflection
The world is a giant mirror.
It is made of clear and polished glass, going in a circle, immersed in what looks like a globe-sized aquarium; there are fish swimming past the clear reflections, big ones, purples and blues and oranges, reds and yellows and pinks - an entire rainbow of it. They swim in circles, lazy, some playful, some bumping against the glass, some just content in just watching what goes on beyond the glass. Wooden floorboards beneath his feet also reflects, and there, in the middle of this circular room immersed in water, is a circular pillar, stretching up towards the ceiling. Polished wood again.
Everything gleams, everything depicts a silhouette or a vague shape of the objects and people in the room.
Everything is a reflection of one another.
He is not alone.
There is a little girl sitting on the cushioned bench in the center of the room, elbows on her knees, chin propped up on both palms. She is smiling up at him with a raised eyebrow, amused, perhaps a little sad, or perhaps happy -- what's with that face? Short blue hair, vague dimples on both cheeks, a round face that indicates that she is barely past her girlhood. She does not look so tall from how she sits, probably reaches just past his waist. Nine? Ten years old? Eleven at most? Her limbs are yet to elongate and stop their growth.
He doesn't know, doesn't understand what to make of this little girl with an expression that makes his eyebrows narrow and his jaw clench. There is judgement in the depths of those wide eyes, framed by long lashes and curtained with short bangs. He does not like what he is seeing, he realizes; his reflection in those wide eyes.
"I know you're lost. You're always getting lost and always end up here." She says, head tilting, hair bobbing with the gesture.
The fish outside bumps against the glass. Dark irises flicks to the side, at that large red and elongated fish who does not stop knocking on the glass. And with it a rose and yellow one - annoying idiots; an irksome pattern, like music one cannot ignore unless they demand for its silence.
The hell is she talking about?
"Do you want to stay lost?"
A frown, and a hard press of lips that forms a flat line. He doesn't answer. Instead, he watches her stretch and lean back against the wooden pillar, little hands pressing down on soft red cushions. He tries to think of who she is, if he's seen her before. Tries to think of reasons as to why this little twerp would know that he is lost.
"It's not like you, you know?"
The answer is a bite, coming out in a rumble that carries the stormy weight of discomfort and something that feels too much like insecurity, and a little too much like fear.
(You always did hate not knowing things, right?)
"What the hell would you know about me, kid?"
She smiles, toothy and wide, simultaneously as all the fish in the aquarium gather around one spot behind him and simultaneously bangs on the glass. The room shakes, reflections disturbed, like ripples in the water. That smile on the girl's face turns grotesque, a parody of a perfectly constructed porcelain doll, where the curve of its mouth had been extended by sharp razors. It pulls her small face upwards, twisting it a bit, making lines appear that reminds him of aged women. Decay. Skin wrinkling, losing its moisture and water, eyes turning dull and diseased with cataract and rot that can only be found within the deepest confines of the earth.
And yet, his reflection is as clear as day in those now milky eyes.
"Everything." She says, cheerfully, cocky, the smile turning to a smirk of yellowing teeth.
The fish bumps against the protective confines of what he thinks is a water-cage now, and this time the ground shakes underneath his feet, aftershocks going all the way up to his knees. This time, he looks over his shoulder and catches the alarmed look on his face on the glass. His face is everywhere, on each panel, turning left and right, blinking, vision focusing on the reflection of the little girl who is still looking at him, head swinging from side to side as if listening to a melody that only she can hear.
Skin starts to crumble to ash, showing the gleam of yellowed bone.
Everything is a reflection of one another.
And his stomach freezes at that sight, watching ash trickle down the corners of her eyes, like sandy tears.
"I've always watched you. Just like them."
The impact of all those fish is harder now, and he feels his entire body shake with the impact, balance thrown off just as the first crack appears on the glass.
Panic. Helplessness.
(You're in trouble now.)
It rises to his throat like hot bile. Because what does one do when they are stuck in a glass room that is about to break? What does one do when they are immersed in water?
"Do you want to stay lost?"
What does one do?
"You don't want to find your way back?"
Where the hell does he go?
His head whips around back to the girl, and she is no longer young and pretty. She has no eyes but hollowed sockets. She is standing on the wooden floors, decaying skin crumbling down like crispy flakes, dirtying the floor, disturbing her own reflection within those gleaming wooden panels. She is holding a hand out to him, holding a weapon. He wonders how he missed that, where did it come from, that long white sword that is too big for her small hands.
Bony hands, now. And there are centipedes and worms and beetles crawling out of the pores of her skin, out of flesh that is gray and dry and no longer red.
"You don't want to fight for what's yours?"
The room shakes once more and the impact is harder - those damn fish! What the fuck do they want?! - and this time, the crack spreads like white lightning on glass. His attention is focused on the water seeping in to the room, filling up the small safe confines of the cage with the entire ocean. There is no door, no opening to leave his prison. The ocean is rising fast and he catches a glimpse of the fish swimming further and further away, a rapid pace till they're gone.
The urge to survive and live kicks in, adrenalin coursing through his veins as things align in his mind. Where to go, what to do, how to get things done. If he takes that offered blade, if he breaks that glass, he can swim to the surface. Because there is always a surface, the world is balanced that way. And if it's not there, then he'll die trying to get free.
"Do you want to remain lost and forget everything?"
His brief panic is sliced in half like a hot knife through butter, attention and darting gaze focusing on the girl once more.The sword is being offered with two hands now, the weight of the blade trembling within bony fingers. She cannot withstand its weight, because it's not hers to carry. Dead hands like that aren't meant to hold a weapon. They aren't meant to hold anything because they are incapable of doing so.
He ignores her. Because he catches a glimpse of those fish coming back through one of the cracked glass panels. They get bigger and bigger, approaching fast, coming for the glass confines with force and pressure. His heart leaps for his throat, because he knows that he's knee deep in shit.
"Where's the way out, kid?"
"You don't belong here."
"No shit! Where's the damn door?!"
Left and right, there is no way out. Who the hell builds a room like this with no wait out? Or way in? It doesn't cross his mind how he got in to the room in the first place because he's too busy thinking of a way out; the girl is grinning now, her face nothing but smooth white bone.
"You're trapped here."
There is laughter in the words that does not come out of a functioning pair of lungs and stomach, laughter that is genuine and amused and perhaps mocking. As if this tiny rotting thing is looking down at him.
Her words fade from his hearing because his eyes is focused on the fish and approaching pressure that makes lightning spread even more before his feet moves. He grabs that blade, yanking it off offered hands that does not resist when he takes what he thinks will help him.
"Damn it! I'll make my own door!" He says, words leaving his words in a rush as he runs forward, away from the fish approaching his back.
He looks behind him to see how far they are, raising the sword like a spear to break the glass in front of him and for a moment the world slows down and he sees the girl smiling at him, a perfect doll now, waving smooth pale hands, long lashes brushing against cheeks that are rosy with girlhood and dimples that are hollowed.
A heart beat.
He catches the movement of her lips, the words spilling out that is drowned with the resounding crack and crash of glass coming apart and shattering.
Breath freezes in his windpipe.
And the entire room drowns with the impact that shakes it from the frontal attack of the all those large water beasts. He closes his eyes and raises his arm as the water crashes down on him like a heavy pile of iron blocks, filling his lungs and nose and elevating him off the ground, slamming him against cracking glass that digs in to his back, stains the water with crimson.
He thinks he'll die here, in this ocean that reflects everything, stain blue with his own blood.
But he sees that little girl disappear in to the depths of the disintegrating prison, spiraling downwards, a burial deep in to the depths of the earth. And while she sinks down, all those goddamn fish rises, surrounds him, swims upwards, upwards, upwards.
An exhale, water bubbles rising to the surface and he holds the blade in his mouth, swimming after them, grabbing the end of the tail of that giant red fish with both hands. He'll go where this stupid fish takes him, just so long as it's not in that confining prison that will only lead to his death.
And from there, wherever it is he ends up at, he'll find his way back.
Eyes scrunch, lungs tighten and stomach twists as he feels his breath run out and the urge to inhale gets stronger and stronger and stronger --
Hurry up!