This was the same dream I’d always had on this day of the year, but I’d never been able to pull myself out of its clutches before s*** went down.

This was the dream that marked the anniversary. In the dream, I was left home alone. I searched my house, always with the dream-type knowledge that no one was here. I’d search room after room, a labyrinth, unable to formulate in my mind why I was lookimg, who I was looking for. Thoughts slipped through cracks in my brain.

Suddenly, a high-pitched keening sounded, then just as suddenly would die off. I’d look around, but no, there was nothing. After getting lost in so many rooms, I was in the living room again. I opened the front door and-

I woke in a cold sweat. I panted, and felt like my blood was on fire. At least, until I realized where I was, safe, in my house. No longer asleep, my house was safe.

I groaned, even though it was a Saturday. I was never a morning person, and never would be.
I got up and walked to the bathroom. I looked into the morror and saw black curls matted to me head. My cheeks were streaked with red and my eyes looked hollow. Cr*p, I thought, today’s the day. The anniversary.

Of my parent’s death.

I splashed my face with cold water and went back into my room. There sat my clothes, laid out from the night before. Just red skinny jeans and a blue torn-up shirt, ‘edited’ from the store.

I got dressed and went back into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror again. My face was lessed flushed, and my hair looked at least more respectable, but my eyes still looked shallowed out.

But what-

I turned around abruptly. What was that? I looked back into the mirror.

“What the h***?” There, in the reflection. I checked it again, then turned to inspect the bathroom. “What the h***?” I repeated, because there, in the room reflected in the mirror, was another mirror. One that was most definitely not in the room behind me- one that reflected my face exactly.

I rubbed my eyes hard and looked again. It remained. It was hanging across the door, a simple mirror with a simple black framing.

I looked closer at my reflection in the non-existential mirror. It looked like my reflection, at elast, only my eyes had been changed to blue, and my hair was a platinum, almost white blonde.

“What is this-“ I went to go touch the likeness, but instead, the mirror began to swallow my arm.

I screamed and pulled my hand out. I ran to my room, dashing right through where the ‘mirror’ had been. I felt wisps like spider webs pulling at my hair and shoulders. “Bloody h***, bloody h***, bloody h***!”

In my room, I turned to look at the bathroom doorway. Clear. But then-

I screamed, again. There, in the floor, moving, coming towards me, was a small-fist sized hole. Black as midnight, it looked deadly. It raced around the room, bumping into things instead of going under them. The desk, the wall, my bed- all bam! But then, after stopping at the door that lead to the rest of the house, it inched back towards me. Then again.

And then, it was chasing me. I was running, all around my room as it followed, and it was gaining speed. I had a thought to jump onto my bed. One foot was off the ground, pushing off, and then-

I slipped. Backwards, I was falling, falling through the now man-sized hole, falling into blackness.

And then, there was nothing.