The Window in the Mirror

by RDMUnicorn

Complete Silence

It was strange that morning. I had not the faintest idea of who I was, where I was from, what I was, and most importantly where I was. I struggled to remember. Even now as I sat on my haunches with my eyes tightly shut an hour after that morning, I felt empty, unwanted and uncared for by life. All I wanted to do was to remember ... remember...

The place I was in was silent and it was colorless. The area around me was merely black, white, and gray. It wasn't the lack of color that bothered me. The complete and whole silence did. It was like a heavy curtain that draped over the landscape; it held everything down. But wait a minute... If sound was a nonexistent thing then how would I know what sound was in the first place? The concept was too baffling for me to comprehend.

After puzzling over this concept I decided to explore. I was in a forest of black, white, and gray. The trees towered over; I felt like a mere atom compared to these giants. They gave me an eerie feeling that I was being watched among the leafy top of the trees.

I strolled around aimlessly for a long time. The silence began to drive me insane. Oh how I yearned just to hear a simple noise! I screamed at the top of my lungs, but no sound was emitted from my throat. I screamed again. I screamed until my throat was raw. I tilted my head back and yelled at the trees for being so silent (as if they could hear me). What's this? The leaves of one tree rustled a bit. It did not rustle because of the wind. A form of life was in these trees! I silently yelled at it, but soon I began to become frightened. A stench of evil filled the air, and when I turned around I noticed that all of the surrounding trees had began to rustle and shake. When one of these creatures fell to the ground, I became sick with fear.

The creature was green and scaly. It had four eyes. One pair of these eyes was a dull red. The other pair was black like that of a dead animal. It had fangs that glistened with drool. Long cruel fangs that looked as though they could shred metal apart. It had a build like a Raptor from Jurassic Park except I could tell that it was much more intelligent. It had markings on it's face that resembled an angry clown.

I tore through the woods; my heart was beating fast in my chest. I could tell it ... they were pursuing me, for they seemed to emit the smell of fear and evil. The smell grew almost so strong that I couldn't tolerate it. They were gaining. I turned around to look at them. They stood out like black against white in this colorless world, and I knew that I stood out just as much because I also had color. Suddenly, they quit their pursuit and hissed silently at me. I kept on running...running....

Hours later I came to the edge of the forest. When I left it, I almost cried with joy. I heard sound! It was a consistent hissing, screeching sound. Thinking that it was another of those raptors, I quickly ran back into the forest and waited. Later I realized that it was not these creatures. I took a deep breath and marched on; determined to find out what my past was...

Complete Noise

I was in a city inhabited by ghost like people. There was a consistent hissing which soon turned into a high pitched screech as I went further into the city. After a while I wished I were back in the Silent Forest, where no sound existed. It seemed like a decade ago that I woke up in that forest not recalling who I was or anything of that sort. I still don't remember any of this.

The people were like living shadows. They had an expression as though they were mourning over some horrible happening. They paid no attention to me. In fact, when I went to one of them for help, it passed right through me.

They had houses that gave me the same feeling that the trees did in the forest before those raptor like things chased me. I felt as though I were being watched. The houses had dark windows that my sight could not penetrate through. I had no idea who or what may be watching me from inside.

I walked on. The screeching grew louder..louder until I screamed along with it. It felt like it was digging into my brain and was taking everything out of it. It sounded like a giant bird. It echoed off the buildings like a rubber ball, and it seemed to purposefully head into my ears to bounce around in my eardrums. A headache grew in my head, and soon this headache turned into a merciless migraine. I shut my eyes tightly, for it hurt to stare at the light when I had a migraine.

I finally found enough sense to plug my ears. This reduced the sound to a hissing. I listened to the hissing.

"I have a secret you must know to regain the things that you used to own." The hissing had a message that it repeated over and over again.

"I have a secret you must know to regain the things you used to own."

"What is the secret?" I yelled. The hissing paused momentarily, then it replied in a singsong rhyme: "Free the shadows from the past. Come to me and I'll tell you how fast."

"Where are you?" I screamed yet louder. My heart pounded in my chest at the idea of learning my past.

"In the tall, tall skyscraper, and in a nest made of the finest paper."

I looked around for the skyscraper and gasped. The skyscraper was a massive building which I couldn't see all the way to the top. It was made of rows and rows of winding stairs. I stared at these in horror.

"You mean I have to climb these?!" I shouted in shock. I knew they were too hard a climb for me to survive.

"No my friend, it's not that hard, just say the magic word."

I was puzzled over the hissing's new riddle.

"Abracadabra?" I yelled uncertainty. Nothing happened.

"Wrong Word, try again. And do it in a nicest of manners."

The hissing stopped as if it expected me to do something. I thought. I tried words like Open Sesame and Shazam and Hocus Pocus, but nothing happened. I became frustrated.

"Please tell me the word!" I begged to the hissing.

The next thing I knew I was on the roof of the skyscraper.

"Please was the magic word." A voice said behind me. It was deep and rich like a warm trumpet.

I whirled around and I almost passed out. There, in front of me, was the largest griffin you've ever seen resting in a nest of golden paper. It had a sharp beak and talons as sharp as the raptors' teeth, but I wasn't threatened by it at all.

"Go into the land of darkness and find the Window in the mirror. When you find it simply step through it and you will be where you came from. In doing this the shadows of Your past," the griffin gestured at the shadow like people below us on the city's floor." Will return to you. Be quick, my friend, else you shall get caught by them." The griffin pointed down at the city's floor.

I swallowed and glanced down at the ground. That was when I saw them. They were green and scaly with markings on their faces like an angry clown. They were the raptors that have been chasing me.

"Go now to the edge of the city. This is where the land of darkness is. I will hold them off. Hurry, my friend, before the mirror is shattered!"

With a shriek the griffin rose into the sky and dove at the raptors. I looked over the edge and was surprised to see a slide that wound around to the other end of the building, and the edge of the city. I leaped on this a slid down it for what seemed like forever. Then nothing, blackness...

Complete Darkness

I could not see a thing. Every thing was dark. I was not sure even if there was anything in this dark world. I remembered the griffin that had guided me through the City of Complete Noise and wondered if he was all right. He had held off my pursuers, the raptors, so I could reach this place. I was after my past, which I had totally forgotten. Imagine waking up one morning in a forest where sound did not exist and not knowing who you were, where you were, and what you were. Then you'd know how I felt that morning. I felt frightened, as I did now. I felt empty and unwanted. These feelings seemed to be reflected by the emptiness of the surrounding darkness which embraced me. I was badly frightened.

The darkness was whole and it ate up any form of light. It was silent, but when I whistled I heard my whistle. I was glad to know that sound existed here. I tested the ground to see if it was solid enough. It was. I wandered around blindly in the dark. Now I knew how a blind person felt. I knew my eyes were trying to adjust to the lack of light, but this was futile. There was no light here. Once or twice I could sworn that I saw eyes watching me, but I told myself that they were figments of my imagination. I marched on.

Soon I began to thirst for light. Oh how I yearned to see a single flash of light! I came up with impossible ways to create light just to keep my self busy. I even imagined light.

I hummed softly to myself, making up songs from the top of my head. My eyes scanned somewhere ahead of me. I stopped dead in my tracks. LIGHT! It was a distant twinkling that was so far away. I did a little dance with a smile on my face. That smile soon faded. I heard the raptors who were chasing me hissing with hate. I heard them sniff the thin air. I knew they smelled me. I heard them start to run. I dashed off toward the light, which came from the mirror which held my home and the secrets of my past within it. The race for my life and home had begun!

My breath came out in short little bursts because I was quickly wearing down. The raptors showed no sign of wear. I still ran on; I was powered by desperation. My throat was burning and so were my nostrils, but yet still I ran. My lungs and heart felt like they were to burst. Still I ran. So close was the light that tears came to my eyes as I ran. Soon... Oh so soon would I finally know who I was! The tears glided down my cheeks. I was at the mirror. I jumped into the silver gleaming mirror of joy which in it I could see a window with golden panes. I heard a shattering as the raptors tried to jump in but broke it in the process. I was slowly falling...falling... I saw a silver griffin feather fall by me and I grabbed it. Falling...Falling......

Sunlight beamed in through my bedrooms window. I sat up in bed. Was it all a dream. Something tickled my foot. I, Shoyrumer the Blue Shoyru, reached under the covers and grabbed the silver griffin feather. I cried with joy, for I knew that somehow that was not a dream but a reality which I had fixed.

The End