Eossi

There are always options, it is a fact of life. There is a primary choice, the more plausible of the options, the more likely one. And there is a secondary choice, a just-in-case alternative, 'plan B.' In Eossi's case, there seems to be no plan C, and this is what he truly needs.

He is not sitting down, nor really standing – the beings Earthlings call 'spirits' can do neither. He is doing something akin to floating in the middle of the room, his form only half-coalesced, though to his eyes and to the eyes of his kind he looks perfectly normal. The mirrors crowding the walls all around him reflect only a faint haze where he should be.

One mirror doesn't reflect even this, however. This mirror, the one that Eossi is facing now, doesn't reflect at all. It looks into a totally different place than the one in which the spirit is standing, and he gazes intently into it, seemingly concentrating. Earthling fantasy readers and writers might compare this activity to scrying, but no fantasy lovers are there to make the comparison.

The mirror into which Eossi is looking shows a darkened bedroom. The view is impossibly wide, considering the size of the mirror, and by the laws of science the whole thing should be impossible. Yet the mirror provides a view of the entire room. It splits the shadows apart and leaves what the shadows are hiding exposed. Through the window, faint moonlight seeps; it is night time.

On the bed, huddled beneath several blankets, is a sleeping form. From the looks of it, Eossi figures she is at least half-curled up: no human her age can possibly be that small. A brown-haired head rests on the pillow, face turned away from the mirror. The blankets are pulled up to her chin and her right hand clasps them there.

Eossi knows two things which are not directly related at all. First, the girl's name is Tatjana Benom and the power she has gained cannot be left in her hands. The second thing he knows is that he would rather be doing anything in the world but this job. He figures that he has angered someone high up on the chain of command to get him put here.

He isn't even sure he should be trying to take care of this at all. It is clear that this girl has gained powers she should not have ever gotten hold of. It is also clear that she could not have gained the powers on her own. There must be someone else working here to help her, he thinks. And the other being must surely be more powerful than he to be able to give power like this.

The girl in the mirror begins to stir, and then wakes with a start and sits up in bed. She looks very much as if she has just had a nightmare. Eossi cannot really blame her: the death she witnessed that day surely had frightened her, and he had seen for himself how the reflection in the mirror had frightened her.

Now, she rises from her bed and pads from the room toward the kitchen. The mirrors view follows her, the scene shifting from a bedroom to a hallway; then to a stairwell, then into a small kitchen. She pours herself a glass of water and sits down on one of the chairs. She looks tired and a little scared, and Eossi still can't blame her.

Eossi turns from the mirror and floats from the room. His form solidifies fully just long enough for him to get through the door, then it floats apart again. He heads for the de-escalator, which will take him to Earth. The sooner he completes his job, the better – and, from the looks of the girl, it won't just be better for him.

Still, he wishes he knew who he's dealing with and why they are doing what they're doing. At least he'd be sure of something. Even if the entity was stronger than he, he would be able to take the de-escalator knowing he would probably not be coming back. As it is, he can only feel an unquenchable nervous tension in the pit of his stomach as he steps onto the de-escalator, solidifying himself for the trip to Earth.

Tatjana

Aunt Deb and Uncle Daren were adamant that I not go to school the next morning. They didn't have to repeat themselves so much though; the last thing I wanted to do now was go to school. For some irrational, illogical reason, I didn't want to see Lina that day, not after her clear reflection had appeared in my mirror last night.

I stayed in bed for much longer than I usually do, and finally made myself get up around noon. I was hungry, for one thing, and I was so tired of just laying around I figured one more minute and I'd explode. As I walked down the stairs, I prayed my aunt and uncle wouldn't be in the kitchen. They weren't, and their absence allowed me to relax by a fraction. I sat down at the table with the simple lunch I'd made – turkey sandwich with mayo and a glass of milk – and tried not to think about anything that had happened to me recently. I turned instead to wondering what kind of mayo this was – for some reason, it tasted wrong.

This train of thought didn't last me long. Soon it strayed and I couldn't help but wonder how in the world I had seen two reflections in my mirror that were not at all my own. It just didn't make sense. I was willing to pass the first one off as me just being exhausted – but two of them, clear and sharp as anything, in the same two nights? I could think of no logical explanations.

I got up, temporarily abandoning the sandwich, and headed for the family room. Aunt Deb and Uncle Daren were not in there, either. I sighed, sat on the couch and snatched the remote from the nearby table. I flicked the TV on and curled one arm behind my back, idly flipping through the channels with my other hand. Discovery channel, some cartoons, the Disney channel … mundane things, all of them, things that didn't help me forget about what strange things were going on around me.

A horror movie. I stopped there just long enough to see one character or another glance into a mirror and then turn fully toward it, staring with wide eyes. Lovely. I switched the channel again.

The news. The news was ordinary, normal, full of sad stories of the war in Iraq and deaths in distant states and distant cities, political junk and speeches … All so ordinary, so normal. I stopped there and dropped the remote listlessly on the couch beside me, staring at the TV screen.

An update on the war. A man who had been found dead in an apartment in Wyoming. A story about a college protest …

I fell asleep there on the couch, rolling onto my side and knocking the remote onto the floor. I didn't dream that time – just slept. I'd gone to sleep at noon; I woke at three, feeling much more rested than before.

Yawning languidly and rolling back onto my back, I blinked at the ceiling, then at the clock on the wall. Three fifteen, it read. Had I slept that long?

The TV was still running – Aunt Deb and Uncle Daren were still absent, or else they would have turned it off. I figured they'd gone to the store, or maybe they'd decided to go back to bed. Honestly, I didn't care much. I sat up and looked at the TV again.

The screen was filled with a picture of a room I knew. For a moment, my sleep-fogged brain couldn't place it. But after a moment, it clicked. The gym, the gym in my school …

I stopped just focusing on the image and started paying attention to the reporter's voice as well. Apparently, the story had just begun. It looked like a live broadcast.

"… A strange man entered the building around 2:30 PM, according to the principal. No one saw him enter the building but several people sighted him walking around inside it. They all say that he claimed he was a parent; no one thought to question him." Police sirens could be heard in the background. What had happened while I'd been absent?

The reporter continued, sounding totally aloof and professional. "At approximately 2:30 P.M., the man entered Mrs. Arnette's classroom of ninth-grade honors English students, pulled out a gun and began to shoot, seemingly at random. Miraculously, there was only one fatality."

My breath caught in my throat. Before, I had been fidgeting, confused; I froze, staring fixedly at the screen, not daring to make a noise (What if I missed the reporter's next words?)

A photo appeared on the screen, and I wanted to bolt off the couch and run to my room and hide under the covers in horror. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Tan skin. It looked like a class photo or something like that; she was smiling. Maybe it was the only picture they could get.

It was Lina. Lina, who I'd seen in the mirror last night.

And last night – it had been Jay. Jay, who I'd seen in the mirror the night before.

What in God's name was happening to me? To the world? This wasn't logical – it wasn't possible – this was diving headfirst into the deep end of the supernatural, and I couldn't swim.

I swallowed hard, once, twice, three times. Tried to pick up the remote. Didn't quite get there. I clenched my teeth, feeling bile rise in my throat. This was all too much. Too strange. Too unexplainable.

I jumped up from the couch and fled for the bathroom, jaw tightly clamped shut, both hands over my mouth. 'Miraculously, there was only one fatality.' Miraculously. They meant luckily. It was lucky that only one girl died. Lucky it wasn't two.

I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, clasping the rim with both hands. Did I do that? Was it my fault? My brain raced around like a hamster at midnight, trying to come up with an answer. The irrational, horrible thought stirred my stomach to revolt. I couldn't tell whether the few tears streaming down my cheeks were because I was squeezing my eyes shut so tight or because I was really crying. None of this made sense. None … of this … made sense …

Aunt Deb found me later that night huddled in my bed, facing the wall, with a bag of chips in one hand and headphones in my ears. Link-in Park and Fort Minor blared in my ears so loud I thought I'd go deaf, but I didn't care. I was half-propped up by pillows, eating the chips with a supreme single-minded lack of energy. She called my name, and I didn't hear. Finally, she tapped my shoulder.

I turned halfway, but didn't remove my headphones. "What?"

"Are you alright?" I just barely heard her over Link-in Park's 'Numb'.

"Sure."

"Turn the music down."

"What?"

"Turn it down!" She raised her voice slightly.

I shrugged and turned the music down a couple of notches. "Why?"

"It's almost six. Are you hungry?"

I gestured to the chips behind me. "I've got food."

She shook her head. "That's not food."

I tried to ignore her. I didn't care – I didn't want to come to dinner. Not with them. They would talk and try and drag me into their meaningless conversations. They wouldn't mention the tragedy at my school. They wouldn't ask me if I'd seen anything odd in my mirror. They wouldn't ask me if I thought I was going crazy, or if I thought the world was going crazy and I was the only sane one left. They would ask me how I was doing ("Fine, thanks"), how my day was ("Good, yours?"), what I did ("Watched TV, not much else.") I didn't want to pretend nothing had happened.

"Come to dinner," she persisted.

"No."

"You must be hungry." I turned my music up as loud as I possibly could. Her voice was drowned out, lost amidst the song's bass and drums and vocals. I gestured forcefully at the door, but she didn't leave. I repeated my gesture. She looked at me, expression confused and sad, and then turned and walked out. I got up and slammed the door after her, then returned to the chips and my bed.

Eossi

Eossi never enjoys the de-escalator rides to Earth. He is glad this one has ended. He steps off the contraption and looks around. It has deposited him several blocks away from his target, but he doesn't mind. He dematerializes and floats toward the house where his charge is. He floats through the closed door; there are two people eating in the kitchen, but they're not who he needs. Drifting upstairs, he looks up and down the hallway. A shadow lurks around two doorways up here; he checks both. One leads to a restroom; the other leads to a bedroom. He enters the latter and examines it critically. The shadow he senses skulks around the small mirror hanging above the dresser; it is what he has been sent to hunt. He can't tell its power yet; it has to do something before he will be able to tell anything about it.

In the bed lies his charge, the girl with long brown hair. She looks like she's been crying. She's half-lying, half-sitting on the bed, and she has what the Earthlings call "headphones" in her ears. Eossi hears Earthling music blaring from them; he ignores it. The human girl is stuffing herself with chips from a half-empty bag on the bed in front of her. She looks tired and limp and a little scared. As he watches, she turns slowly, abandoning the chips and yanking off the headphones. The music still blasts from them, but she drops them on the bed without bothering to shut them off. She drops the machine they're connected to as well and turns around fully. She pulls herself from the bed and slumps toward the mirror, looking at it like it will bite her.

She walks to it and rests her hands on the dresser, staring at a point to the right of the offensive piece of glass. Then, slowly, she shifts her gaze to it.

Eossi watches too, trying to see the power that surely will surface to show her the next victim. Then he has a new idea and shifts his gaze inward – into her thoughts.

'I don't want to do this,' She thinks.

Neither do I. Eossi dislikes looking into other people's thoughts, but it might give him a clue as to how this unknown power is choosing its victims.

'I don't want to do this. I think the world has gone crazy. Maybe I've gone crazy. I hate this – whatever it is … What if it's me? Then would I hate myself?'

An image forms in the mirror, very hazy at first. Eossi shifts his gaze again and sees a blurry reflection beginning to form. Brown hair first, then a familiar shape …

Eossi thinks he has an idea as to how this works. Tatjana stares intently at the hazy form, then her lips twitch in something that is almost a smile.

Eossi gazes back into her thoughts. 'That's me,' she thinks. 'Maybe this is all normal after all. Maybe it was just lack of sleep.' The reflection disappears. Tatjana's thoughts change subtly. 'I wonder when I'll be able to go back to school. Bekkah should be there … I'll get to see her soon. But won't Rye get a kick out of making fun of me when I get back … I wonder if he'll stoop so low as to talk about my parents? I hate him … I wish he would just leave me alone!'

Another reflection forms in the mirror, slowly. Eossi wonders whether the girl even knows what she's thinking and decides that it is probably her subconscious rattling away, churning out all these thoughts. The reflection grows clearer. The boy in it is tall, with brown hair that falls to his earlobes and green eyes. Eossi can see this before Tatjana; his eyes are sharper. When his image finally solidifies, her expression morphs from confused to terrified. Eossi shifts his mind away from her thoughts when she starts cursing and panicking inside her head. She can't turn from the mirror just yet; something is keeping her there.

Eossi shifts his eyes and tries to see what it is. He stares intently behind the mirror and spots it. It is a "he", Eossi can tell after a second. He is formless, like Eossi, but he can't tell much else. The other being has extended a shadow-formed hand and is gently holding Tatjana's head in place. He is looking into her eyes, and Eossi can't quite tell what he is doing. He looks between the two.

He's extracting her thoughts about this boy, he realizes after a moment. That may be to enable him to find the most effective method of doing away with him. But why?

Eossi has not dealt with such a thing himself before, but he has heard stories from those who have. These spirits work against his kind; they want to annihilate the human race. They prey on the hatred of humans toward their fellows. This is what the other spirit is doing, Eossi is sure. Now he knows what he is up against. He turns and floats from the room as the girl breaks from the gaze of the other spirit. She returns to her bed, confused and scared, and snatches the bag of potato chips. Curling up, she begins devouring them with the enthusiasm of one who's world has been violently turned upside down and who is desperately attempting not to tumble off it into oblivion. Eossi leaves her to her task; he has his own to complete. He knows he needs to find the other spirit's hideout (for surely he does not reside in the mirror itself) and then find a way to lure him out and into the waiting hands of the Annihilation Force. From there, it will be their job, not his.