This is the second part of the story I released last week. If you missed it, click here to get caught up.
Luke
I would never get back the ten seconds it took me to tie my shoe. In those ten seconds Amy had gone into the house and let out a scream that would haunt me to my grave. It brought me to my feet, the shoelace completely forgotten, and sent me running to the house. I wasn’t fast enough. All I could do was watch in horror as she collapsed to the ground and was enveloped in a cloud of gray smoke that came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. I could have sworn it also had a face.
Just as quickly as it had come, the smoke vanished. I reached out to grab the last tendril, but my hand closed over nothing but air. I sank to the ground where Amy had been mere moments before, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. A cloud of smoke had somehow stolen my best friend.
I sat there, confusion, rage, and despair warring for my attention.
How could this have happened? Amy would have known if there was something dangerous here, wouldn’t she? Confusion asked of me.
How dare you let her go inside alone! This is all your fault! I raged at myself.
All my fault. All my fault. All my fault. Despair sang to me.
I buried my hands in my hair and pulled as I thought through everything I should have done differently. I could have stopped this whole thing way before it even started if I’d just stood up to her, talked her down when she went on her rants about magic, hidden the old leather bound books that smelled like rot and flowers at the same time. Where had she gotten those books from anyway?
I shook my head, it didn’t matter now. None of it did. Except, maybe the books…
A flash of light from a few feet away caught my eye, pulling me out of my head and back to the empty house in which I sat. I half scooted, half crawled to where the light was coming from, and discovered a piece of glass the size of my palm.
‘Probably from the broken windows,’ I thought and reached out to swipe it away. But I wasn’t careful enough, and a ragged edge of the glass caught the tip of my finger. I began bleeding immediately. One drop hit the center of the glass. The glass rippled, my drop of blood disappeared, and an eye suddenly filled the glass. It wasn’t my eye.
Fear and another dose of confusion filled me as I cautiously lifted the glass and held it out in front of me. The eye in the glass blinked once before backing up to reveal the face I’d feared I’d never see again. Amy.
She was pale, so pale, and fear flashed in her eyes as she mouthed the words, “Help me.” Or at least I think she mouthed them because I couldn’t hear her voice.
“Amy, I don’t know how! Please tell me what to do,” I begged through the glass. She tipped her head at me and pointed at her ears. I took that to mean that she couldn’t hear me either.
She opened her mouth to say something, but her eyes darted to somewhere beyond the glass and the fear on her face deepened. She glanced back at me, and even though she said nothing, her eyes were pleading with me to hurry. Then, just like that, her image faded from the glass, and I was left staring at myself.
“I’m coming,” I said to my own reflection. I just hoped that it was the truth.
Thanks for reading and for being here at Claire’s Short Stories! I hope you enjoyed this little two-parter. Let me know what you thought! I love hearing from everyone!
See you next Tuesday, hopefully, with another story.
This was a great story. Have you ever read Stephen King's The Myst? This has a similar vibe and a wonderful moody feel!