She panicked. These doors sprouted from out of nowhere, as if a sick magic trick made it happen.. what was going on? Had she finally lost it?

  She took a deep breathe, and shakily got up on her feet, still trembling a bit due to the intensity of the knocks that violated her very mind earlier --

  Unfortunately, it had effects on her body too... she stumbled forward, nearly falling face first, but balancing herself at the last moment, holding back another wave of nausea that rose up from deep within her stomach.

  She had to be strong, though... and as she eventually, after minutes of ceaselessly moving at the movement speed of a snail due to her legs essentially feeling like jelly, she had reached one of the doors..

  She had to pick one. So she just approached this one, in the middle... 'They all look the same, in any case', she thought.

  A pale brown, with black colored borders; it had a common, rather simple, round handle... she grabbed it, and gulped. What would await her beyond this simple looking door?

  Some monster? Some more darkness? Another round of mind shattering knocks? She earnestly hoped it would be anything but more knocks, she'd have likely slipped into madness for good, at that point...

  Without further questioning the possibilities of her hopeless fate, she pushed the door open... and gives it a peek, to what is beyond.

  Now, she expected many things.. and the fact she expected the worse, clearly was an indication of the fact she was in a really, really bad situation, but she'd have never expected to see --

  A mirror. With herself, peeking through the door, clearly visible. She placed an hand over her mouth in surprise, not because of the mirror, not because of the fact this was a rather tame course of events compared to the horrors that had come to haunt her just before --

  But because this was the first time she saw how she looked like.. long, dark black tresses, a pair of squared glasses, somehow, survived it all, and managed to remain glued on the bridge of her rather petite nose.. through them, her violet eyes, almost the color of amethyst, were visible.. a rather uncommon color.

  She wasn't particularly tall, she doubted she was beyond 5'5 at best. She was rather short, she thought... what she wore, though, fit the definition of 'normal'. A beige colored cardigan, a white high collared shirt just beneath.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  A pair of jeans covered her not so athletic legs, and a pair of high heeled, maroon colored boots reached up to her knees almost. She noticed tears on her trousers here and there, and she grimaced at how roughed up she looked...

  "What a mess..", she softly touches her own face, as she got closer to the mirror.. she looked... so average, so normal... so, why was she experiencing this nightmare... was it all a cruel joke?

  A giggle escapes her.. but it wasn't exactly a nice sound, unless one was addicted to hearing broken noises. Soon, tears leaked out from her eyes... the tears were the color of blood... why was she crying blood, she wondered, as the giggles turned into an hysterical laughter that filled the whole small hall, as she fell to her knees, sobbing as she kept on laughing and laughing andlaughingandlaughing--

  A blink. She realized... it wasn't her, that suddenly fell to hysteria and madness, but the reflection in the mirror.. she touched her own cheeks, and she wasn't crying, nor was she laughing--

  The reflection grinned, as her laughter and crying ceased, the dried up scarlet tears making her look demonic--

  ...

  "Peek-a-boo...", she muttered, her face so close to the other side of the mirror, barely stifled giggles still escaping her mouth.

  She stumbled back in shock, as the reflection - no, the monstrosity behind the mirror, starts to hit it, again, and again, and again... as if that thing wanted to get out to claw at her, to shred her to pieces, with insanity clearly visible in her sad and melancholic eyes--

  Sad...

  Melancholic...

  ...

  That was not a monster. It was just... her. Taking a breathe, she got closer to the still giggling reflection, and without hesitation this time... her hand was placed against the surface of the cold glass. Against hers.

  She didn't know why, but for the first time, after all this agony, she... smiled. And she felt it, from the depths of her heart.

  "Don't cry... I understand...", the reflection's giggles stop, her eyes changed, to crazed and lost in the delirium to... surprise.

  "I know it hurts... I know you want it to stop, but... don't cry. She...", she felt tears starting to leak down, crystal, pure, water-like tears--

  "..she would not want that...", she didn't know who "she" was, but she WAS important, and "she", for sure, wanted her to be strong...

  ...

  "How... hypocritical...", to her surprise, the reflection spoke, now no longer crying or laughing, just... smiling bitterly. "You tell me to not cry, and yet you do... you got some nerve...", she muttered, as suddenly... she startwd to fade away, into blurred pixels--

  "...I am glad though, one of us... will make it."

  With that, she gasped, as the reflection vanished... in her place, there she stood, in her disheveled, but clearly still sane self. She blinked, wiping away at her tears, and then blinked again to be sure what she was seeing wasn't some bad joke.

  She went to touch the mirror again.. was she really gone? Was it all her fantasy? Was it all--

  Her hand goes through. She cried out, as she lost her sense of balance, and fell forward through the mirror... in a free fall. She couldn't hold back..

  She screamed, as the kaleidoscope of colors, blinded her the fiercest of suns.. and as a new world awaited her, beyond the veil.

  coughs