Mirror - Chapter One

You can't see her, but you know she's there, always watching.

---------

My name is Joanna Katzenellenbogen. I'm nothing special. Just a twenty-something year old girl with a lot on her plate. Like basically my entire life. I started out at school thinking I knew what I wanted, but realized a year in that I was wrong. So I dropped it all and started studying something completely different. To be quite honest, I'm still in school. And it kind of sucks. But I'm studying to be a lab technician, so that's pretty neat, I suppose.

But I'm not writing this to tell you about my boring twenty-something-year-old life. I'm writing this to warn you.

Now, this is very important: don't stare at the mirror. Don't even look at it if you can help it. Just...you need to believe me, okay?

----------

It started out just like any other day. You know the kind: simple, dull...regular. It was February, but I'm not sure that really matters. I was sitting there, on my bed with my laptop open and playing some radio station-- can I just take a minute to say how neat it is that I can play the radio on the internet? Anyways, I was listening to music, working on a project and other various homework tasks (like texting).

As I was sitting there, the door slams open, and I scream. My phone flew out of my hands and, luckily, landed on the bed rather than the floor.

It was my asshole roommate Cynthia. She laughed so hard at my reaction, I thought she was going to need CPR or something. So I kicked her. Not very hard... Okay, kinda hard. It was enough to get her to stop, at least. Mostly.

Still chuckling behind her hand, she glanced at my various (untouched) textbooks, the laptop, and my recently released phone. "C'mon, Jo. You need a night out," she practically whined at me. "You've gotten so boooooring." I rolled my eyes at her as I proceeded back to my comfy nest of a bed and grabbed my phone. No new messages.

"I can't, Cynthia. I've got homework. Besides, we both know that no one actually wants me to hangout."

It was Cynthia's turn to roll her eyes. "That's bullshit, and you know it. We're going out tonight, and that's that."

It went on like that for maybe an hour or two, through dinner. But Cynthia is possibly the only person I know who is more stubborn than I am, so I finally had to give in to her demands. She even insisted that I let her dress me. That was one of the worst decisions I have ever made. Well, not really. Actually, that was a total hyperbole. I made much worse decisions later on.

Anyways, I let Cynthia choose my outfit, do my hair and makeup, and all that other dressy stuff. It's not like I'm bad at it...I just prefer to choose the simplest route, rather than make everything more difficult or something. Whatever. I was dressed to the nines, but I felt like an idiot. It had been years since I'd dressed up and gone out. Especially on a weeknight. I'm not cure Cynthia classified Thursdays as weeknights, but that's not the point. Cynthia looked amazing, as always. She was basically a party princess, a social butterfly. Parties, bars, you name it...it was her domain. She fit in everywhere. Unlike me. I'm like...a hand with twenty sore thumbs. Man, do I stand out.

Cynthia took me to this bar first. It was packed with people. I think I recognized maybe three of them. Maybe. It was dark. I stuck to Cynthia like I was a growth on her arm. It might have been detrimental to her socializing, but she didn't complain. I'm pretty sure she could tell how awkward I was feeling.

We weren't there long before Cynthia started being accosted by people. Some of them already knew her. Some of them wanted to know her. And she dealt with all of them with such grace and suavity, it was enough to make anyone jealous, let alone me, the thumb. I slipped away and found a booth, emptying as I got there, which was perfect timing, honestly. I'd never felt so lucky in my entire life. I practically dove into the booth, claiming it by making myself look as big as I could, which wasn't exactly easy. I was one person in a booth that could easily hold like eight.

Cynthia had finally noticed my disappearance, but I'd been watching her (totally not creepy), and so I waved her over. She seemed to have some people in tow as she moved towards the booth I'd successfully claimed.

One of the people was Finn, who had the biggest damn crush on Cynthia. I swear to God, every time he found her, he would follow her around like a little lost puppy. Kind of cute, I guess. If you're into that sort of thing. Cynthia either didn't notice or didn't care. The other two were some people I didn't know, but that was more than apparent, and Cynthia quickly introduced me to them: Brennan, working on his nutrition PhD; and Alycia, his little sister who was just in town visiting. It was her birthday.

Brennan was the type who always wanted to be the center of attention. He liked to show off and have people be impressed by him. Kind of a dick. His sister seemed nice enough, though. She was probably my age, maybe a little older. She was quiet, like me, but she had this look on her face that said she was not happy to be at a bar on her birthday and not be the center of attention. or maybe she just wanted to kill everyone in the bar. I was kind of torn on that front.

For a while, I pretended to be a part of the conversation, nodding at the right moments and everything. Eventually, I just got bored and zoned out. That's always when plans are made. I don't know who suggested it, but I'll assume Brennan since he seems the type. But the next thing I know, Cynthia is grabbing my arm, telling me to get up. We were apparently going on an adventure.

----------

Next thing I knew, we were standing outside of this old house. It was beautiful, kept in such perfect repair that someone could easily have mistaken it for still being lived in. Yea, it was that nice. But, according to Alycia, it was completely empty. Abandoned. Looking at the pristine windows, the sterile white paint around the windows, I had an uneasy feeling. If this house was abandoned, why didn't it look like a ruin? Who was going through so much trouble to keep this house looking lived-in? And why?

Too bad Cynthia was super pumped to actually do the whole...breaking-and-entering thing, otherwise I might have appealed to her sane side and gotten her to change her mind. As it was, though, I failed miserably and got dragged up the front steps instead.

Turns out, this house was supposedly haunted or something like that, and it was the whole reason that Alycia had come here in the first place. She was big on the whole "ghost hunting" thing. It was kind of strange, to say the least. I don't know how I feel about it. I guess it wouldn't be my first choice of hobby. Then again, I never really believed in any supernatural sort of thing anyways. So I was just...not excited. But it was Alycia's birthday, and I guess the haunted house adventure was supposed to be her birthday present or something. Suckiest birthday gift ever, if you ask me. But seeing as it wasn't my birthday, I guess my opinion didn't really matter.

Alycia was chattering away about this and that ghost sighting and blah blah blah. I basically tuned her out. I thought I'd be better off that way. She was peering into the windows like a kid outside a candy shop. It might have been adorable had the circumstances been entirely different. I got distracted by the fact that one of the windows had a flower box. It wasn't just that it was a flower box-- it was the fact that the flowers were perfectly tended. There was no way in hell this house was actually abandoned. When I tried to point it out to everyone, though, they just talked over me. Whatever. When we all get caught for breaking and entering, I'll claim I was there against my will. Held under duress or something like that. With that Brennan jerk around, it might have even been believable.

I was ready to call it a night and just head back on my own. But that was when things got....well...interesting. Finn, who'd been kind of overshadowed by Brennan's ego, really wanted Cynthia to notice that he was still there. So he put on a brave face and walked right up to the front door. I hadn't noticed before that, but we'd all kind of been avoiding it the whole time, like it was a taboo sort of thing. Finn, though...man, he really wanted Cynthia. It's silly, the things people will do for love. Or whatever you want to call it. Anyways, Finn grabbed the doorknob and turned it without so much as a second of hesitation.

Just like that, the door opened inwards. No squeak, nothing. It just opened wide, gaping at the lot of us.

Finn gaped right back at it, obviously surprised that the door had opened on the first try. No breaking necessary. Alycia let out a sort of excited squeal. Everyone but Finn, who was still gaping at what he'd just done, shushed her quickly.

I had an uneasy feeling about all of this. An abandoned house, kept in perfect condition, with the front door left unlocked. Something just wasn't right about it all.

Alycia pushed Finn out of the way to stand in the center of the doorway. She was jumping up and down with excitement, I shit you not. I don't think I'd ever seen anyone do that before. Not in real life, anyways. It was a bit crazy. Then again, she was obviously crazy. She turned to look at all of us, her back to the gaping mouth of a doorway.  I couldn't get over the way her eyes looked: either she had completely lost it, or this was basically her Christmas. Then again, nothing was stopping it from being both of those things.

"Well?!" Her voice cut through the silence and the dark, and I'm sure I saw Cynthia flinch. I know I jumped. She had been louder than expected. "Are we going in or not?!" She was way too excited about this. It made me....let's go with uncomfortable.

 Brennan glanced around at the lot of us and shrugged. "I'm game." Cynthia raised an eyebrow, intrigued. Of course, having seen her reaction to Brennan's apparent lack of fear, Finn stepped up, too with a timid, "Seems like fun...," clearly not wanting to be shown up by this jock guy in front of Cynthia.

That meant three of them wanted to go in. I looked at Cynthia, mentally begging her to say she was out, that it was late and this was stupid. Instead she said, "Let's do it!" and turned to look at me, as if she were daring me to refuse. Letting out a long sigh, I trudged forward, nodding slowly. "Fine," was all I could muster.

With another squeal of excitement, Alycia turned around and took a step forward. She stopped dead in her tracks, and we all almost ran into her. "Jesus Christ, Alycia! What the hell!?" Brennan didn't seem to like stumbling and looking weak. I tried to peer around everyone to look at Alycia's face, but failed. After what felt like forever, but had really only been about fifteen seconds, Alycia shook her head and glanced back over her shoulder. Something about her face had changed. She offered a totally creepy smile and said, "Sorry, it's nothing. Let's go."