Where was I? Who had brought me here? I shifted a bit to get ready to stand. Pain tore through my body. Worst awakening possible.
I shot up to a sitting position with a gasp, clutching my shoulder. Both my arm and chest were wrapped in bandages. What happened had been real. I had been shot! My heart jumped. For the first time, I recognized the bandages wrapped tightly around my shoulder and continuing around my chest, keeping my upper arm in place. I still had painful movement in my elbow and down to my fingers, but the rest was rigid.
I looked to see my shirt at my side in a bucket of red water. Hanging off the side, with a broken strap, was my bra. My face flushed in both exhaustion and embarrassment.
What happened after I blacked out? Who bandaged me up? What did they see?
I slowly moved my hand away as I felt the familiar numbness, from my nightmares, take over my arm. The numbness that was there after my arm broke in the dream. A feeling I hated comparing this to, but it felt a fraction better than feeling the pain of a bullet wound. I managed to stand up and get my bearings. I didn't recognize the building. It didn’t look anything like a hospital. Loneliness squeezed my heart. Where was Juliet? Where was that man from before? Where were the monsters?
The burning tar smell was fresh in my mind.
What if the shadow creatures were still nearby?
My knees weakened. I stumbled against the couch to steady myself. I started to frantically look for a way to find Juliet or anyone for that matter.
To my left, I saw a door. I studied it, trying to hear if anyone was outside of it. The silence only made me more nervous.
Behind the couch was a boarded-up window that only let a faint amount of light in the room. Just enough to see the paintings and the other things in the room. On the floor there was a small desk lamp. I squatted down to turn it on. Near the lamp, there was a sling—and my purse. Relief filled me. At least that remained. Bracing my good arm on the couch I moved over my purse, lifting it slightly to set it on my knees and glanced inside.
My money, keys, and phone were all still there. I grabbed the phone. Dead battery. Great, useless thing. Digging through I saw a charger in my purse. Was there an outlet? Yes, by the lamp. I plugged in my phone. Hopefully it would be usable soon.
I inspected my purse further. The outside of it had a small amount of blood on it, discoloring the mint cloth in several spots. I could only assume it was mine. There were also some dark marks, like the leather had been burned a little. Was that from the black tar?
I grabbed the sling first and looped it around my good shoulder. Lifting my arm hurt during the movement and felt numb the moment I stopped moving. With some effort, I shoved my arm into the sling.
I leaned against the wall to take a break, my chest heaving from exertion.
Something pressed into my butt. I checked my back pocket to see my small sketchbook and a pencil. Both were unharmed. Good. My heart calmed a little.
I set the sketchbook back in my pocket and the pencil behind my ear and turned back to face the door. My options were clear. I could Stay here and wait for someone or something to come get me, wait for my phone to charge and potentially not get a signal, or find a way out myself.
The silence made my decision for me. I needed out of here. Feeling the energy return to me, I decided to try and see what was out there.
First, I tried the door to see if it was locked. it wasn’t.
The door led into a long open hallway with more art Adorning the walls. Some of these looked normal but there were a few that seemed mirrored or otherwise off in some way. I reached the end, which opened into a large, central lobby. Old, rickety platforms filled the room. I thought that if I sneezed the wrong way, they would all fall and break. Broken skylights were poorly patched up, so streams of light still filtered through, showing the dust in the dank air. Shattered stone littered the pathway. Many of these pieces were scorched and scratched deeply. What could have possibly left those marks?
I walked closer to the platforms and saw worn down plaques at their bases. The words were hard to understand but I could pick out the Italian.
“Re .... dino…Righello… Grandi chele...? My translations weren't the greatest to start with, but I still tried. It would be a clue as to where I was. “King...dino, maybe dinosaur? Rulers. Large claws?”
After putting the bits together, I realized I was in an old history museum. Fossils and old artifacts had been reduced to rubble. I tried to imagine how this place would've looked before it became so decrepit. Panic grew in the back of my mind. Where was there an abandoned history museum in Venice?
Where was I? I spun around slowly. Some areas looked renovated. Who was fixing this place up? Was it actually abandoned at all?
My muscles twitched, and I shuddered. My legs turned to jelly, and I kneeled, burying my face in my knees and covering my head with my free hand. I felt my pencil, that I had put back in my hair. For that brief second my panic lessened. Drawing. I could draw, at least, to calm my mind. I found myself searching my pants for my sketch pad that was still in my back pocket. I did a rough sketch of what one display could have looked like. The term "REX" led me to assume this was once a display of a T-Rex. I thought about how the skeleton would have looked to all the tourists. All ages would look up at it in awe of its great size.
The illusion of such memories made me smile a bit. They may not have been my memories, but I just seemed to own it through the work of my pencil. I felt safest when I lost myself in my art, regardless of where I was. This rundown and unfamiliar place was made new and somehow lighter through my notebook. I shifted my page as I drew, the notebook itself was braced against my knee and stabilized by my hand in the sling. My pencil pressure was light enough that it didn’t cause pain, so I could continue for a while in peace.
"Sleeping Beauty is finally awake, I see," said a voice behind me.
My heart skipped a beat. My pencil strayed from its original course, tearing a small hole in my paper and breaking the tip off. The jolt pushed the sketchbook against my injured hand and a small pain went through my arm, making me yelp. Now this memory, like all mine before, had its own imperfection and pain attached to it.
I stood and turned. There was the strange young man from before. His medium-length brown hair was now pulled back, aside from a few pieces hanging loosely at the sides and in front. He was wearing the dress pants and same red dress shirt again, buttons around the neck unbuttoned and revealing a little bit of his chest. I shook my head, breaking the urge to keep staring. I guessed there wasn’t anything wrong with him dressing like that, but I didn’t want to see that, it would be awkward considering I didn’t know him, wouldn’t it? I broke the gaze, refocusing myself and looked up to meet his mismatched eyes, brown and gold. His clothes were disheveled. Had he slept in them? I mentally groaned at the thought that a whole day must have passed with my injury.
Then I realized he was staring back at me. In my bandages, with no shirt and no bra. I trembled. I did not know this man. What did he want? Why did he bring me here? All of it was a mystery. He smiled as he approached me.
"It's all right. You're safe here. I wouldn't move too much if I were you.” His stance looked like he was trying to calm down a scared dog, his hand slightly up in front of him as he spoke. “We barely managed to patch you up to begin with. I wouldn't want you to open up the wounds again."
My heart felt like it was going a million miles a second. I pointed my pencil out like a sword.
“Tell me what happened," I demanded, my voice weak.
He eyed up my pencil with a look of amused disbelief. Then laughed. His stance relaxed. “You don't waste any time, do you?"
He stepped even closer and pinched the tip of the pencil with his fingers.
I backed off at the sarcasm in his tone. My eyes fell from him to the floor. What had happened? Dark, menacing shadows. Acidic tar.
Someone pointing a pistol at Juliet. My stomach twisted.
> “At least tell me if my friend is okay."
“Friend?"
“She was the one in front of me and the bullet....it..." My lip quivered, and I began to shake.
I ran through all the scenarios in my head. What could have happened to her? The bullet went right through her chest. Was she dead? In the hospital? Where was she? Where was I, for that matter? Why was the stranger here without her?
The man remained silent.
“Please, tell me what happened! Where am I? Where is Juliet? And what the hell am I doing here?"
He too looked down for a moment. Then he stared at me, and his hand moved to reach for me. I stiffened, and he pulled back.
“Your friend is fine. You were the only one involved in the fight. If you would just relax..."
“But that man who–”
"Shhh. That man has been dealt with. He won’t be bothering us again." His face turned dark.
"Those shadow creatures, what were they?"
His eyes widened in surprise. “You saw them?" He sounded skeptical and scowled.
“Yeah. Those things, they were horrible. Black, dark, terrifying..." I shuddered when I recalled the descriptions. "A dragon-toad and a weasel monster in Venice. How could I have missed them?"
He scratched his head. “That just means this got more complicated," He sighed. “Great, just great.” He turned away from me. I just barely caught what he had said under his breath in Italian, “More complicated and much, much worse. Nmad ti, s’eh gniog ot evah ym Rash rof siht eno. "
Well, mostly Italian. The last line just sounded garbled and oddly backwards.
Flicking his hair away from his eyes, he looked at me and politely bowed.
“The name’s Loic-Rae Vallen. I'd like to apologize officially. I'm sorry you got involved."
He offered his hand, awaiting my reaction.
I stepped back. No way I was taking his hand.
“But…I…what…” my questions melted away into a puddle of structureless gibberish as he waited for me.
His expression softened. “I assure you; you will get a full explanation and a free cup of the finest latte this city has to offer. I swear. I'll take you to the man who can handle both."
Could I trust him? Back in the alleyway, Loic had come to my side and pulled me to duck when tar flew over us. Was he protecting me? Points in his favor. On the other hand, he did steal from Juliet’s purse, even if it was just a mirror. And I knew nothing about him besides his name now.
Loic-Rae? The name didn’t seem Italian.
So, a foreign, older man, a pickpocket, had brought me here. After protecting me from shadow monsters in an alley.
He didn’t seem like a creeper. Even now, he kept a distance from me, still within reach but not close enough that I couldn’t get away
But why would he leave Juliet behind? So many questions. I needed answers. I gave in and tried to smile back at him.
“Follow me.”
“All right." I nodded.
~
Loic brought me into an office above the main room of the museum. The interior of the office was ornate and well-kept unlike the rest of the building. A large wooden desk sat against the wall and a large leather chair faced away from us.
“Hey Chase! The girl woke up."
“Excellent.” The voice came from the chair. My pulse jumped. “Hmm, she’s nervous. What did you do to wind her up, Loic?"
“Lay off old man! It's not my fault. This girl's jumpier than a hare in Wonderland."
Annoyance flared within me. I was not! Well considering what had happened, maybe I was.
“Well, you scared me.” I muttered.
Loic either ignored me or couldn’t hear me. Either one was preferable.
“Wouldn’t you be?” The voice replied, much softer than I expected. “I’m sure this is not an ideal situation for her.”
The chair suddenly spun around, and a man stood up. He was very pale, with his blonde hair slicked straight back against his head. His face was worn with a few wrinkles on his forehead. Maybe thirty or forty years old. One of his eyes was a faded red, while the other was a crisp, dark blue.
Both of them had strange, mismatched eyes? Why?
The man walked over to me, leaning on a cane with many intricate carvings all over it. The carvings looked like characters from other languages, only the letter order was reversed. I couldn't even attempt to read it. When he stood still, I had noticed he had perfect posture. Why did he even need a cane?
“My dear, I am terribly sorry about all this. I am sure you must be frightened, but rest assured, this place is safer than most. My name is Chase Holland. Would you care to have a seat?”
He gestured towards a small chair in front of the desk separated by a coffee table. I pressed my lips together. What should I do? I had no context of this guy. I barely had any with Loic to start with.
They both looked at me intently. Like I was being introduced to a class on my first day transferring in or meeting friends or family after not knowing who anyone was. Unlike those times, I had to choose to react or not react.
I clenched my hands to stop their shaking. I wanted answers. I didn’t have them. So, to get answers I’d have to hear what he had to say.
“Okay.”
He helped me to the chair near his desk and sat down on the coffee table across from me.
“Is there anything I can get for you? Something to drink, perhaps.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m fine. Thank you. I just…I just want to know what’s going on.”
“Very well then.” He sighed. “Where would you like me to start?”
Unlike the sarcastic Loic, this Chase guy seemed very cooperative. I remembered Juliet and how she was unharmed by the bullet. It just went through her and hit me. My head started to hurt from the countless possibilities. She could have been hurt and they left her behind, or could she be dead. The bullet would have hit her in the back. Would her other friends have found her? Or did the monsters attack her? Nothing seemed to make sense.
I felt Chase’s eyes on me. “If you’re worried about your friend, she’s fine. You were the only one injured from the incident.”
“How did you know about it?” I was taken aback. Had he been there? No, I’m sure he hadn’t. I would’ve noticed him just as I noticed Loic.
Chase smiled for a moment and tapped near his red eye.
“This eye allows me to see thoughts. And you, my dear, have a few of them buzzing about your head. I’ve looked at the incident through Loic’s eyes, but to be quite honest, I’m far more interested in what you’d seen.
“So, Juliet’s okay?" I let out a relieved sigh, letting a bit of my panic fade away. Pushing aside the absurd idea of Chase reading thoughts.
Loic rolled his eyes at me and scoffed as if to say, ‘I told you so.’ I ignored him.
“I can assure you that she was completely unharmed.” Chase added.
An irritated Loic huffed behind him in Italian. “She was well enough to make a scene after you collapsed. Any louder and it would’ve attracted more of those damn things.”
“Now, now Loic, think of it from her point of view. It seems, unlike our guest, this Juliet couldn’t see anything except you holding her injured friend. Wouldn’t you make a scene?” Chase commented calmly. His diction was clear and concise. I would assume he was a native speaker if it wasn’t for his oddly colored eyes.
"So, what? If she wasn’t such a loud-mouthed brat, everything would have been just fine," I could only assume he didn’t say it in English because he was talking about Juliet.
“Now just a minute...!” I yelled at him.
Loic turned my way, challenging me to keep yelling at him. I gulped but held his gaze. Even though he really kind of scared me, he had no right to insult Juliet like that.
Still impassive, Chase lifted his cane towards Loic.
“Loic...” his tone was not so tranquil. Just li
stening to it made it sound like Chase could have been Loic’s father. Stern, but holding back, possibly for my sake.
Whatever message he was trying to send got through right away. Crossing his arms, Loic silenced himself.
Chase turned back to me. “Just ignore him, dear. Now please, continue.”
“...the bullet...but it—” I muttered, still confused. I absentmindedly held my hand to my shoulder while thinking about what happened.
“Went right through her?” Chase paused then cleared his throat. “Let me explain. That bullet was created to only effect those with a strong connection to Mirror Image. I had presumed it was meant for Loic.”
A bullet meant for only certain targets? Was that even possible? Innocent people got hurt all the time from a misplaced shot…it almost seemed too convenient to be true, on the other hand, if such a thing did exist it was more of a shame that it wasn’t used more often. The two didn’t notice my eyes drift in my musing and continued to talk amongst themselves.
“It’s not like I hadn’t been targeted before. Don’t sound so surprised, old man.” Loic rolled his eyes.
“Actually, I’m not as surprised as you’d think. You are a lad who has made a number of enemies and has very little common sense. A deadly combo.” Chase stated simply. Loic scoffed again. It seemed like typical banter between the two.
I thought back to other areas of the explanation. The place they mentioned popped back into my mind.
“Mirror... Image?” I said the words as though tasting an unfamiliar food.
It’s the name of our homeland. Mirror Image.” He commented in a tone that made it sound like common knowledge. “Rorrim Egami, as known by its proper name.”
I’m sure if it hadn’t been for Chase gripping his cane in Loic’s line of sight, he would have probably said I was stupid for not knowing.
“What does that mean?” I shot back.
“Hmmm. You have no knowledge of this place in your head, yet you did see the Formless. This is quite fascinating...”
Chase’s expression turned perplexed.
Loic sighed for a moment, “Even we can't see them without a looking-glass...”
Glass Souls (Reflection Book 1) Page 4
