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“CMON, PAZ!” Danny yelled giddily as he dragged Topaz towards the large scary building. It gave Topaz a feeling that he was being watched. His skin crawled. Unfortunately, his platonic soulmate decided they were going so…
“From what I can dig up, this place takes supernatural stories! Imagine the crazy shit we can find here! We could find something about the mirror, Topaz!” Danny exclaimed.
He hadn’t stopped talking since they found this place. Topaz was getting a headache.
“Danny, what if this place doesn’t have a mirror?” Topaz suggested, hoping to dampen the hyper chihuahua that was Danny. They’d gotten pretty used to being dragged into weird shit, and, knowing Millie, multiverse travel wasn’t too weird. Danny was ecstatic, however, to see if this world had the Mirror too. The air here held an energy that put Topaz on edge, so it was possible…
“You’re no fun.” Danny pouted at his comment. He shoved open the doors to the building and dragged Topaz towards the desk. The woman glanced at them and smiled.
“Hello, how can I help you?” she asked politely, a British accent coloring her words. Ah, so they were in the UK somewhere.
“Hey, this is an archive of spooky stuff, right?” Danny asked cheerily. The woman nodded, pulling up something on her computer.
“We are an institute that researches supernatural incidents, yes. If you’d like to see the archives, I can notify the head archivist and schedule a time you can visit if you’d like,” she offered.
“Oh, that’d be awesome!” Danny replied. The woman, Rosie, her name tag read, typed something into her computer. After a few moments, a tiny ding came from the machine, and she scribbled something down.
“They say they’re available now, if you’d like to look. The archivist does want me to warn you that the archives are rather…a mess, courtesy of the previous archivist here. They haven’t quite sorted everything yet, but you’re welcome to look!”
Danny thanked her and dragged Topaz in the direction Rosie said the archives were. They went down some creaky ancient steps and entered a room that looked like a moth’s favorite meal. Boxes of paper stuffed full leaned out of shelves, records scattered everywhere. There was a tape recorder covered in cobwebs as if it hadn’t been touched in years.
She wasn’t kidding about the mess…
“Oh, hello! Can I help you?” a voice asked, making Topaz jump. This place was creepy. She had black wavy hair that ran down her back and her skin was a beautiful brown that brought out her hazel eyes. Squared red glasses sat on the bridge of her nose. Danny waved.
“Hi! We were wondering if we could look through your archives for something, if you wouldn’t mind! We promise not to be a bother,” Danny rambled. The woman smiled.
“Oh, I guess, Jon did say you guys were coming,” she said. Danny dashed off as soon as the words left her mouth. Topaz rolled his eyes, then stuck out his hand.
“Topaz Hernandez. Thank you for letting him look around, I promise he won’t break anything,” Topaz said with a chuckle.
The woman laughed, taking his hand.
“Sasha James,” she greeted. “What is he looking for if you don’t mind me asking?”
“There’s this mirror he’s interested in, he wants to see if anyone else has encountered it,” he explained. “It’s messed with both of us, but he’s more curious about it…existing, I guess.”
Sasha nodded, then perked up. “If you’ve had an encounter, I’m sure we could take your statement if you’d like!”
“Oh, I don’t want to give you more work than he will…” Topaz said with a laugh.
“Well, we are a research facility, so, the more we know the better! Of course, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she finished.
“…I guess it couldn’t hurt…”
“Awesome! Right this way, Mr. Hernandez!” Sasha began to walk deeper into the archives, and Topaz followed.
“Just Topaz is fine,” he mumbled.
“Topaz it is, then! It’s a nice name.”
“Thanks.”
She came to a door labeled *Archivist* and gave two small knocks on the door before opening it and poking her head in.
“Jon? You’re not busy at the moment, are you?” she asked.
“No, what did you need?” came a terse reply.
“Ah, someone wants to make a statement, if you’ve got the time.”
“…Alright. Send them in.”
She held open the door, and Topaz walked in. At a desk in the center of an utterly disheveled office sat a tired looking man. He had short-cut black hair with grey mixed in, square glasses, and dark skin, though it was a lighter shade than Sasha’s. His eyes were a dark brown, bags peeking out from under them. Topaz approached the desk and sat at the chair pulled up in front of it. He cleared his throat. The door clicked behind him.
“My name is Jonathan Sims. I am the head archivist of the Magnus Institute.” The man spoke with an accent much more clipped than the two women he spoke to before. It almost sounded like he was faking it…
“Hi…? I’m Topaz Hernandez That woman, Sasha, she told me to make a statement?”
The man stared with an intensity Topaz wasn’t used to.
“Uh…what do I do now?”
The man sighed and bent down to grab…huh. A tape recorder. Despite the perfectly fine-looking laptop he had on his desk. He pressed record, and the tape began to whir away.
“State your name and the subject of your statement.”
“Okay…? Topaz Hernandez, I’m making a statement about a fucked-up mirror, I guess.”
Wow did he look angry.
“Statement begins.”
A constricting feeling went around Topaz’s throat, and he felt like he should…no, needed to start talking.
“When I was 15, I wanted so badly to be a hero. I did everything I could, trained under some incredibly powerful people, dove headfirst into fights to save others, and generally worked myself to death. I was happier than I’d ever been in my life, knowing I was doing good. Two years later, I met with my mentor. She-”
“Names, please.”
“Oh. Uh…Haven Delagato…shit I shouldn’t have said that…” Topaz shook his head. “She told me I was almost finished with my training. She was one of the best heroes I knew, and an even better mentor. She had these specially designed trials that young heroes went through, and they always came out perfect. It was an honor to be put through her tests…or so I thought…
She took me to her office and talked through what I had to do. Hiking through a rough forest filled with dangers behind every tree. I’ll admit I laughed in her face. It sounded so easy. And it was. The hike was a few hours, I barely broke a sweat. She took me to this little cottage she had out there, and led me inside. The place looked dusty, like it hadn’t been lived in for years. She led me through the wooden walls until we reached that goddamn room…
In the center was a mirror, covered by cloth. I assumed it would be some sort of enchanted thing, like a ‘look in and see your worst nightmare or weakness or greatest desire’ or some bullshit like that. She took off the cloth in one dramatic motion, and, nothing. It was a boring mirror. My own reflection stared at me, a normal mirror. I was ready to ask her what the hell was going on when she shoved me into it. It felt like the mirror broke. It felt like I was being shredded into a million pieces, like the glass was digging into my arms. I thought I was dying. I thought I did die for a while there. Then, in an instant, I was back. Standing in front of that mirror, shaking. I turned to yell at her, to ask her what the hell that was but…she was already talking to me. To something that wore my skin. It acted like everything was normal. She congratulated it, said that I…that it was ready. She told it that it was perfect. I tried to call to her. She couldn’t hear me. She told the thing wearing my skin that the mirror made me, it, whatever. Made Topaz perfect.
The whole walk back, she ignored me. She chatted with that thing like it was her mentee, like it was me. It laughed, smiled, joked, and I had to watch. I tried to touch her, but my hand went right through. I felt cold.
Around the time we got back I started questioning if I was going crazy. I wondered if I had died, if I was having a sort of dissociative episode or some shit, but no matter what I did, nothing could hear me, I couldn’t interact with anything, it was like I was a ghost, or the camera in my own movie.
I tried to interact with others, talked to them, yelled at them, screamed for them to just look at me, but nothing worked. Every time I tried to touch anything I went right through. Any time I tried to leave, get away from the monster parading around as me, I was yanked back.
When night fell, me and that thing were alone. It…it looked at me. Directly at me and spoke to me.
“You should just give up.” It said. “You’re as good as dead. I am you now, so just enjoy the lack of responsibility! I’ve got this!”
It said it as if that were a good thing.
Eleven years. It paraded around in my skin for ELEVEN FUCKING YEARS. And no one knew. Not my closest friends, not the people I saw every day, no one. No one but Haven. That bitch knew. I saw it in the way she’d smirk any time someone complimented the copy in her presence. She killed me. And she didn’t regret it at all.
My copy got caught by some curious scientists, and I ended up finding out if I focused on something hard enough, I could quite literally burn a hole through it. I focused on that and managed to pull myself out for just a few moments, and people could see me. I was real. Then poof. Gone. Over time I managed to willingly exit that place, that ghostly hanging in between two worlds, though sometimes I still shift back. And the thing pretending to be me, I told him to get a life. His own. So he did. He called himself Danny, adopted a British accent, and unfortunately he’s my best friend now. How fucked up is that?”
Topaz took a breath. That felt…oddly liberating. He glanced up at the archivist.
“Well. That was an…interesting story. I’m not sure how much I believe it, but it was certainly interesting.”
Topaz blinked.
“You…don’t believe me.”
“I can’t say I do.”
His brow furrowed and twitched. He set his jaw.
“I tell you one of the most traumatic experiences in my life, something that cost me half my life and you say it’s an ‘interesting story.’ That’s it?”
“That possible dissociative episode you mentioned? It likely could have been that, you spectating through your life-“
“Fuck you.”
“-and imagining being replaced by something else. Frankly I’ve never heard a more ridiculous-“
Glass. Bits of glass shot into the wall, none of them hitting the arrogant prick staring dumbfounded where Topaz had been standing. Unfortunately. Standing before Jon was nothing. No man who claimed to have eleven years of his life stolen. Simply nothing. A pile of glass was crumbled on the floor.
In an instant, Jon was being yanked up by the collar by Topaz, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
“Believe me now?” He questioned, voice low.
“I…uh…I…”
The door burst open.
“TOPAZ, THEY DON’T HAVE SHIT ABOUT THE MIRROR-oh?” Danny paused in the doorway. Topaz let the pathetic man go, grabbed a file, swept up the glass with his hand, and dumped it into the tiny waste bin beside the desk.
“You know you could *not* yell…” Topaz grumbled, tossing the file back onto the desk. Danny rolled his eyes.
“How…how did you do that?” Came a small voice from behind him. Jon sat, eyes wide, face pale. Topaz turned around, glaring.
“As stupid as it sounds, I call it the Mirror Dimension. I can see and hear everything that goes on, but I can’t be seen. I can rip fragments of it off-“ he said, punctuated with holding up a pinkish shard of glass he suddenly grasped in his hand, “-and use them to my liking. It’s hell, but it’s useful. And it’s where I lost eleven years of my fucking life.”
Jon sat, speechless.
“And this is Danny.”
Danny waved.
Surprisingly, Jon still sat speechless.
Topaz turned, dragging Danny’s arm as he exited the room. He grumbled under his breath.
“And here I thought I was the troublemaker,” Danny said with a small laugh. Topaz shook his head, sighing.
Sasha peeked out from above her computer as they stepped into the larger space.
“Are you guys leaving now?” she asked.
“Yep! Thanks for your help, Sasha!” Danny replied cheerfully. Topaz nodded alongside him.
The two wove through the messy isles, stepping over boxes and papers. Taking the staircase back up and exiting the lobby, Danny chatted about all the weird and creepy stuff the archives held. He swung the glass doors open, walking through though he still faced Topaz.
“-But they had this fucked up piano that made a puppet come to life-”
“Danny!” he tried to warn, but it was too late.
Iced mocha Frappuccino. Tim’s weekly Wednesday treat. He flashed a smile and thanked the barista as he left the little café, a pep in his step. For once, London wasn’t grey and moody, the warmth actually justifying his iced drink this time. He hummed along to Femininomenon by Chappell Roan as it played in his earbuds. He rounded the corner, approaching the foreboding institute he spent most of his days in. Every week seemed to drag on longer and longer, hence the weekly coffee stop. He needed something to get him through the week, plus Sasha was dying to steal a sip, he just knew it. He reached out to the institute’s door when it swung open, sending someone crashing into him, showering the concrete with ice and coffee.
He mourned the death of his frappe then and there…
“Woah!” he shouted, nearly toppling while the other fell to the floor. His friend helped him up, muttering under his breath. Tim laughed, shaking droplets of coffee from his hand. Luckily, none spilled on his clothes…
“So sorry!” the other cried out, hands flying to his face which was becoming redder by the second. “I wasn’t looking where I was going…I can pay for that if you want…” he said.
Tim snickered, a hand brushing through his hair.
“No, no, I should have been paying more attention, you’re all good!” Tim assured. The man groaned in embarrassment. “I was lost in-”
He stopped. The man dropped his hands to his side, gaze averted. Tim took in his features, and he felt the blood leave his face. Chills went up his spine and he felt his throat constrict. He took a stuttering step backwards.
“…what?”
Danny looked up, confused. The man’s voice went cold, dark, threatening. He glared, a sliver of fear under a boatload of anger showing on his face.
His…
Face…
Circus music. He’s hated it since he popped out of the mirror. He has no idea why, he’s just…always hated it. He used to have dreams before he stopped being Topaz, dreams that his skin was on fire…no, that it wasn’t. His nerves fired wildly, unprotected, skinless. He dreamt of his face looking back at him and smiling, loose flesh pulled over a wooden skeleton. He never knew where these nightmares came from. He assumed it was the mirror’s doing.
Why did he pick the name Danny?
Who was Danny?
Was Danny the little boy obsessed with collecting every type of flower in his garden he pretended he had been?
Was Danny the boy hellbent on making his own remote controlled race car, an itch he’d adopted in the past few months?
Was Danny the kid who spent way too much on K’nex kits and justified it with the upcoming science fair project he had yet to do, stopping him in the window of toy stores he walked by?
Was Danny the guy who traveled for hours on a plane just to dive in freezing cold water, just to see some sunken ship long since rusted and covered in barnacles, a topic he’d love to write a book on?
Was Danny the man who pursued urban exploration, who got his life taken in the basement of a coliseum, who got dragged into some dark drank room that smelled like rotting meat, who felt like his skin was being torn off of him as he was pushed into a mirror?
The man in front of him was saying something. Danny couldn’t hear him over the roar of blood and memories passing through his head. He tried to reach out towards Topaz, but his arms wouldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.
He saw the man lunge at him, intercepted by Topaz, the latter holding a shard of glass as a weapon.
“Topaz, don’t…” Danny croaked; voice barely audible. Topaz stepped back, wrapping a merciful arm around his shoulders.
“What the hell are you?” he heard the man say, hatred seeping from his voice. Danny knew that voice. That voice called out his name that night in the theater. He hadn’t been able to see who it was beyond the blinding light, but there was no need. He grew up with that voice, that face, him.
“…Timmy?” he called, voice weak and shaking.
“Stop. Stop using his voice. Stop using his face, just STOP!” Tim threw a punch, which Topaz caught, twisting his wrist in a way that looked like it hurt. Tim yelped.
“Topaz…”
The other shot him a quick look, rare concern gracing his features. He let go, reaching down and grabbing Danny’s hand, intertwining their fingers. Topaz wasn’t one for physical contact…
“What are you?” Tim growled, rage practically emanating off of his face.
“…How do I answer that?” he choked out, “It…it’s me…”
“What is your name?”
“…Danny. Stoker. It’s Danny Stoker,” he stuttered out. Tim scoffed.
“You expect me to believe-“
“When you were 12 you broke your ankle trying to do a complicated skateboard trick-thing. You were so embarrassed that you didn’t want me to get mom, because she would yell at you for doing something dumb. I got her anyways, and I was terrified you’d be mad at me, but I told her you were trying to catch me from falling. She believed me. I kept going to you for weeks asking if you were mad at me, and you’d push me away more and more annoyed, saying you weren’t. It took a year for me to believe you.”
Danny took a breath. Topaz squeezed his hand, and he slowly let it out.
“…how do you-“ Tim started.
“I know you gave me your Bumblebee figurine when we were kids because I needed it to finish my collection, even though you loved him, he was your favorite.”
“…Did that skin come with some extra memories?” he laughed dryly, pain entwined with the words along with…maybe a sliver of hope.
“I…I thought I made it up…I thought I just came up with obscure stories about my life to make up for the lack of memories…I didn’t know I was remembering in my own fucked up way…” he choked back a sob.
When had he started crying?
He couldn’t see through the tears, his shoulders were shaking. He felt a warm hand touch his arm, and he was being pulled into a suffocating hug. He sobbed in his brother’s arms, clinging to his shoulders just like he had when their city got a flood warning when they were little kids.
“Danny, it’s you, it’s you.” Tim muttered into his hair. He nodded, sniffling. Tim pushed him away, holding him at arms length.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked, eyes wet.
“That’s…a long story.”
“…you know I think I’ll take you up on that coffee refund now…”
Topaz sighed and reached into his pocket for his wallet while the brothers sniffled and wiped their eyes.